Office work really kills you doesn’t it. “Ugh”, if not for the mental health checkups every month I would be acting a lot more depressed. I’ve been wondering if I should get some sort of botox fillers in my cheeks, force a smile to look good for corporate.
I technically should be filing in the documents for the upcoming Christmas party, but I somehow keep getting stuck in my head trying to rhyme words with “silver”. I've yet to come up with any.
Twenty minutes until leaving time. Sometimes it’s nice being in a cubicle rather than a big glass office, no one can see me sleeping, normally.
“Maron…” behind me like some sort of blood sniffing hound is the assistant manager, or as us lowlifes of the office call him, the dictator. “Maron, just because we are close to the end of the day doesn’t mean you get to sleep on the job. You think those deodorant sales are gonna sort themselves?”
Cursing under my breath is no use, I'm petty enough where I would want him to hear me. Imagine, imagine caring so much about giving people mediocre deodorant that it is important enough to wake me from my nap. I turn around and use the smile I have developed over many years of practice
“oh sorry I must’ve dozed off from working so hard”. He doesn't flinch, Well shit he isn’t walking away, maybe I should have smiled wider.
“Don’t give me that excuse Maron, you are wasting company time, we don't’ pay you to sleep, we pay you to handle your responsibilities”. Why can’t he just call me Remus, Why does he have to call me by my last name like an overweight gym teacher patronizing you on your mile time?
I really should have tried to be an actor, I haven’t seen another person in this office fake apologies with quite the commitment I have. “Sorry Ned, I've been having an off week, my back has been aching a lot from these old chairs. I'll try to stay on the agenda!”.
If that hasn’t done it I don't know what will. “Did I buy the chairs Maron?” He's real ladies and gentlemen, Sherlock is real. “No Ned I do not believe you bought the chairs”.
“Well then, you have no reason to complain about it to me, it doesn’t change that you haven’t finished your reports for the day, and call me Mr.Garrison, not Ned”. He turns around and walks away. I ponder how a five-foot-five man could feel so big. Well, back to my work, spending the rest of the day finishing my imaginary scenario from my nap.
It’s cold enough outside where I feel not one bit of shame walking down the road cloaked in a blanket. Mothers walk by eyeballing me for a second and take a couple of feet of distance as they go around with their child.
What are they expecting, am I going to open up my blanket and sell black market organs to their child? Wait, do I look like someone who would do that? I get so caught up in this fact I step off the curb, it might’ve been the minor concussion but the splat as I hit the ground sounds kind of like a cymbal crash after a bad joke. I pop up quickly and turn my head, whew no one’s around, wrapped back up in my blanket I walk by some shops.
All of them are near empty, it gets so dark in winter people take it as a sign to just stay home after 5:00. I peer into a shop filled with candy, I wonder if the man at the counter would judge me if I bought one of those ignorantly large lollipops.
I’ve never had one before but ever since I saw the Wizard of Oz I’ve had a burning curiosity to try one. I decide to walk in, let's try to do this nonchalantly I think. I push the door and am welcomed by the abrupt clanging of bells above my head, curses, holiday spirit has made me visible. The man at the counter looks at me, then looks down to see no child by me, then looks back up at me, with knotted eyebrows.
My mouth is flat, accept it man, I came in here, a perfectly normal adult, to get a very oversized lollipop.
Now is time to really commit to this, I stomp across the store, grab my lollipop, bring it to the counter and look him dead in the eye. My voice quivers. “MAY I BUY THIS LOLLIPOP”. He scratches his head, “Yea? That will be $2.25”. I put the money on the counter, grabbed my lollipop, and ran out the door, never again.
Two miles feels very far in snow, doubly far when carrying a giant lollipop. I arrive at a building in progress that never seems to get finished. A black cat cuts across the opening of the empty road in front of me to take shelter in the empty building.
The wind rustles up some leaves on the ground, and the snow starts setting in. Finally, a light layer of snow is caking the ground. It's probably time to go. I scavenge my pocket grabbing fingerfuls of lint until I finally pull out a single silver penny. The penny was quite scratched, but you could make out the printing of the year, 1943.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
I flick the penny high in the air, it spins faster on its way down, but right before hitting the ground, it suspends for a moment. Long hair-like strands of blue-green matter start circling the penny spinning in a spiral, they slowly go faster and get thicker till it resembles a vortex. I step one foot forward and fall, letting myself be sucked up until I am fully surrounded in a blue-green space, falling yet it doesn’t feel like it's going to hurt when I land.
I plummet for a couple of seconds, eventually, there is visible light at the bottom, sounds of rustling, and a smell of cheap cologne. My foot touches solid ground and my eyes adjust to the space around me.
