#onehourstories

The man with the turtleneck had zeroed in on him

at the Christmas party. Ron didn't know why John had chosen him: his wife always said he had on open face, so maybe it was just that. Certainly John felt comfortable, the conversation had got quickly past the holiday plan small talk into his struggles with depression.

"It's an ongoing process," John was saying as he popped a hummus smeared carrot into his mouth. "I've benefitted a lot from different approaches." Ron nodded, quietly admiring John's fashion choice -- he thought turtlenecks looked suave, and they had the benefit of hiding the turkeyneck he was getting as he left his fifties behind.

A lot of the staff was around that age, a lot of people were hired in the early 2000s and never left. Unlike most tech companies which fired and hired younger people every few years, theirs had struggled through and kept the original team together.

The reason for that was the founder and CEO Leon McKenzie, who was holding court over by the piano. "I'm a veteran of the War on Christmas," he was saying as he held up his egg nog aloft, the crystal tumbler glinting in the light. "To Santa." Another plinky carol was rolled out.

Heil Santa, Ron thought to himself. Tara wouldn't come to the Christmas party, rightly found it tacky and disrespectful to other creeds, but as billionaire oddities went Ron felt this was relatively tame. He felt loyal to McKenzie -- even if he was a blowhard and cryptobigot, he knew his name and had kept him employed.

"Have you ever tried CBT?" John was asking.

"Is that cognitive something therapy?" Ron said, pulling it from a recess of his mind. He half thought Tara might have done it during her post-partem.

"Behavioural, yes, I just found it too sterile, too scientific. But it's powerful." He made himself a small cheese plate and balanced it along with his plastic tumbler of wine. "So I tried mixing it with Fight Club. Which definitely had the catharsis piece."

Ron caught a small fragment of cracker as it fell from his lip in his surprise. "Fight Club...?"

John nodded, pointed to his nose. "Reconstructed twice, not so nice," he chuckled.

"Oh," Ron said.

"So I moved on from that. Most recently, Asphyxiation Therapy has been really good." John took a few pretzels from the bowl. "Really gets you in touch with the Death Urge," he said, putting a pretzel stick in the corner of his mouth like a cigarette. "But," he shrugged and pulled down his turtleneck to show a line of purple and red bruising."That's not great for my line of work."

Ron looked around in a daze to see if anyone was hearing this. "Your -- you don't work here, then?"

"No no. I'm a swim teacher at the YMCA down the street," John said, replenishing his cheese plate. "And obviously, it meant I needed to move on from that, so..."

Ron waited, trying to imagine what one moved on from strangulation. "Ah, so, what are you exploring now?" he said.

"Randoism," John said, chewing on a bit of cheddar. "It's where you go random places, and have random conversations, and let random gurus guide you."

"Randoism," repeated Ron.

"Right. And today, you're my guru. I will do literally anything you tell me. Kill your boss. Eat all the cake with my hands behind my back. Jump out of the window."

Ron stared at John, who stared back at him. "That seems... incredibly ill advised."

John shrugged.

Ron looked around at his co-workers, none of whom were paying them the slightest attention.

Then he leaned forward, and whispered in John's ear.