Free Heaven Is Small by Emily Schultz

had since become more regular.
    The standard form for employee evaluations didn’t leave room for a great deal of quibbling — or praise, for that matter . Seems to be an ideal employee. Has the potential for long-term employ. Lillian let her hand move past no, maybe, and most likely to check both yes boxes firmly. Lillian was forthright about checking off the boxes in a manner that would require the least follow-up from head office. If anyone had asked her, she would have answered honestly that she viewed her decisiveness as absolutely necessary for the efficiency of the company at large. Worried or weak evaluations only elicited premature investigation and subsequent paperwork. Both cost time and money. Lillian had stood by this belief for forty years without serious adverse consequence.
    On the screen before her, Lillian spied her assistant about to knock on her door. Lillian closed the cupboard and let the folder on employee #1299 fall shut as the office door opened.
    “I’ve just got word that Miss Chandler Goods has arrived,” the assistant said. “She should be in the office bright and early on Friday.”
    “Ms., please,” Lillian corrected. “This is a progressive company.”
    “Ms. Goods,” the assistant parroted, “will be in the office on schedule.”

7
    At night heaven was quieter than any place Gordon had ever been. Inside that industrial subdivision, with its stretch of shipping depots, its Styrofoam-peanut makers, its factory outlet stores and big-box-style restaurants, the odd residential high-rise like a chancre amidst the naked hills, Gordon expected there to be some noise. Perhaps machinery or midnight whistles, the wizardry of bubble-pop manufacture, or printing presses rolling ink onto newsprint, cars revving or laughter ringing across parking lots, the noise of opened doors and video drone under the big, empty sky. Instead there was a thick wind and simple computer silence. The sound of noise with the human drained out of it, a sound made of nothing but the overhead lights.
    Gordon had done what any reasonable man would do if his means of transportation were taken away by a mocking, movie-sized apparition of his ex — he had decided to spend the night at his place of work.
    Full of good intentions, he’d actually worked through the evening. It was eleven when Gordon pulled a hand across his eyes. The cubicle air wasn’t dry, nor were his eyes strained from gazing at the outdated monitor, but he slumped back against his chair as if this were the case. There was a rumour that a window hadn’t been opened at Heaven for more than twenty-nine years, and this had happened only when they were being replaced with new ones. Gordon had been reading for hours, following the onscreen text alongside the old-fashioned manuscripts that the proofers pulled from an overflowing shelf down the hall, in the office of the executive who was never there but who was apparently their boss. Gordon recalled the references that had been made when he first interviewed with Lillian Payne: Young international dynamo. Transferring over. Head-hunted. Worth the wait. The head of Proofreading, Copy Editing, Substantive Editing, and Acquisitions — nine and a half floors of the Heaven building. The mysterious woman from whom Jon Manos took his directions.
    When Gordon finished one manuscript, an eight-hour dedication, he went and immediately pulled out another. There were three piles, one extending up the set of shelves, the other two solid towers sitting in the middle of the floor and reaching respectively to Gordon’s chest and to his waist. Proofers were supposed to pull from the tops of the piles, but as long as the manuscripts bore the same due date, a person could take any one he wanted without too much trouble. Gordon habitually scanned their titles, authors, and sometimes first pages for goodies and baddies, though truthfully he had lost track of the difference after the first few weeks. Tonight he glanced