No one was entirely sure what The Employment actually was. There were rumors and fuzzy folk memories. Historians generally accepted the theory that The Employment was a societal sacrifice summoned to appease “The Economy”. If The Employment were mentioned in conversation everyone would nod their heads in stern agreement. Clearly it was important.

The following tenents of The Employment had been ciphered from the records:

The Employment shall require the prime years of the employed.

All years prior to The Employment shall be spent in preparation thereof.

The nature of The Employment shall rub coarsely against the nature of the employed.

The latter requirement in particular made Tucker the perfect candidate for the position of Sergeant of Stabbing and Containment at Filth-Water inc.

Historical records of koalas were as spotty as employment records. Still, anyone who had never seen a koala would surly agree that Sergeant Tucker looked just like one. His arms and legs were adorably too stumpy for his chubby core. He had deep brown eyes, and a warm aura which was often mistaken for a pleasant coat of plushy gray fur. Much like a koala, Tucker screamed himself to sleep every night.

In another epoch Tucker may have founded one of the gentler religions. One of the few that in no way revolved around stabbing people for any reason. His quiet, thoughtful nature would have served as a mirror to the inner compassion which glows deep in soul of all beings. He may have journeyed to mountain caves to contemplate the nature of happiness, empathy, and life. Generations after him would feel a quiet gratitude at the mention of his name.

Unfortunately for Tucker, Tucker was not born in the distant past. Worse still, he was most gainfully employed.

Sergeant Tucker was tasked with cataloguing the archaic arsenal of machine guns and sharpened stabbing sticks which hung in the armory. It was a haunted place. The walls of weapons frightened him in much the same way that falling face-first through a plate of glass is frightening.

The weapons whispered tales of horror and pain: karmic carnage they’d reaped throughout the ages. Their ghastly history provided inspirational material to Tucker’s subconscious who loved nothing more than to create nightmares of masterpiece terror while he slept.

Sergeant Tucker spun his chair around, trying not to make eye contact with the armory gates. Human Resources had installed a holding cell in his office. He was never sure of the social protocol that inferred, but he tried to have cookies on hand.

Howie and Adriana awoke in the cold, bacterial cell.

Adriana was relieved to find they were safe from sky failure. Days before, the brown sky parted briefly to reveal a menacing ball of fire behind the smog. The crack in heavens had sent her into an unrelenting panic.

Adriana crawled out from under Howie, and leaned against the opposing wall. The lightless claustrophobic cell offered the first relief she’d felt in days. The confinement would have been perfectly therapeutic if Howie hadn’t existed.

Howie cracked his eyelids a bit, then just sort of let them hang. It wasn’t the kind of thing he felt deserved any follow-through at the moment. A cold sensation picked at the base of his neck. Something felt desperately wrong, and he couldn’t quite pinpoint what. It wasn’t the concussion on the right side of his skull. It wasn’t the dark. It wasn’t his fragmented dreamlike memory.

It was the silence.

His phone cracked the silence with a familiar squelching ringtone: Booty Bastards Cock-Ball Sonata.

Howie sprung into action with the grace and focus of a well trained soldier. He tapped quickly between windows. Judging from the stream of unread messages, he calculated he must have been out for an hour or so. Disturbingly, the electronic chatter had drifted away from #Howie to things #Not-Howie.

The telemated interwebs were alive with rumors of fire piercing the atmosphere. The sky was literally falling. Believers and non-believers alike flooded the churches, mosques, and synagogues. They gathered urgently for prayer and comfort, but mostly for the extraordinarily depraved orgies they’d come to expect under trying times.

The scientific community reasoned “a lack of sky” was likely responsible for the impending disaster. It would need to be patched. Conservationists amassed throughout the countryside setting fire to ancient mounds of fossilized plastics. Cubic tons of caustic, flaming garbage billowed upwards to reinforce the sky. The plan offered hope, but no one could be sure it would be enough.

Howie needed some pretty sweet posts to compete with #skyfailure. A daring escape just might work. It would have explosions, and fights, and they’d crawl through air-ducts with bad-ass lines like “looks like we’re in a tight spot!”

Yeah. Totally.

