It was lunchtime for Omar, who stood in front of his open refrigerator trying to decide what to eat. In actuality, several minutes ago, he had already decided to either reheat some leftover rice or to make himself a sandwich. When he got up to complete the task, he assumed that he'd finalize his decision soon after opening up his refrigerator.

He was mistaken.

The chilled air of his fridge rolled gently across his bare feet and onto the linoleum floor of his kitchen. He ought to put something on his feet, he thought, but it wasn't like he was planning on going anywhere.

For a living, he worked from home using his computer and a VoIP connection for various telephone-related jobs. Technically, he was supposed to have a normal dedicated landline, rather than a VoIP connection, but his various bosses hadn't noticed, and so Omar did not care. This attitude was true in general of Omar, who was chronically apathetic and seemingly unremarkable. Even his appearance seemed as though it were a physical manifestation of this general attitude.

Omar was shorter than average with a body type of a “fat skinny-person”; that is, he was “technically” skinny, but definitely not thin. Where a thin person might show underdeveloped muscles or their underlying skeletal structure, Omar simply had flab.

Because he did not mind if people thought that he was an asshole, Omar could work, unperturbed, as a passive-aggressive telemarketer, a disinterested bill collector, or an apathetic technical support operator, depending on the time of day. Sadly, his employable talent meant that he was not a particularly sociable person.

Omar jumped in surprise, as someone began to knock loudly upon his front door. Hastily, he closed the refrigerator, cringing slightly as glass bottles of iced coffee clinked and clanked loudly. Still, his visitor continued to insistently rap at his door.

“Stupid doorbell isn't working,” he mumbled grumpily, referring unironically to his intentionally nonfunctioning doorbell.

His hope had been that people would ring it and think he wasn't home, even though he usually was. The problem was that he had no idea if his ruse actually worked. “It would obviously be ineffective,” he thought, “against people who were insistent enough to both knock, and ring the doorbell.”

Looking down, Omar made sure that he was wearing pants, as he did not need to do so in order to annoy people on the phone.

⁂

Upon opening the door, there was a tall man dressed in business casual clothing who was carrying a clipboard. The man was large, but not fat, with skin darker than Omar, who himself had the light-brown complexion of someone with Middle Eastern ancestry. A white card that hung from a lanyard around the large man's neck read, “hello, I'm Suman,” written in blue ink that matched his shirt.

Suman had a demanding presence, while Omar was shamelessly shirtless.

“Hello Mr. Raji. My name is Suman Garcia, and I am a contractor working for AMI inc.,” the man said confidently, and completely unfazed by Omar's chosen attire. “This is for you.” Suman pulled a plain white envelope from his clipboard and handed it unceremoniously to Omar.

Suman spoke with a voice that seemed only moderately deep for his size. His accent was, primarily, a generic American accent, but like his name, there were hints of both Indian English and Spanish.

Accepting it, Omar knew immediately that the envelope contained neither money nor any sort of document, court-issued or otherwise. Very quickly, he lifted the envelope's unsealed flap and glanced inside. At first, his eyes lit up at the prospect that it might be some sort of gray credit card. However, the size was all wrong, and without even taking the card out, Omar dismissed it as likely unimportant. His default expression of mild disinterest returned. It was a rather versatile expression that was already well-suited for the disappointments of everyday life.

He asked, in an almost bored voice that betrayed his disinterest, “What is it? Do I need to sign for it?”

“No, you do not need to sign anything. You are Omar Raji, that is your property, and I am not a deliveryman,” he said tersely, but with a nod towards the envelope. “However, if you would allow me, I could explain the situation to you.”

There was no emphasis on the word “situation,” but Omar nonetheless picked up on Suman's choice of wording. Dimly, in the back of his mind, Omar reaffirmed his belief that he was a very perceptive person.

In truth, he wasn't nearly as perceptive as he thought he was, which is why he did not notice how the stranger, whom he was meeting for the first time, was completely confident of Omar's identity.

Reexamining Suman, Omar's dark hazel eyes narrowed as he took in the carefully crafted details.

Suman stood at the threshold of Omar's door, seemingly unconcerned, dressed professionally enough to add some air of authority, but not enough that he looked like an FBI agent or a plain-clothes police officer. The handwritten name tag reinforced this impression, and while he held his clipboard at the ready, there was no pen in sight. His posture was neutral, but alert, and he seemed equally prepared to be either invited in or sent away.

“Am I in some sort of trouble?” Omar asked, more for confirmation than suspicion. Omar, who was familiar with being in trouble, knew that this was unlikely to be that sort of situation. Despite this, he was curious enough to be mildly interested in the conversation.

“No,” he replied simply, smiling with some amusement, but not bothering to elaborate. Instead, Suman simply stood there at Omar's doorstep while looking comfortably patient.

Omar, on the other hand, was slightly irritated at Suman's unwillingness to elaborate. On top of that, Suman's demanding presence was now somehow softer and more subdued. Because of this, Omar couldn't even begin to guess at the true intentions of his unwelcomed visitor.

At the moment, as best as Omar could tell, everything about Suman, from his demeanor to his posture, said just one thing: “It's a nice day today, don't you think?”. Naturally, this made Omar feel uncomfortable and immensely pressured to announce his decision: “come in” or “go away.”

