Prose Discourse: Fiction
Short Story to 10,000 Words
Ricardo Bernhard
Simultanergy
WE ARRIVE ON FOOT, single file, at what looks like a warehouse on the edge of town. Of course, the town is so small it feels made entirely of edges. We take the building to be the event team’s “base,” as Adrian called it in his e-mail, a term that sounded rather martial, maybe even grandiose. But now, we have to admit, it feels uncomfortably apt. He stressed that it was crucial we all arrive at the same time, for he was a believer in “simultanergy”—more on that concept, he added, when we showed up, as if it weren’t clear enough already. In keeping with the spirit, he sent the e-mail to all of us at once. We looked up one another’s names online, on social media and all, and found nothing. “Losers, probably,” we all thought, and immediately regretted it. Only Moira sent a group reply, saying she was looking forward to it and signing off, “Warmly.”
At the appointed time, on the empty driveway of the base, we exchange handshakes and a few embraces (Moira, again). The surroundings are sunny, leafy, and show no sign of civilization. We stare into them until the tranquility cracks something inside us. Leo, perhaps already investing himself in his role as logistics coordinator, takes the initiative to knock on the gray aluminum roll-up door. Then some of us take turns banging ever more forcefully on the metal sheet. Nadia sits down on the grass to wait. Tess and Martin walk the perimeter and report back that there’s no other entrance, no car parked, no form of animated life in sight, except for the insects that in fact start bugging us terribly. Leo declares that he’ll never reply to an online classified ad again, though we know he will, and so will we. We try to talk about our lives to pass the time, for what else do we have, but no one is quite forthcoming, or has much to say, and the conversation stalls. The weight of nothingness encroaches on our hopes.
Several minutes later, Adrian wrestles the door open along its rusty tracks and grins as if he’d just been waiting for us to quiet down. He waves us in and even claps, not like a teacher encouraging students, but as though overcome by a small revelation. Some of us wincing, some smiling, all ill at ease, we go through.
Inside, the warehouse smells of plastic, cardboard, and printing ink, with a hint of manure. Tess dutifully measures her every step, looking down, but there are no surprises on the cement floor, we all checked. There are no proper offices either, no real structure: just a few rectangular tables lined up against a wall, chairs scattered around. Adrian seems to be giving us a moment to settle, and we use it to take stock of what lies under the thick, chemical silence:
* Half-unpacked boxes labeled FLAGS, LIGHTING, and even SPIRITUAL INFRASTRUCTURE *
* Laminated schedules taped to the wall, with headings such as DAY 18: COMMUNITY UNVEILING – MEAL OF SILENCE *
* A whiteboard displaying a bonanza of crisscrossing bullet points, in which we seem to make out notes-to-self like AUDIENCE ROTATION: CLOCKWISE and abstract musings along the lines of WATER: SYMBOLIC OR LITERAL? *
* A metal rack full of lanyard badges with names that we don’t recognize *
* A pile of posters of Dr. Nael, which look off for a reason that is difficult to pinpoint *
* Packs of candles with the guru’s corporate logo, a rising sun formed by bar-chart columns, embossed on them *
* A bowl of small stones engraved with virtues, sort of: SIMPLICITY, COMPLIANCE, SURRENDER *
* A dirty t-shirt, too small to fit Adrian, tossed across a chair, saying ASK ME ABOUT CLARITY*
* A page of a spreadsheet pinned to a cork board, cells filled with asterisks and exclamation marks, notes in the margins written by different hands: NO INITIATION WITHOUT CONFIRMATION; REMEMBER: CONFIDENTIALITY IS MANDATORY DURING MEDITATION; and DR. NAEL KNOWS WHO STAYED *
Martin discreetly takes this page and pockets it.
We’re all thinking the same thing: we’re not the first. We assumed we’d been enlisted to kick-start the project, but we’re picking up work left unfinished by others. Were they dismissed? Did they leave? Why together? Are we together? We exchange glances that shrink in the vast, overcomplicated warehouse.
