CHESHIRE GETS A JOB

I set the small envelope down on the countertop, the ever-indignant miser living in my brain telling me to pick the envelope up and slurp up the delicious cash within. Like, I had things that I didn’t need per se yet, still desperately wanted. Like a new phone, a new car, a new house or even six inches of height. (Listed in increasing order of how unlikely I am to ever see these things) I’m 22, which basically means I’m done with all my growing… well… what little growing I’d gotten in before my body, made its best impression of that cunt bartender Meghan who saw me flirting semi-successfully with a hot guy and decided to say: “Sweetie, it looks like you’ve had enough.” Only, my body didn’t kick me out of a bar… well to be fair, I’d had way more than enough if I were displaying any degree of social aptitude, and that was only because of the general acceptance of people seeing someone who’s drunk making an absolute fool of themselves.

Either way, it was time to leave before…. Keys scratched at the lock to the door, just before my heart stopped beating. I immediately ducked down behind the kitchen counter as the door swung open hesitantly. Damn it, he’d noticed I’d left the door unlocked. “Hello?” came his hesitant voice. Damn it number two, I should’ve locked the door, curse you past me! Heavy footsteps entered the room as lighter footsteps creeped around the kitchen counter. To my right was a hallway, through which there was a window I could exit through. The footsteps traveled to my left towards the living room, as I moved to the hallway, creeping into a room. I looked around briefly…. Oh… it’s just as I… the door behind me swung open. “Who the hell are y-…” He cut himself off as he recognized me. He let out a long sigh, lowering the 12-gauge shotgun he’d had leveled at my un-shotgunproof bits (Namely, all of them). “Chesh, are we still doing this?” he said, his tone of voice driving a dagger into my chest, damn human emotions. “I have no idea what you mean,” I lied blatantly, I didn’t even know why I did. Forgive me Lumina… again. “Oh, so I assume there isn’t an envelope on the kitchen counter filled with cash?” he accused. I was a stone, a mountain of emotionless steel, my face akin to a mask that folds to my whim…. Currently that mask was folded into the expression of five-year-old me after getting caught stealing food from the fridge… for purely tactical reasons…. … Forgive me Lumina… again.

“Uh huh,” he said, in the exact same way he did to five-year-old me all those years ago. I sighed and flopped backwards, falling onto the bed I’d grown up on, it was laced with memories. Back when I wet the bed, this was the one I’d wet, back when I was sick, what felt like every other week, this was the bed I’d vomited in, back when I was dating that asshole Keith, that literally every one of the one people I knew told me was an asshole, this was the bed I’d cried on when he took my virginity and ran off with it. Ah… old times… the pillows still smelled funny. Every time I thought about Keith, I remembered what happened when I finally put myself together and came out of my room. I saw him with another girl, like two weeks after we’d broken up, and let’s just say I played a mean game of hacky sack with him, a game so mean in fact I don’t think he’ll ever have children… like ever, ever. Anyways, I warned off the girl, and we’d been on and off friends ever since. “You’re thinking about Keith again, aren’t you?” he asked, a smirk on his face. “No,” I said. Sorry Lumina… I should really get an app on my phone for this. “You have that. Remembering Keith look on your face Chesh, you’re not fooling anyone.” I blushed. My face is totally under my control I am like, super stoic… yeah…. Sorry Lumina. “Damn shame what happened to him.” I suddenly looked up at him. “Hey! You’re not on his side, are you?” I asked… said… threatened. He raised his hands placatingly, leaning the shotgun against the wall. “No, no of course not. But, geez Chesh, you could’ve stopped kicking him in the balls after he fell on the ground and stopped resisting.” “What can I say? I play a mean game of hacky sack,” I said, shamelessly plagiarizing my internal monologue. He snickered at my joke. “You gonna at least stay for dinner?” he asked, smiling. I knew I shouldn’t… but, it had been too long. “Sure, sure,” I said.

