Dreamquestria

by TheBBofC

Paperclip Projectile

Barely awake, Stephen got to his feet to start his morning routine. He shook his head once in an attempt to wake himself up. It only worked a little bit but he’d have to accept what he could get. On his way to the bathroom, he was struck by curiosity. Did he forget to close his window last night? He tried to reach through his window but the glass stopped his palm from going outside. Stephen remembered the cold breezes getting him up to find himself in the forest. If his window was closed the whole time, how did he feel so cold? Perhaps his subconscious’ imagination was much stronger than he originally thought.

Stephen would have to return to this pondering later. The day was calling and there wasn’t much time to be wasted. With a heavy head, eyelids and feet, Stephen staggered into his shower. Sometime between washing his face and hair, Stephen blinked. When his eyes opened, he had reclined against the wall and felt like he’d spent too much time in a jacuzzi. Fearing the worst, he finished up quick. His head, eyelids and feet were still the heaviest parts of his body when he made his way out to check the time. Showering was normally a five-minute ordeal. Today he had been in there for almost thirty minutes.

Half of his time to prepare for the day was gone and he had barely started. How was he going to have time to shave, dress, eat, prepare a lunch, make his bed and clean his kitchen before he’d have to leave? The answer was simple; he wasn’t going to be able to do it all. Under these circumstances alone, he would have trouble getting to work on time. But on top of all that, his car was almost out of gas. He didn’t know if he’d have enough time to stop for fuel on the way there. If he skipped fueling up, he might not have enough fuel to get to work in the first place.

All things considered, hygiene would have to come first. Stephen’s face was getting itchy and thin patches of facial hair didn’t look right on him. Stephen tried to move as fast as he could but was interfered with by a persistent feeling of sleeplessness. Between the sleepiness and rushing, he cut himself shaving. This was not shaping up to be a good morning. But all he had time to do was clot it with some wet bath tissue and hope nobody would notice the scrape.

Stephen grabbed his toothbrush and a travel-sized toothpaste from his bathroom counter before getting dressed. With as much haste as he could muster, he threw on a black button-down shirt, pants and socks. He shoved the dental supplies into his right pocket just before rushing down the steps. The next step was to skip tidying his bedroom and kitchen and get something to eat – fast.

“Clock is ticking, Stephen!” Stephen talked to himself as he pealed through his living room and into his kitchen.

Humanitarian aid came to Stephen’s cluttered mind and tired body in the form of Selena’s soft-yet-chipper voice. “Whoa! Hold your horses!” Stephen looked up to see a gorgeous, shapely woman in his kitchen. Her big, brown eyes matched her complexion. Smooth, charcoal colored hair ran from her head all the way down to the middle of her back and over her shoulders. She was spreading some jelly over pieces of buttered toast.

'Hold your horses,' she says. Stephen chuckled to himself. “I’d rather not. I’m running late. Is that for me?” Stephen pointed to the toast.

“Yeah, I was going to surprise you with one of my special egg sandwiches but it looks like I got started too late.”

“The toast is good enough for now.” Stephen grabbed the plate as he pecked Selena on the cheek. Breakfast was no longer a concern now and that was all that mattered. He looked to his right. The coffee pot on his counter top was half full. There was hope for this morning yet. “You are an amazing woman!” Stephen proclaimed as he rushed for a mug.

“Why are you running so late?” Selena asked.

Stephen poured himself some coffee. “I’m having trouble waking up this morning. Then I dozed off in the shower.”

“Poor baby. Didn’t you sleep last night?”

“I’m pretty sure I did. But I had the weirdest dream.”

“What happened?”

“I was a talking horse and I was being chased by wolves. Then this yellow horse with wings bangs a bunch of pots together to make noise and drives them off. Then she introduces herself as Fluttershy and we start talking about animals.” Selena’s right eye was bugging out. The left eye had squinted. Her pupils got small and her head was cocked back. Stephen laughed, “I made the same face when I woke up this morning. It’s strange, isn’t it?”

“I think you need a vacation. Those idiot customers you deal with all day are finally getting into your head.”

