Two Percent
I fell asleep in my chair at 3:14 pm on Boxing Day.
Brisbane heat sat on the yard like a hand. The grass looked offended. The Hills Hoist leaned over, tired of my family. A neighbour played a song that kept starting, then forgetting the next bit.
My table held leftovers and regret. Prawns. Ham. Pavlova. A warm beer that tasted like someone rinsed a can in sunshine.
Winston watched me from the doorway. He did not blink. He does that thing cats do, where they look like they already filed the report.
My phone sat on my thigh. Its screen glowed.
Two percent.
That number has a special kind of menace. It makes a grown man bargain with furniture. I tapped it once, like that helps. I promised myself I would charge it after a nap. I made the promise with the confidence of a man who will not be awake.
I did not always care about battery numbers. Then I missed a pickup message.
It was a Tuesday at 3:06 pm. The school chat ran on panic. My phone died. I arrived late. My kid stood by the gate with a tight face and a brave wave, like she practised adulthood early. I smiled, I apologised, I made a joke. I drove home with my jaw locked. I decided the problem was the phone, not me. I made a rule. Battery first. People second. It felt sensible at the time.
Sara’s laugh drifted over the fence. She lives next door. She borrows things in a way that turns “borrow” into a lifestyle.
A shadow slid over me.
The shadow stayed.
A voice spoke above my head. It sounded like a memo learned to talk.
“Magnus of Brisbane. You have been selected for corrective instruction.”
I opened one eye. Three frog-shaped beings stood on my patio pavers. They wore uniforms with sharp seams and cruel badges.
The tallest one held a clipboard.
I tried to sit up.
“Mate,” I said, “This is private property.”
The tallest frog made a note. “Subject claims jurisdiction.”
The shortest frog stepped forward and held up a phone charger, pinched like evidence.
“Do you recognise this,” it said, “or do we involve the forensic sadness unit.”
I stared at the charger. White cable. Standard plug. The kind that breeds in kitchen drawers.
“Looks like a charger,” I said.
The frog lifted more chargers and tipped them into a bucket.
The tallest frog tapped the clipboard. “You borrow chargers. You do not return them.”
“I forget,” I said. “I live a busy life.”
A fourth frog rolled in a trolley. It carried a scan of my history. Photos flashed in a neat row. My desk at work. A hotel room. A mate’s garage. A car cup holder. Chargers, everywhere. None of them mine.
The shortest frog hissed. “Repeat offence. Category Four.”
“You abduct people over chargers,” I said.
The tallest frog nodded. “A charger is trust. A charger is order.”
My phone buzzed once in my pocket, then died. The screen went black.
Two percent became zero.
They guided me off my chair with a gentleness that felt like insult. A black ring opened above the yard, polite and hungry. My body lifted as if gravity received a new manager.
Winston watched from the doorway. He still did not blink.
Then the yard vanished.
I woke in a room of metal and light. Cold air cleaned the alcohol out of my breath. The frogs stood around a pod that looked like a coffin built by someone who hated comfort.
A visor hung above the pod. Cables waited like vines.
The tallest frog pointed. “Enter.”
“This feels like the Matrix,” I said.
The frog nodded. “Humans accept dread better when it wears a familiar outfit.”
They strapped me down. Belts clicked in calm steps. The visor lowered.
The tallest frog spoke again. “Time moves faster inside. Seventeen subjective years pass for you. Minutes pass for us.”
“I do not consent,” I said.
The frog wrote something. “Subject uses legal language.”
Light filled the visor.
The world snapped.
I stood in a city that smelled like hot plastic and burned toast.
A statue rose over a square. It showed a man holding a charger above his head. People knelt at its base. They pressed chargers to their foreheads. They stared at wall sockets like they were windows.
A sign hung over the square in neat letters.
Welcome to Chargeria City. Charge is life.
My phone sat in my hand again. Its screen glowed.
Two percent.
A siren screamed at me. A drone dipped low. Its speaker boomed with school-principal authority.
“Unregistered device. Uncharged. Unauthorised.”