Adrian is finally speaking, but no one can focus. He speaks with pathos, that much we can grant him. He connects short, declarative sentences as if he were skipping across the shiny surfaces of deep lakes. We manage to gather that we don’t have much time to organize Dr. Nael’s visit to town, that the guru’s placidity doesn’t trickle down to his entourage, that Adrian is under transcendental pressure to uphold the event’s detailed instructions.
“Do not question anything,” he says, “for we are guided only by the soundest reasons.”
Nadia presses her palms together, either in prayer or wonder.
“The blueprint,” Adrian continues, “is tailored to catalyze perfect execution and foster the spiritual enlightenment of the team.” He smiles. “That’s why you signed up for this, isn’t it?”
At this point, we are slumped in the chairs, looking at the ceiling, but not dreamily.
Although the date of the event was as erratic as the town’s weather and the mood of the locals, Adrian’s intensity probably won us over, for we started with a sense of urgency. Each one of us claimed a table, declaring it one’s office. Nadia printed everyone’s names and roles in a cheeky, colorful font, and taped the pages to the table edges. Everyone’s but hers.
“Where’s yours?” Moira asked.
Nadia was spinning the roll of tape around a finger. “An intern can’t ever sit without instruction, they say.”
“Says who?”
“Adrian.” Nadia shrugged and walked away.
We were surprised to learn that the gathering would take place in the open air.
“What if it rains?” Leo agonized, threatening to hire tents against all orders. “We must always have a plan B,” he said, even though no one knew for sure if there was a formal plan A. Paperwork was light.
“Not while I’m here,” Martin, the compliance officer, countered.
“How are we not allowed to consult Dr. Nael’s entourage about things like this?” Tess asked. As communications officer, she was permanently appalled that we had no access to headquarters. Everything went through Adrian, whose management style combined fervent minimalism, dubious practicality, and long periods of absence. Questions weren’t discouraged, but weren’t meaningfully addressed either.
On any given day, we would mostly stay at the base, discussing details with suppliers on the phone and producing draft after draft of contracts and endless revisions of promotional material on our computers. Once, returning from town, Moira said that it would feel more welcoming inside if we opened the windows, not noticing that there were none. From then on, whenever morale sank, someone would say “Let’s open the windows,” and we’d laugh.
The team’s liaison officer in charge of community engagement, Moira was the only one who made frequent expeditions to town. She returned each time with little stories about the grocer who wouldn’t take leaflets with a dark background, the boy who said he’d come if there were snacks and sweets, the councilwoman who asked if there’d be space for a makeshift pet clinic. She shared them as a kind of crooked proof that bridges could still be built.
Nadia sometimes wanted to accompany Moira and asked us if we needed her. Leo always said he did, just to relish her disappointed look, and immediately let her go. When the two came back, none of us could decide what to make of the locals. Moira always pitied them, protective, almost maternal, while Nadia was clearly in awe of something only she could see – their purity, their strength, their sense of autonomy? It was hard to define, and she couldn’t either.
“Hey, are they interested in the guru?” someone would ask.
“Would they be willing to come?” another would follow up.
We thought these were the only crucial questions.
“First we need to gain their confidence, okay?” Moira’s voice cracked a little.
But were we interested in Dr. Nael? Did we know his philosophy? There were many of his books sitting on a table that no one had claimed. We never saw any of us flipping those pages. The reason we had applied for the positions wasn’t spiritual, we didn’t think, unless someone was harboring secret admirations. We needed the money, we were bored, we wanted to belong, we were afraid of the emptiness in our lives, so we came, and we stayed, and we worked until very late. Wasn’t shared fanatical gusto over a hazy vision the unconfessed spell, after all?