Bright colors above shift around like they are alive, an eternal night sky aurora. The moving waves of light overlap and merge as if they were alive and aware. A faint buzzing emits from the boundless sky above. I look back down, turn to my side, and hop in an office chair. I mean the other cubicle is fine, but it’s much easier to fall asleep with something this spectacular above me.
Suddenly a loud pounding sound starts getting louder… closer. “Maron…” I peek my head back and give a cheesy smile, “let me tell ya, that snow is something, I swear I thought I was going to make it”.
“I don’t wanna hear it Maron! You are 17 minutes late for your shift, what could be more important than this!?”
... A lot.
“Nothing Mr. Harrison, I went straight to the office as soon as I could-”, he grabbed my left arm and lifted it, revealing the lollipop I fought a war of anxiety to achieve, “what is this?”.
“Do you really want me to tell you, or are you just trying to make some sort of point, because it seems pretty obvious to anyone it's a lollipop”, is what I would like to say, but alas, a job is a job and it’s pretty nice being able to eat.
“It seems to be a lollipop, Mr. Harrison''. He nearly turns the shade of the red swirl on the lollipop, I wonder what would happen if I lightly tapped his stomach, he looks like he’s having some trouble.
“IMPORTANT THINGS WERE HAPPENING WHILE YOU WERE OUT PARTYING”. Well I mean, that's an exaggeration.
“Maron! If you don’t get those reports IN by the end of your shift, so help me I will-”.
I grab his arm that isn’t holding the lollipop, and place it on my thigh, he stops yelling, in shock of this event. “Well Mr.Harrison, if you want me filing reports, maybe I should file a sexual harassment report, consent is a cup of tea Mr.Harrison and I did not ask for Earl Grey on my lap”.
His hand retreats and I await the screams, oh the screams. I wonder if he will turn purple this time, it's like color-coded levels of anger.
Thinking about it, this was unavoidable, you see, people have limits, this was mine. Remaining serious for more than 2 minutes is a struggle, remaining serious while someone yells at you is painful, remaining serious while someone turns bright red spitting enough garbage they could rival wannabe rappers, is not something I can do.
I close my eyes, as someone might do before they die, I wait for my fatal end, cause? Overactive sarcasm and the genes of a smart ass. I wait a couple more seconds and when I hear nothing happening, I open my eyes to see Mr.Harrison gone, how, how was I not fired, I do not know what just happened, but all I know is I get to sleep in my cubicle for another three hours. I noted to buy a bible after my shift. I don’t know how to pray, but after that miracle, I better learn.
Hmm, after this newfound epiphany maybe I shouldn't nap, I mean I do want to keep my job.
Like my morning office job, filing reports, well it’s a little different than the other job, with the whole vortex to a subspace of reality. Where am I? I'm in the lower level of MMP. Just like normal offices, there are MMP agencies all across the Country. MMP, modern magic protection agencies are something still hidden from the public, no one remembers how they found the job, all they know is they found a penny in their pocket, and it has good pay.
When we all started working for the MMP we had to go through an interview to see our magical capabilities, people with high capabilities go in the field and do all that stuff you see in action movies, my depressed buddies and I over here had low expected capabilities, so we are stuck in these stuffy subspaces doing regular old office work, with the occasional floating pen.
The most we are capable of doing is powering the four-dimensional dispatch devices, basically over-complicated magic computers, they slap on a fancy name to make it sound fun or something.
We tap into the frequencies from the Earth’s core to use supernatural powers, they are out there shooting fireballs or whatever those protagonist people do. and we harness it to send shitty memes to each other. Oscar is in the cubicle in front of me, he barely missed the cut to go into fieldwork, so he contributes to most of the mayhem in the office.
I start filing reports, you know actual work, being productive, and all the things that don't happen often, when I feel something hit the side of my face.
I turn to see a paper airplane flying in the air by itself, and a grown man giggling at his desk waving his finger around. “Oscar, I can’t put it into many words, there aren’t enough to say it, so rather in one word may I ask... why?” .
He clears his throat and stands up so I can see half his body over the cubicle “oh Maron! I didn't even see you here, whatever do you mean?”. I sigh and grab the oversized lollipop off my desk, “Will I be able to continue unbothered if I give you this?”.
His eyes open wide “oh yes!” he giggles again as I reluctantly hand it over, my hands even more reluctant as they barely give out and are still gripping the empty air as the lollipop leaves their grasp. “Thank you so much Remus!” Oscar ripped off the plastic and started eating it louder than anyone ever should. He continues to lick it and says, “I feel like I’m in the Wizard of Oz!” My head shifts fully round like an owl, and my eyes strike daggers at him, another day…
I will do it another day… Second note to self, when buying giant lollipops, always grab a spare.