Bobby glared at his inbox. How the hell was he going to get through all one thousand and twenty six emails? He glanced at the clock mounted on the institutional grey wall of his work cell, he shouldn’t have left it until now, but he had time and no excuses.
Sighing, he clicked on the first.
Beautiful gentlemun,
I am Australian prince from big palace, we very rich but can’t remember my bank detail, tell me yours and I pay you back triple tomorrow.
Many thank!
His right eye twitched. He deleted it and moved onto the next.
ARE YOU TIRED OF THE EVERYDAY DRAB?
TRY ALL DROOL GRUEL FUEL for schools, duels and brawls!
*now available from the corporate cube cafeteria*
The emails faded together until he could no longer bear to look at them. Bobby clicked ‘Select All’ then ‘Delete’, a trickle of happiness finding its way into some corner of his brain as the four digit number became a perfect 0.
1.
“Motherfucking Mondays”
He stood up and went to the vending machine. The corporate cube was designed for maximum workplace efficiency, which somehow translated into really fucking long corridors so that ‘your blood is pumping by the time you get anywhere’. His blood was certainly pumping by the time he got to the vending machine, he also needed to pee, and didn’t want to buy a snack before going into the toilets, so he went back the way he’d come to do that.
He finished his business and got back to the machine just in time to see someone taking his favourite variety of canned coffee from the machine's flap. “Dang it—Ahem hi Jarred,”
His coworker turned around with a disarming smile, “Sorry Bobby, It’s the best and you know it.”
Bobby resisted the temptation to grab it off the man and chose to be polite, “Yeah, how did the date go?”
Jarred, or Jar Jar as everyone called him behind his back smiled dopily and his eyes glazed over. “She’s the one Bobby, I can feel it, she just understood me…”
Bobby ignored the man's repetitive bubbling as he once again tried to figure out the enigma of the man's luck with the fairer sex, he wasn’t handsome, kind or clever. But somehow every girl he asked always said yes, no matter how out of his league they looked.
“You said that about the last one?” he eventually interjected when the man paused for a breath.
Jar Jar brushed off the patronising question with his usual ‘Yeah, but’ before continuing to ramble, still blocking the vending machine. Bobby began tapping his foot impatiently as he realised that his break would be up soon. Luckily the man finally ended the conversation and left. Bobby sighed and was just putting in the code for his second favourite canned coffee when a loud beep came from behind him, making him jump.
“BREAK OVER, EMPLOYEE MUST RETURN TO WORK CELL.”
A tiny cube hoovered at head height, announcing its displeasure. Bobby ignored it, he would have five minutes before it entered phase two, or as the Cubecorp workers called it ‘Anger Mode’. He paid the vending machine with his implanted credit chip and watched as the can toppled slowly off its shelf and dropped before wedging itself horizontally in the collection shoot.
The cube beeped again. Bobby ignored it and kicked in frustration, making his foot hurt. The can remained lodged. He was about to shake it, but then a thought occurred to him; couldn’t he just reach in through the collection shoot?
He sat down and shoved his hand in, feeling his way deeper and deeper. A door blocked his way and he pushed it aside, feeling another constrict against his upper arm to stop would be stealers. He wasn’t a stealer though, and his can was almost in reach.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
He pushed in once more, and poked the can, it falling neatly into his hand. Then he pulled back, but his elbow hit something and the doors closed further, becoming painful. Bobby tried to move his arm again but everything tightened.
He shook his arm, but nothing happened. The cube beeped again. “Am I stuck?” he whispered, his face going pale.
“STAND UP EMPLOYEE, THE FLOOR IS UNSANITARY.”
Bobby panicked. “Fuck, Fuck, Fuck!”
He pushed and shifted in all manner of ways, but nothing worked. This was going to be so embarrassing if anyone saw him like this. Taking a deep breath and closing his eyes he pulled. Something shifted slightly, and he latched onto that, pushing his feet against the wall as he slid his arm—Wait, no, that wasn’t his arm.
“EMPLOYEE CAUGHT STEALING, ALERTING MANAGER.”
Bobby opened his eyes wide as the machine embraced gravity, blocking his vision as it toppled over and converted human to ketchup.
+++++
“Hello human, can you hear me?” a voice from somewhere awoke him.
Bobby opened his eyes, finding himself in space above a leisurely rotating earth. Where am I? He tried to say as he looked at the big golden moon. Then he realised he didn’t have a mouth and began panicking. Horror movies flashed through his mind of people with smooth mouthless faces, unable to speak a word.
He looked down and realised it wasn’t that he didn’t have a mouth, he didn’t have a body either. He was a glowy blob of light floating in the void of space above the planet. Am I dead, is this the afterlife? He wondered.
“You are dead, but this isn’t the afterlife, I brought you here!” A generic man dressed in a black corporate suit said, suddenly appearing before him.
Who are you? And how can you hear me? Bobby tried to ask.
“I am Afkanoob The Necromonger, a travelling salesgod. And to answer you; this conversation is telepathic.” The salesgod smiled at him, his mouth not moving as he spoke.
Why do you look like that? Bobby queried.
“I have picked this form to match my intentions, I seek to employ you human Bobby, do you accept?”
Bobby thought it over, being employed by a god sounded a lot better than being a cog in the corporate machine. He imagined wearing a white robe and going around blessing people.
“We do not bless many people, and if your robe was white I would smite you. Do you accept?”
Bobby didn’t say yes yet, as taught by his parents he knew not to accept a contract without knowing what it entailed first and anything that involved his soul was a lot more serious than working for the corporations. What benefits does it come with, do I get a bonus?
“A… Bonus?”
Yes a signing bonus, a reward for accepting, and maybe a little extra if I do well!
“Hmm, I suppose that is acceptable, how about I repair your squashed body and give you necromancy powers?”
Bobby felt like he was missing a bit of context. What does this job entail again?
“You’ve got ten years to take over the world, with a possible extension to twenty years if the job proves more difficult than I first thought.”
Why?
“Your planet is being really loud, I want it to shut up and stop sending repeating signals out into space, and I also want a tithe of minions every year once you have achieved domination.”
Why?
“No more questioning me, you either accept now or I disintegrate your soul and find another human.” The man suddenly had an oppressive aura that filled Bobby’s mind with terror.
Bobby tried to cower, suddenly realising that he had been treating the guy as a man not a god and anyone capable of resurrection and transformation could destroy him in less than a heartbeat—or worse twist him into some vile creature to do their bidding.
Okay.
“Excellent, get started, I’ll be a few galaxies over, seeing to some other business, don’t fail.”
The god suddenly unfolded from his mortal form, becoming an existence so incomprehensible that his mind failed and his being was filled with excruciating pain. As he was writhing in agony he barely noticed the force that dragged his disembodied spirit back down to the planet and into his body as it squirmed out from the vending machine.
If his mind had been coherent, the sensation of his body reassembling itself, would have imprinted trauma so large that he probably wouldn’t have been able to function as a normal human ever again. When the last sliver of brain crawled up his nose he curled into a ball and just shivered, glad to finally be back in his body again.
For an unknown amount of time he just sat there muttering nonsense to himself, his mind feeling jumbled and different somehow. Eventually he managed to get his thoughts in order. “Nothing will ever be as traumatic as that” he said to himself, the realisation that the worst was over helping him begin to function again. He uncurled and waved his arm experimentally, it felt wobbly for lack of a better way to describe the sensation.
It was at that moment, his manager came round the corner to see him confused, waving his arm and also in his birthday suit.
+++++