I was sitting at the dining room table… okay, I admit it. There was no dining room table, or at least it doubled as the coffee table in the middle of the living room. Like any normal person who was sitting waiting for something, I was scrolling through random stories on my phone, looking to see if there was anything interesting while failing spectacularly. I felt like there should’ve been a residual awkward atmosphere, like an oil residue left on someone’s fingers, but that just wasn’t how he worked. He had this way of putting me at ease, probably a trained response in me from all the times he cuddled me while I was crying, most significant of which was with the Keith incident, before the game of hacky sack, that is. I felt like I had my soul torn out and beaten with a baseball bat, yet through all the crying, and screaming, and thrown objects, he stayed… mostly. He’d hid behind the door when I picked up my desk chair. Looking through those old memories made me look around the house, noting all the small discrepancies, how everything had changed over the years. The couch I was sitting on was younger than the coffee table in front of it. We’d had to toss out the old couch when we realized it was growing some weird purple mold. After that we’d gone a full year and a half without a couch before we’d finally scraped together enough pennies to afford a new one. Looking back into the deep recesses of my mind, I realized just how different this room was when I’d visited as a kid, back when my parents were still alive. Sometimes I wished I could remember their faces, sure I’d seen them in pictures, but it wasn’t the same.

He walked back into the room, handing me a plastic take-out container filled with microwaved pasta. “Thanks,” I said. Setting my container down on the table, before murmuring a quick prayer just over my breath. “Lumina, goddess of light and radiance, I thank you for your blessing upon this meal.” I felt a lightness settle over me, as I finished my prayer, Lumina in her infinite grace, descending unto this microwaved pasta from on high and sanctifying it against all evils. I grabbed my food and took a bite of the pasta. It was somehow bland, yet salty, dry, yet greasy, and still all so wonderful. The world was an odd place when you got past all the… well… normalcy, I guess. I continued eating in silence, my uncle across from me, already having started. When I was about halfway through my meal, my uncle finished and spoke up.

“So, about the money,” he began. I interrupted him. “Non-negotiable,” I said, raising a hand. “Damn it Chesh. Listen, I really don’t need the money, you could do much more with it than I could. All I need money for nowadays is losing it playing cards with Robert and the others down the road,” he said. “Oh, don’t give me that, I know you need it, I’ve been paying attention, there’s no way you can pay for this place and the rent for the shop with the income you’re getting,” I said. “True, but those are my problems, not the problems of my stubborn niece,” he said. "No, it is my problem because I’m making it my problem. Besides, what could I do with that money that’s so important?” I asked. “Maybe leave this god forsaken city?” He said, tone somber. That gave me pause, leaving the city… that was so far beyond me that I hadn’t even thought to put it on my list of nonsense earlier. “What good will that do? If I leave to one of the sky cities, I won’t be able to afford a sandwich, much less a place to stay, much, much less the taxes everyone has to pay to live there. I’d be back here in less than a month.” My voice held a little of the sadness I was feeling at that admittance. There was a reason why this city was called Hope’s Grave. “Look, no matter what, I’m not going to stop helping you. I don’t care if you gamble it all away, or just let the moths get to it in a drawer, but I’m going to keep giving you money,” I said. It was a lie, I would care, but I didn’t feel the need to apologize to my goddess, the teachings of the church of Lumina didn’t strictly forbid lying after all. It was just considered to be in poor taste.

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I stood from the couch and smiled at him. He sighed and smiled back. “You know, you’re so short, sometimes I forget you’re an adult,” he said. “Hey! I’m not that short,” I said, trying to keep a smile off my face. “Sure, sure,” he said, standing to his full height, a full eleven inches taller than me, just to make me feel small… it definitely worked, but I was definitely not going to tell him. “That means nothing, you’re just freakishly tall,” I said standing on my toes to make myself seem less childish… wait a minute…. He laughed at me, pulling me in for a hug, squeezing me tight to his chest. “Never change Spring bean,” he said. “I’ve changed plenty,” I said, voice muffled. He chuckled. “Sure, you have,” he said, releasing me. It wasn’t until later that night when I was doing my laundry like the responsible adult I am, that I found the envelope slipped into my pocket. I sighed, a smile on my face.