Our routine was peppered with impromptu visits by Adrian, who fired off orders in staccato bursts, with no clear addressee. Well, at least some of the time he conveyed orders; often he simply offered snippets of spiritual philosophy that might well be part of the guru’s larger oeuvre and lingo, we didn’t know. We listened as though we were cracking fortune cookies and unfolding the crumpled slips in our own private stall at a mystical fair:
MEANING IS A BYPRODUCT OF EXECUTION
CLARITY IS CONFUSION WELL-MANAGED
IN ATTENTION LIES ASCENSION
IF COMMUNICATION FAILS, OVERCOMMUNICATE IN SILENCE
THE UNIVERSE DOES NOT EXPAND, IT DELEGATES
THE BASE IS THE STAGE, AND THE STAGE IS THE SELF
FAITH IS COMPLIANCE PERFORMED TO COMPLETION
EVERYTHING VISIBLE BEGINS IN THE SPREADSHEET OF THE INVISIBLE
STABILITY IS CHAOS UNDER PRESSURE
We heard the snippets from Adrian and felt an itch to check Dr. Nael’s books, but then, depending on the day, it was either wow or yawn: so much to do. And we did it. A few weeks in, the base was transformed. Piles of printed banners, crates of identical white folding chairs, transparent umbrellas embossed with the guru’s face, pyramids of bottled water, contracts signed, spreadsheets completed, wonderful work.
We stood there, contemplating our creation, its pieces ready to be assembled into a memorable visit for all who cared, when someone suggested we go out for drinks at the local pub. It was already closed, so we drifted toward the church steps instead, and there we sat together, our minds a sweet dark expanse filled with tiny spots of shimmering happiness.
Many days pass before we notice Martin is no longer taking calls from suppliers. By then, the little reminders that Nadia keeps producing and leaving on his table-office are piling up and spilling at our feet. We press him, and finally he caves:
“It’s been a while since we received the last transfer from headquarters.”
“And you weren’t planning to let us know?!” We are aghast, or at least we make a show of it.
“Of course I was.” Martin leans back in his chair.
“When?”
“When the due dates of basic utility accounts were upon us.”
“When is that?”
“Today.”
Adrian is nearby, scribbling instructions on the whiteboard in tiny, unreadable handwriting. We circle him. He laughs.
“Faith precedes funds,” he remarks, as if quoting scripture.
“How do we pay them with faith?” Leo asks.
“Isn’t money a piece of faith?” Moira wonders, but it’s the wrong time for philosophical musings.
Adrian darts to the other side of the base and returns pushing a handcart stacked with folded chairs. He’s been hauling them by himself to the open-air venue.
When he leaves, someone suggests we all chip in to pay at least for power and internet, but the suggestion floats in the warehouse like cursed gospel.
Tess decides to e-mail headquarters, but her messages bounce back: user not found.
“Is it possible that they blocked us?”
“Do they know us?” We counter, but then our gaze falls upon the objects left behind by the previous team, and something in us flickers uneasily.
We gather by the roll-up door. It’s windy, and the drizzle falls like ghostly needles, but we march toward the venue anyway.
Adrian is unfolding the chairs and placing them so they face away from the stage.
“Yesterday I received a memo that all chairs had to face east, but today I got a new one instructing that they must face toward the self,” he explains, sort of.
“Hey, we must print new banners,” he quickly adds. “One to be raised at the beginning of the gathering, saying KNOW YOUR LEADER, and another to be revealed only as the faithful start to leave, saying YOU ARE NOW THE LEADER’S KNOWLEDGE.”
We shake our heads. “HQ has gone MIA.”
“Absence is attendance in its purest form,” he says, pulling up his hood and wheeling the empty handcart away.
We can’t follow him, it’s too early to retreat to the hotel, and the leafy surroundings are too uneventful to interest us. We drift into town, stop by the coffee shop to grab some lattes. The drizzle is gone, and we sit sipping under our jackets on the curb, for tables remind us of work and abandonment.
“I must tell you something,” Moira starts, and we wish she didn’t. “A councilman asked me the other day what we were putting together at the field. ‘Is it a vaccination campaign?’ he asked. And yesterday, a councilwoman approached me on the street and said: ‘Good luck with the Earth celebration event. The council is excited!’ I’ve explained to them so many times… What’s happening?”