Two officers grabbed my arms. Their uniforms read Cord Enforcement. Their faces held the joy of small power.
“This is a mistake,” I said.
One officer waved a scanner over my hands. The scanner beeped.
“No charger,” he said. “Clean hands. That is the dirtiest thing.”
“I borrowed one,” I said. “I will return it.”
The second officer smiled. “Borrower is thief with better branding.”
They dragged me through the square. People pointed at me the way people point at a rat.
An old man clutched a power bank like a rosary. A teenager filmed me, shaking with moral excitement. A kid in a school uniform yelled, “Send him to the dead zone.”
The officers pushed me into a small booth at the edge of the square. It had a chair, a camera, and a slot for signatures. A sign on the wall read:
Summary Justice Unit. Please speak clearly.
A screen lit up. A faceless voice spoke.
“Charge theft detected. Social risk high. Sentence applied.”
A printer spat out a slip of paper. Six years. No appeal. It felt neat. It felt lazy. It felt familiar in a new way.
The officer shoved the slip at me.
“Sign,” he said.
“I want a lawyer,” I said.
He pointed at a wall socket. “Talk to that. It listens.”
I signed.
They cuffed me and marched me through a door. The city vanished behind a concrete corridor that smelled of sweat and melted insulation.
Prison smelled like fear cooked with plastic.
They lined us up in intake. Men stared at me like they were checking if I had value. A guard shouted rules in a voice that carried no hope.
A bloke with a shaved head stood in front of me. A charger was tattooed on his neck, like a warning label.
He looked me up and down.
“Name,” he said.
“Magnus.”
He nodded. “CJ.”
I expected a tough speech. I expected a punch. CJ only leaned closer.
“Do not say ‘borrow’ in here,” he said.
“What do I say,” I said.
He shrugged. “Say ‘took.’ Say ‘stole.’ Honesty keeps your teeth.”
I tried to laugh. It came out thin.
My first night in that place gave me the lesson fast. People fight over the smallest things when fear runs the room.
The riot started over a cable.
One cable. Half a metre long. Black insulation. A frayed end wrapped in tape. Men gathered around it like it was food. Someone reached. Someone punched. Then the corridor filled with bodies.
A tray smashed into a face. A fist hit my jaw. My teeth clacked. I tasted blood and something sharp in my mind, like burnt plastic.
I fell. Boots found my ribs. I curled in and tried to protect my head.
The cable whipped past my cheek and snapped against the wall. It made a clean, cruel sound.
CJ grabbed my collar and dragged me up.
“Stand,” he said.
Another boot swung at my stomach. CJ took it on his hip and swore like it was an old habit.
“Stand,” he said again, louder.
A guard fired a stun pulse. The crowd collapsed in spasms and curses. The cable lay on the floor, untouched now, like a dropped crown.
CJ looked down at it and shook his head.
“A bit of plastic runs the whole zoo,” he said.
Later, I sat on my bunk and stared at my hands.
My hands shook in little bursts. My chest felt tight. My head replayed the cable snap, again and again, like it wanted to drill the sound into me.
Two percent is a number, I told myself.
My body did not agree.
Time in Chargeria moved like a conveyor belt. Days clicked past. I worked, I ate, I slept, I watched men argue over charging time like it was oxygen. I learned to keep my eyes down. I learned to keep my mouth shut. I learned that fear can wear a polite face.
They ran a prison program called Community Recharge. The title made me want to punch the brochure.
It turned out to be a work gang.
CJ stood in the line with me, close enough to elbow me quiet.
We wore helmets. We carried hoses. We got driven out in a truck with barred windows. The guard called it civic duty. CJ called it cheap labour.
On my tenth shift, we got a call to a unit in a tower block.
Smoke poured from a window. Plastic stung my nose. Heat pressed against my visor. My mouth went dry in a way I did not like.
We kicked the door in. Flames crawled up curtains. A wall outlet spat sparks like a possessed toaster.
A woman stood in the room holding a charger to her chest. She cried and rocked it like a baby.