I looked at the person standing outside my door. “Meghan,” I said. Meghan smiled at me, I just frowned. She sighed, “Okay, why are you angry at me this time?” The traitor asked. “You know why,” I said. “Wait, are you still mad about that one guy who you were talking with at the bar?” My eyes narrowed. I moved to close the door, but Meghan put her foot in it first. Meghan had a minor speed blessing from the goddess Kinetta, not enough to get her a job for it, but enough to make it extremely difficult for a normal person like me to out speed her in practically anything. “I’m a little offended you have so little trust in me. Yeah, that guy was not what you were looking for. He comes into the bar with a different girl practically every week,” Meghan said. “He’s practically just another Keith.” I sighed, then let the door swing open. Meghan walked in. “Every time I come here it seems like you lost twenty square feet of floor space,” Meghan said. “It’s the same size as it has always been,” I said, closing the door behind us. Meghan looked around, the room filled with random things I bought on impulse and never threw out, other than that, the floors were clear, but had clearly been in a long-distance relationship with the broom for a while, long enough that it started a little side something with whoever’s socks walked across it at any given time. Suffice it to say, I never really had time for sweeping. Maybe I should invest in one of those cleaning robots? Meghan walked into my kitchen, opened my fridge, and stared at the back of it. “You really need to get some food in here,” Meghan said. “I have food,” I said, walking into the living room and sitting on the pile of railroad ties onto which I placed my second floofiest comforter, that I generously called couch. “Yeah, I don’t count the microwaved dinners you have in the freezer as food.” “So, did you just come here to complain about how I don’t have any food, or do you have a reason for being here?” I asked, perhaps a little harshly.

Meghan just smiled. “Yes, actually. I wanted to ask you if you had anything planned for tonight?” I paused, considering. “Not really.” “Great! I have a job for you then.” “Yeah… why?” I asked. “Well, I figured you could use the money, what with you giving all your money to your uncle every month.” “I don’t give him all my money,” I said. She looked at me dubiously. “Yeah, but what percentage do you give him exactly?” I sighed. “Okay fine, maybe I could use some more money,” I relented, “What does the job entail?” “Well, it’s simple, you can be a bagger for the adventurer’s guild,” she said smiling. I frowned. “Uh huh… Meghan?” I said, voice chillingly calm. “Yes?” Meghan said, smiling broadly. “What the fuck?” I asked, just as calm as before. “Well, it’s a well-paying job.” “Yeah, well so is weapons testing dummy, but no one wants that job, because you will fucking die!” I rebutted. (Sorry Lumina) “Okay, let me finish. The job is perfectly safe, you’ll be with a top-level team, and they’ll guard you with their lives. Besides, you know more about monsters than anyone I know.” “Yeah, and that’s why I don’t work for the damn Adventurer’s Guild. Because I know enough about monsters to know they are NOT something I want to have to deal with,” I said. “But the pay is really good,” Meghan stressed. “Then why don’t you do it? You have that speed blessing, you’d do great.” “It’s a speed blessing, not a stamina blessing. Speed means nothing in a jungle where no one can move for shit anyways,” Meghan said. I frowned. “Do you know how dangerous monsters are? Like, what if we run into a slime out there?” “Don’t be ridiculous, slimes live in the deep woods where they can find large prey like wyverns and drakes.” “Yeah, but you’re forgetting there are no walls in the forest, the only thing keeping a slime from shoving a tentacle through my skull out there is a couple miles of unwalled jungle,” I said. “Okay, but slimes are slow anyways, your team will probably just run from one.” I stayed silent, and she continued. “Besides, didn’t you always want to be an adventurer?” Damn it, I couldn’t argue that either. “Besides, a good bagger should be able to tell if a monster is worth fighting or not, and again I’m pretty sure you can identify every monster by sight alone. Tell them to fight the green bellied demi-drake instead of the orange bellied demi-drake.” “Okay, first: A green bellied demi-drake is far more dangerous than an orange bellied demi drake, the orange emits a foul-smelling gas from its mouth that also acts as a smokescreen, any decent mage can clear it off with a wind spell, while the green can spit a jet of acid strong enough to melt the lining of your stomach form fifty feet away. And second: Neither are something they’d send a team with me on it to kill,” I said. Meghan arched an eyebrow at me. Oh… I just proved her point, didn’t I? Well, I’d be lying if I said I was entirely against being convinced anyways. “Fine, but If I get killed, I’m going to come back to haunt you,” I said.