“Hey,” Tess says, suddenly pale. “What if we, and our words and e-mails and bank accounts, are starting to disappear? Is that what happened to the team before us?”
Nadia checks her hands. Smirking, Leo and Martin offer to touch her to prove she still exists, right when a lady walking on the sidewalk bumps into them and almost falls on top of us. Lattes slip and splash on the road. We shrug, for they weren’t soothing us anyway, and we get up, for the mess has a finality that unsettles us. No coordination needed, we head back to the base.
Outside by the open roll-up door, we run into several cardboard boxes, all labeled ESSENTIALS.
“Do you think it’s safe to bring them in?” someone asks.
It pains us that no one is confident enough to confirm. We bring them regardless and promptly slice through their tape. Inside them, we find:
. oversized blank paper .
. folded purple robes smelling of detergent .
. flash drives tagged FOR THE RECORD which we later discover to contain no files .
. envelopes filled with dry leaves .
. deflated balloons printed with FOLLOW .
. a bundle of receipts tied with a golden ribbon .
. a manual titled PROCEDURES FOR SPONTANEITY .
. a metronome that only ticks if someone holds it .
. a folder with a sticker saying OPEN WHEN READY .
“Are we ready?” Martin asks, tossing the folder back into the box before we can react.
Adrian comes back with a boyish spring in his step, like someone who has confessed and been forgiven.
“The entourage has reached me through the silence,” he says, then pauses and concentrates, as if he were about to translate from a language not meant for us. “We’re almost aligned.”
“They also reached us through these boxes,” we say, pointing at them.
“Right.” His voice is trembling. “Repack them in reverse order.”
“Why…?”
“Also: unplug all the computers, discard them, burn them, donate them, they’re no longer necessary.”
“Not everything is ready,” Leo complains. What is ready, we all wonder but say not a word.
“You still think this is about documentation and signage?” Adrian shouts, then grimaces.
He dashes to the whiteboard and erases everything with the sleeves of his jacket.
Nadia lets out an ohhh. We stare at her in reproach, but didn’t we all secretly believe there were some twisted, interesting thoughts scrawled up there?
Adrian writes a single letter on the board, T, and stops. He strides to the ESSENTIALS boxes and fishes something out, his movements fluid as if in an unexpected dance. The object he produces is the OPEN WHEN READY folder. He pulls out the single page it contains. The paper seems blank from where we stand, but he clears his throat and enunciates its content curtly:
“Commence at dawn.”
Then he returns to the whiteboard and finishes his scribble:
THE ARRIVAL IS INTERNAL
He slides toward a distant corner of the warehouse and sits facing the wall, in a lotus position.
Would we dare confess to ourselves, for just a second, that we envied him for his certainty?
“How could they know we’d open the folder today?” someone asks.
“Maybe they know we’re ready.”
“Or that he’s ready.”
“Is he ever not ready?”
“Will we ever be ready?”
We could and perhaps should have looked at each other, but instead we take in the bric-a-brac around us, the distant humming coming from Adrian’s corner, the stale smell we’ve grown faintly fond of, and then we stare at the new whiteboard message, gauging what it stirs inside us.
“Maybe the responsible thing to do is to inspect the venue,” Leo suggests.
We put on our jackets, except for Tess, who hunches over the open boxes, rummaging through items yet untouched. She waves us off.
We find the venue so unprepared that we can’t muster the courage to do more than sit on the stage and consider the chaos – the chairs lying on the grass facing nowhere, the damp banners bearing outdated sayings, the microphone and sound system that were never functional, the souvenirs jumbled together in massive plastic containers.
“We’ve got nothing to show,” Moira wails.
“A mess is something,” Leo, the logistics coordinator, of all people, says.
“Who, if not a guru, must love a good mess to untangle?” Nadia ponders.
“In this case, should we sit in the front row tomorrow and lay open our hearts?” Leo asks.
No one is certain if he’s being candid or sardonic. Only Martin laughs – or cries? It’s impossible to tell under the overcast sky in this suburban night.
