Metafiction: a bottle

I opened the door. Fourteen white faces in the small office instantly turned toward me. Not one of them had the slightest mark of welcome or even warmth. One of them expressed exceptional disgust towards my appearance. He let out a huge sigh.

           “Late again, huh? What you doing there? You can’t even move now?”

           “Boss, it was my…”

 I started explaining.

           “Not interested. Take. Your. Seat.”

I ground my teeth. I held my rage inside.

           ‘Not now, Malcolm. Not now.’

I sat down and opened my laptop. I opened a file named ‘Project X’.

The day my life of beauty began when I encountered the following on Facebook: Try the "Wonderful Face Cream" for FREE!!!

'For Free? Then, why not?' I thought. I clicked on the advertisement for more specific details. The "Wonderful Face Cream" was a new product made by the famous cosmetics company "Amorae Oceanic." The advertisement poster had some fancy pictures and major scientific effects of the product. I was satisfied and excited to get that product. 

My boss spoke.

           “So, did everyone come up with a plot of the advertisement?”

Luke, a guy who was always late on things, spoke in a flurry.

           “What? What plot? What advertisement?”

           “Luke? Do you have another job in mind? I told you yesterday. Our crew has to submit a plot of the advertisement of our company’s new project. Stupid black cream.”
           ‘He would have screamed at me if I had not known that.” I thought.

“A black cream? Who would buy a black cream?” Luke questioned.

           “That’s the whole point. The advertisement has to persuade people that this black cream is somehow going to make them beautiful.”
           “Damn. That’s stupid.”
I spoke up.

           “Boss, I actually submitted the plot for crew.”
           “What?”

The boss looked at me as if I were drunken or drugged. I told him.

           “I wrote the plot and sent the file to the head office already.”
           “Are you out of mind? Who are you to do that? Can you even grasp what this project means to our crew?”

He picked up a water bottle and threw it to me with full strength. I watched it spinning towards me. I flung out my arm and grabbed it midair. My boss panicked and looked for another object in rage. Luke rushed to him and held his arm. .

           “Boss, let’s hear it first. It might be good.”

“He writes like a kindergarten kid”

           “Absolutely.”

 I answered calmly.

           “Read it.”

Below that sentence, the advertisement said, "We will send you the product by email if you give us your privacy."

"What exactly was that supposed to mean?' I wondered. However, as I badly wanted the product, I just ignored the sentence. I sent an email to the developers of the product. A week later, to my surprise, I became one of the hundred people to receive the product! I was eagerly anticipating the results. Who knew what else could come along with the cream?

I stopped reading here. I raised my head and looked at my boss. He looked like I’d thrown up on him.

           “What?”

I challenged him.

           “Read on.”

           ‘Oh this is going to get fun. He hasn’t heard anything yet.’

I let out a black, mocking laughter silently.

I opened the "Wonderful Face Cream" container. Inside the container, there was a cream tube like any other I had bought. I was disappointed. I opened the white tube to find some black cream. What??? I recalled my sister using green cream, saying that colorful creams are the new trend. So, I put some black cream on my cheeks. It was smooth and I soon covered my whole face with the cream. I went to the bathroom to wash off the cream, yet I could not. I had become black.

I screamed, moaned, and shouted in terror. This was the worst experience of my life! My skin color had changed, and there was nothing I could do. A few days later, an agent with silver sunglasses broke into my house and kidnapped me to a secret island. I was joined by a few other "blacks", put on a fishing boat. A strong looking man forced us to work as fishermen of their boats. Instinctively, I realized the sale of the "Wonderful Face Cream" was a great scheme related to racism and world domination.

I stopped once again. My boss was holding his neck, just like old men do in TV shows when they want are just about to explode.

The other guys also looked surprised. But they didn’t matter. Only my boss, the man who had tortured me from our first encounter, mattered.

I drank a cup of water. My boss was speechless.

The "Wonderful Face Cream" was intended to create a new world order that whites rule blacks again. Temporarily, racial freedom between whites and blacks were guaranteed, at least by law. However, the "new blacks", created by using the "Wonderful Face Cream", possessed lower intelligence than the average human being because the cream not only changed the face to black but also degraded the mind. The new blacks were similar to animals that look like black humans. Blacks and whites were discriminated again. The blacks who had the average human intelligence were forced to use the "Wonderful Face Cream". Soon, all blacks had low intelligence.

“This is the end, boss.”

His face was all red, ready to explode at any moment. Normally, he would throw things at me when he was mad. But this time, he seemed to mad to do anything physically, as if he would cross the safety line if he started letting out his condensed rage.

           “Get the fuck out of here.”
           “Why are mad about, boss?”

           “I don’t want to see your face anymore, pack your things and leave.”

           “I don’t understand, boss. Isn’t this exactly what you would like the world to believe? That a darker face means less intelligence? That a negro is inferior to a white man? Isn’t that strong looking man who exploits negroes you? Huh? ”

I could see him panicking. He had lost his words.

            “Don’t look at me like that, boss? Throw a bottle at me! Call me a negro and holler at me.”

He had never seen me in such courage and rage before.

           “You told me to leave, right? Here’s my resignation letter.”

I crippled the letter into a ball and threw it into his nose. He was too dumbfounded to react now.

“Don’t be too sad. I’ll see you in court. Let the law speak for the thousands of bottles you threw at my head”

I coolly walked towards the door. Yeah! This was exactly what I’d planned. What a drama! As I turned the door knob, something hit me hard. It was a familiar feeling. The world shattered. I opened my eyes. I faintly recognized a water bottle. It was still spinning; it must have been thrown real hard.

           “Get up Malcolm!”

Out of my instinct that lingered from my dream, I grabbed the bottle and got ready to smash it into his face. I sighed, and put it down.

           “Yeah boss.”