Howie put an arm around Adriana, and held the camera at a dramatic angle. “Don’t worry babe, I’ll save you.” Adriana curled her fingernails and swiped at his eyes.

He grasped the bars and snarled at the guard. “We’re gonna get out of here if it’s the last thing we do.” The light wasn’t too flattering, so Howie re-angled his phone and said it again.

Sergeant Tucker stared nervously at Howie. The Employment dictated he not allow the prisoners go, but his intuitive sense of justice told him otherwise. He’d have to answer to the Sergeant Major if they escaped: who would probably file an employee review, which meant lots of stabbing and machine-gunning.

Complex moral equations ran through the spiritual savant’s mind. Tucker felt a trickle of warmth. He could help. He would help. A delicate smile glowed into his eyes.

“You can sneak out when I take a nap. I won’t wake up.” He whispered, barely able to contain the excited squeak in his voice. “I… I have cookies. You can have some cookies too. You can do it!”

Tucker hushed his hand over his mouth, winked, and walked back to the desk. He slid from his roller-chair like a koala down a springy palm leaf, wobbled to the cell, unlocked it, then wobbled back to his chair. He stretched, yawned deeply, closed his eyes then started wailing loudly and horribly until he went to sleep.

Crying himself to sleep was the best guarantee of a good night’s rest. The mental fatigue of unrelenting sadness, disappointment and fear left his mind too tired to pull any creative tricks on him. During REM sleep, his inner psyche was simply too exhausted to torment him with dark and revealing metaphors of his deepest fears.

Tucker’s psyche enjoyed creating poetic masterpieces of terror. It would decrypt ancient memories which had been suppressed for very good reasons. It’s real talent was in writing circular themes which offered no recourse or resolution.

After a good bout of tearful screaming his morbid inner poet became tired, and tended to procrastinate.

Tucker drifted to sleep. Moments later he found himself sitting by a tranquil stream. It was the kind of tranquil stream which under normal dream-circumstances should flood over with blood, forcing Tucker to spend the night slipping under an ever-rising tide of gore. If his subconscious weren’t so tired it would have had Tucker struggling to breathe all night.

Instead his inner psyche approached him in the form of an unremarkable chow-hall corporal he’d seen earlier that day. The corporal carried a sign that read, “I am your fear of time and death.”

His psyche held the sign for a minute, then plopped down next to Tucker. They listened to the stream flow refreshingly over the rocks. A sweet breeze petted the autumn branches.

His subconscious mind held a finger to the sky, tracing the silhouette of pink clouds. “Do you remember the dream about the river last week?”

Tucker did in fact remember. It had been pure trauma. Still, in this place it was harmless. He recalled the dream as one would recall the alphabet.

“Yeah that’s the one” said his deep inner-conscious. “This stream is supposed to be like déjà vu and stuff. Do you get it?”

Tucker did. ”It’s very good,” he told his psyche. “Ties together so well.”

“It’s okay I guess” replied his mind, who used the metaphorical sign as a sleeping mat.

Tucker snuggled next to him and dreamt. The world was a freshly fluffed blanket.

Howie braced himself at the cell gate, preparing to make his kick-ass escape. Adriana huddled in the corner, feeling sheltered from the sky failure. He decided it would be best to bravely rescue her. Then she’d practically have to have sex with him.

Howie struck a ninja pose. “Stay with me if you want to live.” he commanded.

Adrianna fled immediately: seemingly in all directions at once.

Howie stood alone. The door creaked away. The koala-guard slouched in his chair, softly cooing in sleep. Howie figured he should probably take out the guard.

“You go ahead,” he said. “I got this guy.” Howie plucked a Filth-Water issued stabbing-stick from the weapons rack, did a sweet tuck-and-roll and popped up by the sleeping guard.

He gave a battle cry and gored Tucker deeply through his plushy flesh, satisfyingly into the firmer organs.

Howie took a selfie, and adjusted the filter to noir. Booty Bastards Cock-Ball Sonata was trending from a new album release. It wasn’t smart to compete with that. Howie stirred the blood a bit, sat on the dull steel office table, and crammed a crumbled christmas cookie in his mouth.

He thumbed through his feed for a bit: looking for something, and nothing in particular.