It was the “rice or sandwich” situation all over again.

“Had I always been so indecisive,” he wondered to himself?

The awkward silence went on long enough that Omar had to consciously suppress the urge to grab his microphone, which he wasn't even wearing, to ask, “Hello, Mr. Garcia, are you still there?” A cool breeze made him finally realize that he was not wearing a shirt.

“Oh! Uhh … uhm … ,” he said, slightly flustered, though more out of surprise than anything else. He squirmed and looked around as if a bucket of cold water had been dumped on him while he was having a pleasant nap. To make matters worse, Omar realized that it was indeed a pleasantly warm day.

“Ugh, fine. Come in,” he said finally, and in much the same way a condemned prisoner might say to a firing squad, “Just hurry up and shoot me already.”

Omar knew when to admit defeat, and despite having the home advantage, he was entirely under prepared. Stepping aside to allow the taller man to enter, Omar tried to reassure himself that the upcoming conversation would not be that bad.

“Obviously, whatever this guy wants has nothing to do with politics, religion, or selling some useless piece of plastic crap. That means he might have something interesting to say.”

This was not at all obvious, and he knew it.

While walking away, he realized this and silently berated himself. “Stupid! Why didn't I ask if this was about politics or religion?” Rather than politely directing his guest to have a seat, Omar immediately left the room without saying a word.

Along the way, he tossed the envelope with its contents onto the couch, without even stopping.

Meanwhile, Suman casually strolled over to a chair and dropped into it with the familiarity of a frequent visitor. Making himself comfortable, he waited patiently for his errant host to return. Having already previewed Omar's apartment in the “chronopause,” or at least its “essence-shadow,” Suman concluded that he would not want to sit anywhere else.

“The real thing is definitely comfier,” he thought to himself. “Did anything change since I ‘crossed over?’ ”

While he waited, Suman looked around the room and compared what he saw with what he remembers seeing from the chronopause.

⁂

Omar had the workings of an almost respectable living room, if he had been a few years younger and still in college. The front door opened onto the room, which was itself then connected to a small hallway that led to the other rooms of Omar's apartment.

Much like Omar himself, the room gave an initial impression of being, “mostly normal … ,” that upon further examination becomes, “well, maybe not completely normal … ,” before finally settling on a bewildered, and somewhat vexing, “but WHY?”.

In all, there were only four pieces of actual furniture in the room, several boxes, and a wooden stool on the floor that was sitting on its side. Various spots and streaks on the hardwood floor suggested that the only time Omar ever cleaned the floor, was when he dropped something.

Near the center of the room, positioned so that it faced the entrance, was a faded pink or yellow couch that had seen better days. Omar had acquired the well-used couch from a former neighbor that had moved out several years ago.

Suman sat in an oversized easy chair, upholstered in black leather, that was off to the side of the room.

When he first saw the easy chair, Suman guessed that it was probably Omar's nicest piece of furniture. After his cursory examination of the apartment, this guess proved to be indisputably true. Had he heard the thought, Omar would have shamelessly agreed with it. Then, unprompted, he would freely admit that he only had the chair because it was already in the apartment when he first moved in.

Sitting flush against the wall was a credenza that looked like it had fallen out of a timeslip from the 1970s. Of its two sliding cabinet doors, one of them was missing, which made Suman wonder how it was possible to lose one cabinet door, but not the other.

A short coffee table sat between the couch and the credenza, though Suman wasn't entirely sure what to make of it.

Firstly, both the chair and the couch were placed around the coffee table at a distant that made it unreachable from either seated position. This was just as well, because the coffee table was covered, almost entirely, in a large pile of unopened mail. Then, atop this postal mound sat two empty, but used, paper plates, each baring its own unique stain from some long forgotten meal.

Meanwhile, a letter opener and half of a white plastic fork sat to the side on the only really bare portion of the wooden table. Its placement, along with the paper plates on top the pile of mail, was enough to give a vague impression that this setup was somehow intentional, and perhaps even ironic.

“Maybe it's meant as some sort of artistic statement about American life and consumer culture,” Suman thought idly.

It wasn't.

At the time, Suman had been quickly disabused of this impression by the various open cardboard boxes that were obviously permanent fixtures of the living room.

On their own, the boxes weren't all that strange. What really did it for Suman was the completely unused cabinet space inside the credenza. There was enough space there to easily fit most of those boxes. He wouldn't even have to remove the contents. All he had to do was slide them in.

Instead, it was completely empty, and because it was closer to the easy chair than the coffee table, it was also difficult to ignore.

Suman found himself staring wearily at the half open credenza as though it was the open maw of some large hungry monster. “At least the top of the credenza had some use.”

There, atop the credenza, was a large widescreen TV. However, because it lacked a stand, the TV had to lean against the wall to remain upright. Then, in an apparent effort to prevent the TV from slipping forward, there was a brick in front of both corners. The bricks were, of course, completely different.

After several more minutes, Omar finally returned, though this time he was fully clothed. Given what he has observed so far, Suman would not have been surprised if Omar had, instead of returning, stayed in his room to take a nap.

He dropped down, hard, onto the couch like he was trying to stress test it with his rear end.