CJ shouted, “Drop it.”
She shook her head. “It is my dad’s charger.”
I stepped toward her. My own phone sat in my pocket like a stone. My old reflex rose in me with a sick familiarity.
Protect the charger. Save the charger. Do not be the man at two percent.
I said, “Your hand is burning.”
She looked down. The cable had melted into her skin. The smell turned my stomach. It smelled like a cheap toy left on a stove.
She whispered, “Charge is life.”
“No,” I said. “You are life.”
I grabbed her wrist. She fought me. She clung to the charger like it could answer her back. I pried her fingers open. Skin tore. She screamed. It was a sharp, animal sound. It cut through my jokes and left nothing behind.
CJ swung the hose at the outlet. Steam hissed. The fire died with a reluctant sigh.
We dragged her out. She sobbed into my shoulder. Her tears ran down my sleeve and mixed with soot.
Outside, CJ sat on the curb and ate chips from a paper bag. I sat beside him and tried to stop my hands shaking.
CJ watched my fingers.
“It gets into you,” he said.
“I hate this place,” I said.
CJ looked at the street lights and the neon charger ads and the people staring at wall sockets.
“They fear emptiness,” he said. “Two percent feels like death to them.”
He chewed a chip. He swallowed.
“Keep the people,” he said. “Let the plugs burn.”
The line hit me hard. It sat in my chest with the tightness. It did not leave.
A few months later, a prison officer called me to the desk.
He held a clipboard with the boredom of a man who lived inside forms.
“You earned early release,” he said. “Good conduct. Community Recharge service. Responsible Charging seminar attendance.”
“I apologised to a wall,” I said.
He nodded. “The wall accepted.”
He handed me a plastic bag with my clothes. He gave me a thin smile that meant nothing.
“Do not return,” he said.
I walked out into Chargeria sunlight and felt my legs wobble. I looked for a bench. I looked for a wall. I looked for something to hold.
Then the visor tore away from my face and the metal room returned.
The frogs watched me like scientists watching a rat that learned a trick.
The tallest frog made a note. “Education delivered.”
“You put years in my head,” I said. My voice shook. “You made me hold smoke and fists and screaming.”
The frog nodded. “Instruction works.”
“It breaks people,” I said.
The frog spoke in calm pride. “Next stage. The Ego Meat Grinder.”
The name hit my spine. It sounded like a joke told by a machine.
They strapped me into another chair. This one looked less like a pod and more like a confession booth.
A sign hung above it in neat letters.
The Ego Meat Grinder. Please keep hands inside your ego.
My phone appeared in my hand again. Its screen glowed.
Two percent.
It blinked at me like a dare.
The machine activated.
My breath caught. My chest tightened. My skin prickled. The metal room fell away. The feeling of my own weight shifted, like my body forgot its job.
I saw everything.
Stars burned in silent swarms. Galaxies spun like dust. Time stretched and folded. Planets formed, broke, formed again. A comet crossed a dark space and nobody clapped.
I saw Earth. I saw Australia. I saw Brisbane. I saw my yard. I saw my chair.
I saw Winston as a white smudge at a door.
I saw myself slumped there, mouth open, half-drunk, full of ham.
I saw my life as a thin line.
My mind tried to scream. It tried to find a railing. It tried to grab a story that made me important. It tried to turn the universe into a meeting where I could argue my case.
My phone screen stayed in my hand. The two percent blinked again.
My heart hammered. My mouth dried out. Sweat broke cold on my back.
I felt small in a way that had no edge. It had no drama. It just was.
A thought arrived, plain and hard.
This is absurd.
Not tragic. Not heroic. Not designed for me. Just absurd.
The scale did not ask my opinion. The universe did not care about chargers. It did not care about my shame. It did not care about my Tuesday at 3:06 pm. It did not care about the way my kid tried to hide her disappointment.
That realisation should have crushed me.
It did not.
My chest loosened a notch.
The two percent stopped feeling like a verdict. It started feeling like a number on a screen. It could not run my life unless I hired it.
