WINDSWEPT

CHAPTER: 0

FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS

The cracked and weathered tiki idol loomed overhead, gnashing its teeth with exaggerated fury in the ruddy glow of tail lights. I cast one look over my shoulder at the hotel shuttle bouncing its way down the dirt road before I turned back to the furrowed brow and silent growl that were meant to ward off evil spirits.

As the shuttle turned the corner, taking its light with it, the tiki’s features sank into deep shadows and I started to make out flashing colors flickering through the vegetation behind it. The grim guardian had clearly failed at stopping even a single yuppie from trampling all over its home.

Instead of pity, I felt a pang of envy for the enormous idol as I pasted a false smile onto my face. It sure would be nice to be that honest.

Past the tropical version of a gargoyle, and down the overgrown path, the party was in full swing. Fire dancers carefully skirted around the crowd, casting wild shadows over the dim beach. A DJ with glowing neon equipment bobbed his head in time with the throbbing sea of amateur dancers clumped in front of his speakers. All this for a little R&R but they still couldn’t afford a second employee for my department. I turned away from the noise in disgust and paid the buffet table a visit.

I piled a tiny plate as high as I could with bacon wrapped scallops, bacon wrapped shrimp, and my personal favorite, bacon.

“I dub thee, Mount Bacon,” I pronounced solemnly. The start of a real smile tugged at my lips, but my budding good mood was strangled in its crib a moment later.

“I see you’re enjoying yourself,” sneered a sarcastic voice I did not want to hear right now, “even though I still haven’t seen your 930-H report for this week. How are we supposed to assess your performance if you never tell us what you’re doing?”

I held my shoulders stiff so they wouldn’t betray my disappointment and turned to present Janice with my false smile. She always saw right through it but I still had to make the effort.

“Sorry about that Jan, I’ve been a little busy lately.”

“We all work hard Patrick, but you’re the only one who can’t seem to get with the program.”

I bit back the response that she was the one to insist that I be here and I could have finished her useless report if I didn’t need to scrape viruses off of her hard drive, again! Who did she think she was kidding anyways? I knew exactly how much time she spent shopping online when she should have been working. She didn’t even bother to delete her browser history! Pointing that out wouldn’t do me any good though.

“Sorry,” I repeated. “I’ll have it on your desk first thing Monday morning.”

“See that you do.” She said, pursing her lips and glancing down at my plate. “You know, it wouldn’t kill you to eat some vegetables. A healthy mind lives in a healthy body. Maybe you’d have enough energy to complete your tasks if you paid more attention to your diet.”

Someone called her away and I breathed a sigh of relief as she flounced off to socialize with her own, much more convincing fake smile in place. I’d lost my appetite though, so I put the plate down and headed for the open bar with its rustling palm-frond roof and chic surfboard countertop. If I was going to survive the night, I would need some liquid courage.

The catch with liquid courage is that if you don’t already have the confidence to stand out, it’s hard to get an overwhelmed bartender's attention. I lingered at the edge of the tiki bar, shifting my weight uncomfortably as I was jostled by more “courageous” coworkers, lifting my hand tentatively on the rare occasions when the bartender glanced in my direction. It probably didn’t help that I was halfway hidden behind the shaggy layers of grass skirts coating the wooden support pillars.

“Hey Joe! Get me another one of these tequila sunrises, actually, make it two!” Mark shouted from over my shoulder. The charismatic sales rep got served immediately, of course. He winked, nudged my shoulder, and leaned in to shout in my ear.

“If you don’t learn to speak up, you’re going to die of thirst one of these days!”

Rub it in, why don’t you. I thought while stretching my fake smile even further and sending a half-hearted joke back in his direction.

“That sounds more appealing than sitting through another one of Jan’s motivational meetings.”

Mark laughed charitably and when he got his tall frosty glasses of toxic-orange tequila, he pushed one into my hand.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Come on, there’s someone I’d like you to meet.” He pulled me away from the bar with his natural magnetism and I followed reluctantly. I hated tequila, but he was making an effort to be nice and it would be rude to refuse. Besides, maybe this was my chance to finally connect with someone at the company. Wasn’t that the whole point of this mandatory party? Maybe HR knew what they were doing after all.

He led me far enough away from the DJ booth that we didn’t have to shout to hear each other and we stopped near a completely unnecessary bonfire where a circle of other sales reps were happily bantering back and forth.

Mark apparently wanted to introduce me to his new team-member, Hanz, because he had a lord of the rings tattoo on one shoulder. The new-hire took off his shirt to show me the tattoo before I could object, and when he flexed his impressive muscles for the benefit of the pretty saleswomen, I started to question Mark’s motives for inviting me over. It looked like the talented wingman just wanted to give his buff new buddy an excuse to strip. I might have been impressed with the adept social maneuver if I didn’t feel like the “before” model in an infomercial about some trendy new exercise fad.