By now we all want to retire to our hotel rooms, but how could we not stop by the base to collect Tess?
She’s sitting outside when we arrive, a bowl on her lap. She throws something at us, and Nadia snatches it mid-air.
“Simultanergy?!” Nadia reads aloud from the small stone in her hand.
“Fantastic,” Leo quips, “Replacements for the little good-vibes stones that were disappearing. Who’s been taking them, by the way?”
Martin asks Nadia to show him the stone. “All these new ones preach Adrian’s concepts?”
“Read the reverse,” Tess requests.
“It’s a date,” Martin says.
“Tomorrow’s,” Tess adds precision.
“Oh,” we sigh.
In the silence, we hear Adrian inside the base, repeating “Faith is compliance performed to completion” over and over.
Tess gets up. “Shall we?”
We walk to the hotel, dropping the small stones along the way as though we needed them to guide our path back. Why did we do that? Maybe because the faint sound they made when they hit the ground felt like an answer given by the earth, if only we could decipher it.
It’s still dark outside when we meet at the hotel cafeteria. Breakfast hours haven’t started, and staff are furnishing the buffet tables with fruit and muffins, filling the juice dispensers, wiping down the cooktop where they’ll prepare our scrambled eggs and omelets, if we have the time. Do we? We mean to arrive at the venue with the first morning light. Yet aren’t we feeling that charged nonchalance of lost causes?
The staff see us scavenging the buffet and sitting in the dining room, but don’t complain, don’t even register our presence. Emboldened, we grab the remote at the reception desk and turn on the TV. The regional morning show is on, the kind that stitches together weather reports, interviews at assisted-living facilities, and whatever national feed comes cheap that week. After a couple of items about traffic and a heavy rain, we see him: Dr. Nael, speaking under a clearly different, already bright sky. Moira points at the screen:
“The caption says LIVE.”
Leo drops his spoon. Tess insists it’s a replay. Martin dismisses it as a test feed, but his eyes are wide. Nadia says wow.
We leave our unfinished plates behind in the half-assembled dining room and take to the streets. The tiny town, so empty, looks like a structure of elaborate irrelevance. The wind sweeps shreds of paper along the sidewalks. We step on them and recognize the dateless posters we once glued to the utility poles. They’ve been scraped off hastily, and the debris litters the streets. As we dwell on it, a man steps out of a house, a steaming cup in hand, and yawns.
“It’s one of the councilmen,” Moira whispers.
He calls out to us. “Today’s the day, huh? My arm is ready, and I’ll want a lollipop after.” He rubs his shoulder, laughing.
We move on and notice that the small good-vibes stones we tossed the night before are gone.
“The earth swallowed them,” Martin scoffs.
“Or it kept what we abandoned,” Leo says. We don’t know how to take this.
A chopped hum of a helicopter rises, steadies, and disappears. Did it land? We couldn’t even see it.
The base is locked, and only then do we realize we never had its key. No one knocks, no one even thinks to. We head straight to the open-air venue.
There we find Adrian. He’s on the stage, the microphone unplugged, the chairs unarranged. In front of a nonexistent congregation, he speaks. About radiance. Duty. Something about inner metrics. Is he lucid? Are his sentences congealing into anything sensible? He speaks as if he’s found what we fear we’ve been pretending to seek. We stand there listening until someone claps. The sound is so close that we don’t need to check it.
About the writer:
Ricardo Bernhard is the author of four novels. His fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Your Impossible Voice, Right Hand Pointing, Litbreak Magazine, and Neon Origami. He lives in South Africa.
Image: “thou hast much goods laid up for many years…” (AI-assisted digital image) by O:JA&L staff creative. 2026. Public domain via Midjourney AI.
OJAL Art Incorporated, publishing since 2017 as OPEN: Journal of Arts & Letters (O:JA&L) and its imprints Buttonhook Press, HOT BUTTON PRESS Contemporary Issues, and HIGH BUTTON PRESS Contemporary Art, supports writers and artists worldwide.
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