Images flashed. Not grand ones. Not the kind that end up on posters.
A wet laugh from my kid at a bad joke. Her damp hair brushing my wrist in the car, and her saying, “You missed a spot,” like it was nothing. Winston’s weight on my legs at night. The smell of sunscreen on my hands. A coffee cup sweating on a kitchen bench. Sara’s laugh over the fence.
Small things. Plain things.
I understood something simple.
There is no grand score. Those moments are not filler. They are the whole thing.
My breath slowed. My hands steadied. My stomach unclenched.
The machine kept showing me the scale. It kept showing me my size. I stayed anyway.
The frogs pulled me out. The tallest one stared at the clipboard like it wanted to be wrong.
“Second known survivor,” it said.
I laughed once. It came out rough.
“You tried to break me,” I said. “You made me lighter.”
The frog frowned. “Your response appears irrational.”
“Good,” I said. “Your whole system runs on fake seriousness.”
They dropped me back into my chair in my Brisbane yard.
The sun had moved a bit. The radio still mumbled. The leftovers sat on the table like a dare.
My throat still tasted like plastic smoke.
Winston stood near my feet, judging me for leaving reality unattended.
I sat up fast and knocked my beer bottle over. It hit the concrete and shattered.
The sound snapped me back to the riot. Boots. Cable snap. The stun pulse crack.
My hands went cold. My throat tightened. I stared at the glass like it held a face.
Sara from next door called out from the fence.
“Hey Magnus. You got a charger I can borrow.”
The words hit me like the stun pulse all over again.
My mind flashed the chant.
Charge is life.
My phone sat on the table. Two percent. It blinked at me, calm and rude.
I felt the old urge. Fix it now. Plug it in now. Do not sit at two percent.
My hand moved toward the kitchen drawer without asking me. The drawer that held things I “borrowed.” Chargers. Adaptors. Cables that did not belong to me.
I stopped with my fingers on the handle.
Keep the people. Let the plugs burn.
I opened the drawer.
It was worse than I remembered. A tangle of white cables. Three different plugs. A charger with my mate’s label still on it. A cable with a dog bite mark. A tiny power brick I took from a hotel and kept.
It looked like a museum of my small dishonesty.
I closed the drawer.
I walked to the fence.
“No,” I said. “Not today.”
Sara blinked. “Right. Okay.”
“I will buy you one,” I said. “Your own one.”
Sara stared at me, then shrugged.
“Fair,” she said, and walked back home.
Winston jumped onto the table and sniffed my phone. He sneezed, like it offended him.
My phone buzzed.
I looked at the screen.
A message from my kid.
Did you feed Winston?
Two percent still sat in the corner. I did not care. My thumbs moved on their own.
Yes. He is judging me. Are you home soon?
I hit send.
The phone buzzed again.
On my way. Feed yourself too.
I smiled before I could stop it.
I put the phone down and did not reach for a charger. I did not check the percentage again. I watched Winston stroll across the pavers like he owned the place.
That night I slept in my bed. I slept deep. I still dreamed of cables snapping against concrete. I woke once with my jaw tight. I drank water. I went back to sleep.
Days passed. Brisbane went back to its normal madness. Heat. Sweat. Magpies shouting like they ran the street. Sara watering plants at the wrong hour.
I kept finding chargers in my drawer. I kept leaving them there.
On the fourth day, I stood in the shower and let water run over my shoulders.
Steam fogged the mirror. I wiped it with my hand and looked up.
A mark sat on my left shoulder.
A small circle around a dot.
Under it, tiny script curved like it had been written by a careful hand.
Two percent is not an emergency.
My mouth went dry.
I turned my shoulder. I leaned closer. The skin raised under my fingertips. It did not wash off. It did not smudge. It felt old and new at once, like it belonged to me and did not.
Behind me, Winston pushed the bathroom door open with his head and walked in like a supervisor.
He looked up at me. He blinked once.
Winston flicked his tail, slow and offended, then sat with his back to me on the bathmat.