It quickly became clear that Hanz had no interest in Tolkein’s masterpiece. The tattoo was the result of a lost bet and while the sales reps thought his story was hilarious, I just listened, never finding a good moment to say anything. Not that I had anything to say, especially when they went back to talking about troublesome clients and the upcoming basketball playoffs.

Sipping at the cloyingly sweet poison was my only means of fitting in at all, but that didn’t get me very far. I did try to talk a few times but my attempts were always pushed aside by a more powerful voice or lost behind a burst of laughter, and then the opportunity was gone and I clammed up again, hoping no one noticed.

The small knot of coworkers tightened over time as people subtly shuffled their feet in order to more comfortably face whoever was speaking. Eventually, I realized that I’d been ejected from their social circle, but Mark and his friends didn’t seem to notice. Not wanting to face the embarrassment of asking to be let back in, I slunk off like some kind of socially awkward version of Batman doing his “disappearing in the middle of a conversation with the commissioner” trick.

The sales team wasn’t the only group talking by the bonfire and the huddled cliques made me think of little, isolated, self-contained worlds orbiting a sun. There was a world exclusively for the executives, one made for the marketing department divas, and then there was me, drifting alone in the dark.

I looked into my empty cup and grimaced. Tequila, it gets me every time. I wandered back to the buffet table, weaving a little as I went. That bartender really didn’t pull his punches.

It looked like the long table had been ransacked by a troop of raccoons since I’d been there last, but I managed to scavenge a handful of broken bacon bits to munch on while I waited by the bar in a vain attempt to get some water. Blending in with the jostling drunks gave me an excuse not to talk with anyone, but as the night dragged on, more and more people ordered drinks for me that were way too strong for my tastes.

They usually recognized me as “that computer guy” and were happy to thank me for saving their asses at one point or another, but very few knew my actual name, or cared enough to ask. None of them wanted to hear that I wasn’t thirsty. I looked sad after all, and if drinking made them so happy, why wouldn’t it do the same for me? The only way to slow the flow of drinks was to nurse one after another.

There was a little silver lining in the form of the melted ice at the bottom of some drinks. Unfortunately, slurping on the slightly sweet dregs inevitably caught the attention of another nearby generous-hearted coworker who pressed yet another tall glass of sugared yeast-urine into my hands despite my most eloquently slurred protests.

While the offers came from a kind place, and gave me a chance to chat, that was almost worse. I didn’t want to drag them down to my level when they were all flying so high, and I didn’t just mean that as a figure of speech. It was awkward as hell trying to shout into someone’s ear when you’re shorter than them. They always miss the first time and then stoop down to hear me better. It makes me feel like a little kid.

I never felt like I could say what I was really thinking anyways. If I said the wrong thing after a few drinks, it could really bite me in the ass on monday so I held back everything except for the most bland small talk that came to mind. They smiled, and laughed, and said “Yeah” at all the right intervals, and they were always quick to forget about me and go back to their established groups.

When I got drunk enough, I started to question what was wrong with me. This was an awesome party, and I was still a lonely and miserable weirdo. Most people would love to be here but I just wanted to be anywhere else. Somewhere where I could be myself, where I could be appreciated, where doing my job well wouldn’t mean that I faded into the background. Above all, I wanted to matter. I wanted my existence to amount to more than quietly maintaining the status quo for those who lived in the limelight. Instead I was stuck here, in possibly the best job I could hope for, too cowardly to ask for more in case they replace me with one of the thousands of other engineers slavering over my position. Maybe that would happen anyways if I didn’t liven up a little. Everybody had to see just how awkward I was. How could they miss it? What did those two just laugh about? Me? I suddenly regretted wearing such a ridiculous tropical print shirt.

I continued to spiral, fixating on what everyone around me was shouting into each other’s ears, convinced that they were all saying nasty things about me. Now in addition to all the noise, and jostling, and stress sweats, I had to contend with everything they were thinking but were too polite to say to my face. All of my worst insecurities found a home in every casual glance sent my way. Every smirk and every chortle spoke volumes of unspoken insults.

I knew that I was being ridiculous. No one cared enough about me to waste their night with petty insults, but I couldn’t stop my imagination from taunting me using the convenient vehicle of my coworkers’ innocent interactions. To make matters worse, the hotel shuttles wouldn’t start arriving to pick us up for hours. All part of HR’s brilliant plan.

At some point I couldn’t take it anymore. After kicking off my shoes and ditching them under a tree, I shambled off into the night, enjoying the cool breeze in my sweat-soaked hair, the soft sand between my liberated toes, and the solitude of my own thoughts.