DISCLAIMER:I do not own Futurama or any of its characters. They belong to Matt Groening. I do not own the image used as the cover-all I did was edit the colour.
This was inspired by Luipaardjack's piece, 'Prison of Glass'. :)
Deep in the vast city of New New York sits the headquarters of the Planet Express delivery company. Deep in the headquarters sits a man. He sits in the dark, damp basement, keeping a watchful eye on the boiler. He is surrounded by cobwebs. Rats skitter across the floor. His hair is almost pure white. He has little time left in the world. However, he wastes it slumped into a plastic chair, reading through magazines depicting naked girls with large breasts. He runs his hands down the pages. He closes his eyes, visualising the girlfriend he is unfortunate enough never to meet.
He runs the vacuum cleaner along the carpet rhythmically, until he realises that he's been cleaning the same spot for a full fifteen minutes. After a tedious hour cleaning the carpet, he wipes a cleaning cloth across the screen of the television. His head swivels towards the opening door, hoping that he may get the conversation he has spent many a year searching for. A young man enters, with orange hair and casual attire. As he cleans the screen, he ponders about the young man's smile. He cannot understand how he could possibly be so carefree. The boy had no choice but to leave his past life behind. He had no choice but to attempt to fit in to a society totally different to what he was so used to. The old man has suffered the same fate. He could remember his days as a teacher at a college. But, one-thousand years later, he still feels as if his life is meaningless.
How can he be so happy? The old man wonders.
The young man collects his creased red jacket, and he turns to the man cleaning the television screen.
"Huh? Who are you?" he asks curiously.
Despite all of his years spent at Planet Express, no-one could ever recognise him.
"I'm Scruffy. The janitor," he mumbles in a husky voice, his eyes adhered to the cloth.
The young man leaves the room without another word. The old man sighs; his hopes of finally being able to converse with someone were thwarted once again.
Before him stands a vast spaceship covered in glossy green paint. He shuts his eyes and imagines the exhilarating views of outer space as he zooms through it at unfathomable speed. He opens his eyes once he realises that his dream will always remain a dream. He dabs his mop in the bucket and cleans the debris off of the spaceship. He hears the thudding of boots. He notices the captain of the ship. She swishes her purple hair as she walks by, and takes a stack of papers from a nearby table. He decides that it's time he started the conversation he craved. He knows that waiting for someone else to make the first move wasn't going to help.
"Excuse me, Miss."
She browses the room to find the source of the voice. After a while, she finally notices someone moving a mop across the floor, giving it a beautiful shine.
"Huh? I've never seen you before," she says.
He feels anger shoot through his body, but he inhales deeply to calm himself down.
"I'm Scruffy…the janitor," he grumbles.
The woman leaves the room, with no further acknowledgement of him. The janitor sighs to himself once again, and continues his monotonous life cycle.
Clean. Eat. Clean. Clean. Sleep. Clean. Eat. Clean. Clean. Clean. Clean. Sleep.
The wondrous scent of the crew's dinner cooking fills the man's nose. His stomach roars, but he knows that he isn't getting any dinner tonight. It looks like another night of snatching crackers from the cupboards after dark for the janitor. As he sprays a strong-smelling kitchen cleaner on the work surface, a giant crustacean enters the room. He stuffs his head into the rubbish bin and joyfully devours the past week's leftovers. With a black banana peel on his head, and a peculiar green substance covering his mouth, he gazes into the man's eyes. He makes his way up to him, in a crab-like fashion.
Is this it? Will someone finally know who I am? Will they finally talk to me?
"Do you have any food on you?" he asks.
"Nope. Sorry."
The creature sniffs around for a few seconds.
"Who are you, may I ask?"
The speed of his breathing increases tenfold. He growls to himself.
"Scruffy…the…janitor…" he repeats, for the umpteenth time.
After eating his fill, the crustacean hurries out of the kitchen.
His eyes flutter open.
Just another day.
He slips into a T-shirt and a pair of dark, dirty trousers. He throws on his jacket and pulls on his boots. Today was going to be slightly different to any other day. He storms into the main room, and scrawls a short and disgruntled note. He heads out of the door. He takes exactly twenty-five cents with him.
They won't notice me leave anyway.
The orange- haired young man sits on the sofa, staring into the television screen, but barely concentrating.
He reflects on the new person he had met yesterday. He has many questions circling his mind.
We have a janitor? I didn't know that. I wonder what he's like? Is he fun? Serious? Maybe we'll get along?
He heads to the basement, but all he finds is an empty bed with open magazines scattered on the floor nearby. He finds it odd how a janitor's room is the only one that isn't clean.
Geez! Where is that guy?
With a childlike curiosity, he browses almost every room of the headquarters, but he is still nowhere to be found. Finally, he enters the main room, where he finds a scrap of paper on the table. He quickly snatches it. He attempts to read the handwriting, which is almost indecipherable.
'I'M SCRUFFY,THE JANITOR!'
Next to where the note was placed, there is a small pile of coins: twenty-five cents, exactly. He immediately knows what was going on. He leaves.
He stands in the long queue outside of the booth, patiently awaiting the end. As the line grows shorter, he can feel the excitement welling up inside of him. He sighs one last, deep sigh. All of a sudden, he hears someone yell his name. The voice sounds desperate.
Meh. They're probably looking for another Scruffy.
He finally reaches the front of the queue, when the young man in the red jacket confronts him.
"Hey, Scruffy! What are you doing?"
"What does it look like I'm doing?" the janitor snaps. "Why are you here?"
"I found your note! Why would you wanna do this? You've got a good life, right? A job and your own little room in the basement? You even own a ton of dirty magazines! That's every guy's dream!"
He cannot believe it; this man knows much more about him than anyone else had ever bothered to find out.
"Urrgh…you only care now that I'm stood in front of the booth. I bet the only reason you want me back is so I can rush around, doing all of your dirty work, whilst you and the rest of the damn crew laze around in front of the TV!"
The young man stares remorsefully into the pavement.
"Do you want me to help you out? Maybe we could go out and have a coffee or something sometime. Maybe we could be...friends."
The last word echoes in the janitor's thoughts. It gives him a warm feeling.
Friends…
But Scruffy shakes his head. "You're too late."
"But I-"
"Go away!"
The janitor unflinchingly enters the booth, but he looks back at the young man as he enters. The janitor knows that his life will never improve, no matter how much the young man tries to help him. After a few seconds, the young man winces at the sounds of razors cutting into flesh and screams of the old man. The robotic voice of the booth confirms his death.
The young man enters Scruffy's room. He lifts the mop and bucket. He wonders how poor Scruffy managed to heave it around with him all day. He gently mops the floor. He knows that his newfound dreams of getting to know the late janitor would now never be fulfilled. He didn't even get the time to introduce himself to him properly.
After a few hours, he grows weary-eyed and yawns loudly. After thoroughly cleaning virtually every nook and cranny of the basement, he finally finishes tearing down the last cobweb. He stands back and admires the basement. Everything is wonderfully tidy, and the filthy stench is completely replaced with the fresh scent of roses. All of Scruffy's magazines are organised neatly into a cardboard box, never to be touched by Scruffy's hands again. He leans on the handle of the mop, and stares into the ceiling.
"Scruffy…the janitor…"