The Disappointed / Marcus Gales
I had been in my office for barely seven minutes today, when the first nuisance made itself know in the image of one of my older co-workers.
“I’m not even surprised of your appearance here, John. First my car stops working, then Arthur calls me to say that Veronica died, after that my most recent client tries to evade his last payment… and now you. Let me guess, did Mr. Thomson send you?”
“…Yes” He said, with his signature poker face and handed to me a not-so-small stack of papers. More work, figures. At the very least this was well payed, even if it was about defending dirty business.
As expected.
“Sometimes I wish I had chosen being something other than a lawyer” as I read the stack of papers in my desk, those words escape my mouth in a low tone, the type of thoughts that should being held inside me, but there was little point in it, I have known John for so much time that makes keep secrets somewhat redundant, as he has a way to know what people are thinking at all times.
“Really?” He said, I kept quiet and his normally cold politeness became unmasked sadism. “So you would prefer being a simple baker or a clerk in a store? Surely that will give you good money”
“It would be less morally taxing” He didn’t believe my retort, but neither did I.
“Maybe, maybe not” With practiced easy, he took a seat in one of my couches, opened his briefcase and handed me a small file “Chances are that you would have ended doing unscrupulous things, like most of your clients, just to stay afloat.”
“…That’s a grim view of things” It was, however, common to see starting business men or small store owners make some mistakes and illegal actions in their struggle to make gains.
“You have not denied it” I haven’t, in all honesty I couldn’t. The dawning realization that I’m unsuited for most tasks outside my expertise ought to be one of the worst parts of my job. In a feeble attempt to change topics, I decided to ask about the file I had yet to open.
“I’m getting a vacation” I couldn’t believe my ears, commitment defined this man, and I haven’t see him took a vacation in the last years. Probably because of his disinterest in most things outside work, but his diligence was still an admirable gift, you could even find him working even in the hottest Sunday.
“You? A vacation?”
“Yes, I’m getting married. I’ll hand you the invitation one of these days” Suddenly things made sense again. Lydia was John fiancée, they had meet in a party during their university days and dated since then. She was a boring person in my opinion, but it suited good John, they had the same tastes and I think they love each other. I didn’t say it, but I couldn’t imagine him with another woman.
“Well, congratulations” With that, we spent the next thirty minutes in mindless talk, mostly about his wedding and some teasing about my lack of love life.
It was in the early afternoon when I get off the office to see the mechanic that was in charge of my car, I had left it with him in the morning and he assured me it would be ready in a couple of hours.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
I was nearing the workshop when the sensation of falling down appeared and a chill crossed my spine. For a moment, I’m sure, my senses stopped working and my long forgotten instincts screamed at me. Confusion does not begin to describe what I felt, especially when it was so powerful, yet so short… It was less than an instant.
Even so, the worse came a moment later, when I tried to search in my surroundings the cause of my distress. Just to find myself completely lost.
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The Mediocre / Arthur Baker
Today is the day, I have been waiting for it. It’s payday, the monthly Christmas for every employee out there. Money makes the world go' around in this era, from food and basic utilities to the most useless gadgets needed this form of currency to be obtained. Thankfully this day was bound to happen again and again, for as long as I could maintain a job.
And so, I was in my way to my favorite Spanish restaurant (just that it wasn’t really Spanish, the cooks were from some part of South America), I liked it because the food was delicious, exotic and easy on my wallet.
In the middle of the road I got absorbed in my various thoughts, I had managed to get a new job, a better one, my house was a mess but I lived alone and mattered little in the end, there wasn’t any bill to pay right now, but I ran out of wine last week, needed to buy some more bottles. Strangely enough, there was a sense of discouragement crawling in the back of my mind, as if something was going wrong.
How senseless. I resided in a nice city, was in good terms with my family, had a job, a decent apartment and enough social life to make the 16-years-old me jealous. Life was great, mine at least.
All of this while glaring a pack of cigarettes in my hand, I felt a little stupid for that, those cigarettes weren’t guilty of my dissatisfaction with life, if anything they were one of the few things I still enjoyed in my routine.
I decided to smoke one quickly before arriving to the restaurant, for some reason they didn’t like smokers in there.
At that point I had to bring my walk to a stop. The reason? I wasn’t in the road anymore. The kicker? I probably wasn’t in the same city anymore. A couple of glances around the place were more than enough to confirm it in my eyes.
… I still smoked one. It was a good one.
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The Failure / Giovani Armati
Cold sweat clung into my clothes, as the last day of the month came to an end. Tomorrow this small store and other two companies will convert my hard work into money to appear in my bank account. First off, I have to pay my living expenses and then my college studies. Regrettably I won’t have much time to enjoy the fruits of my labor since my exams will start next week but, if my math wasn’t failing me (it rarely does), I will have a small surplus this month, hopefully enough to pay for learning some language in my free time.
Life, of course, goes as always.
“Hey, Gio” A tall, slouching man, called my name. He was Terry, one of my coworkers in the store.
“The Boss want to have a word with you” I frowned, this was a first for me to be called, even more so in the last day of the month. I tried to recall any mistake I could have committed, but nothing came to my mind.
“Don’t worry, he probably just wanna to talk about the next shifts” Sensing my distress, Terry made a weak try at reassuring me. His attitude of happy-go-lucky could incommode me sometimes, but I couldn’t bring myself to get angry when he was always so nice to me.
“…Yeah” Probably not, seeing that those were already talked about, and was nothing to call me over. But thinking wouldn’t get me anywhere without action, so I left Terry there and directed towards the boss office.
“…And that’s why” What my boss wanted to talk about ended up being my dismissal from the store. In other words, I was getting fired. When I asked for the reasons, the manager just gave some evasive answers and blew my worries as if nothing.
“What about my contract, sir?” That was my biggest worry and weapon, in my contract I was to receive a couple months’ worth of money if I were to be fired without reason, it was a common clause, but the last time me employee made up nonexistent troubles from my end to avoid payment. I was sure I could bring the issue to the court and win, but I couldn’t pay a lawyer at the time, and the same applies now.
“Don’t worry, I will deposit you two months of work to your account, as per agreement” Well, it wasn’t so bad. I would have to find another workplace now, but at least I wasn’t going to starve to death in the next days.
After that, I just went back to my old apartment to sleep, it was pretty late and I had to work early the next day. It was just when I got to the door, that my senses went overboard, alerting me of danger. When I tried to turn away, thinking of a robbery, that I felt l was falling and my vision went dark.
Just a moment later, I was looking at a bright, blue sky… and two suns in it.