“Soon, Selena. Very soon.” Stephen sipped the coffee and looked up at a clock. “Shoot!” He shouted. He grabbed the plate of toast, kissed Selena again and ran for the door. “You can hang out here if you want. I’ll be back around six. Love you!” Stephen slammed the door behind him.

Stephen ate his breakfast while speeding to work. He didn’t normally like driving fast in the first place. With the added factor of holding breakfast in one hand, he didn’t feel any safer.

Stephen ended up coasting into the gas station on fumes. The office building where he worked was next door. But the possibility of stopping and not being able to start again was too prevalent. He put three gallons in the tank and zipped next door to the office building where he worked. With a deep breath and a sprint, he got inside and clocked in just before the clock struck 9:01. Stephen breathed a sigh of victory. Coming this close to being late had never been an issue for Stephen before. He didn’t know if there were consequences for clocking in late, but it was not something he wanted to risk. Now that he was clocked in, he could relax, brush his teeth in the restroom and return to his cubicle for work.

Stephen worked customer service for a construction-contracting agency. It was endless hours on the phone in a cubicle. On the other side of his phone were a variety of people. These people ranged from enraged customers to clueless customers to enraged clueless customers to lawyers to any combination of the aforementioned. Stephen would also have to fill out various forms while on the phone. These were usually customer complaints but sometimes varied to billing and taking notes for certain jobs. Dealing with all of this was taxing enough on a good day. Today, was particularly bad as Stephen had about half of his usual energy.

Every now and then, the extremely rare polite and educated customer would appear, providing a breath of fresh air to Stephen. There was only one of these today. This particular gentleman was on the road, heading home and trying to make a note for the workers he was expecting to remodel his bathroom today. He wanted to make sure they had enough of the right type of tile. The type of tile the customer wanted checked out easily. But neither of them was certain of the amount needed.

“I want to make this very clear,” said the customer. “You guys do a great job but I do not want to have to pay for a second day of work. So it’s really important you get everything you need there on the first try.”

“I’ll do my best, sir,” said Stephen. “How many square feet is the bathroom?”

There was a pause over the phone. “Shoot! I don’t remember. I can tell you the room itself is eight-by-sixteen feet.”

“Is the eight feet the width or the length?” Stephen asked.

“The width,” the customer replied.

“One moment please,” Stephen grabbed a pen and a pad of sticky notes. These customers didn’t come often. But they came often enough for Stephen to challenge himself by trying to do the equations in his head or see how fast he could do them on paper. He drew a rectangle and labeled the width ‘8’ and the length ‘16’. It might have been due to his exhaustion but it took him longer than usual to work out the equation in his head. After completing the equation, he added twenty square feet to the order for safety. “I’ve got it taken care of, sir. I’ll make sure they have everything they need.”

“Thanks, buddy, I’m counting on you.”

“Have a nice day, sir.” Stephen hung up the phone and was greeted by the smooth yet somehow nails-on-a-chalkboard voice that was his co-worker, Damien.

“Get it taken care of?” asked Damien.

Stephen glanced up at him. He’s known this guy for as long as he could remember and he was always a jerk to him. Stephen never knew what his motivations were or how he kept appearing in his life. He just knew that if Damien was on fire, Stephen had no reason to so much as relieve himself to put it out. Today he was simply too tired to put up with his nonsense. “It wasn’t anything too difficult.”

A malicious smirk came over Damien's face. “That’s a good thing then. You look a little red in the eyes today. Glaucoma prescription, I assume?” The smug in his voice jumped an entire level when he made that assumption.

“I’m fine. Just had a rough night.” Stephen needed something, anything to keep him from making eye contact with Damien. After a moment's search, he began spinning his ruler around his desk with a finger.

“I’m sure you did.” Damien's smile got even bigger. Stephen knew this look. He only got it when he was looking for something to antagonize him with. “You know, Stephen. Employee reviews are coming up soon. Keep your head level. We don’t want a repeat of last year.” Stephen abruptly stopped spinning the ruler, leaving its first inch hanging over the edge of the desk.

Was Damien referring to last year when several anonymous reports came in a month before the review claiming Stephen to be rude and using profanity over the phone? The same incident that took a two-week investigation to conclude that the complaints were phoned-in (so to speak) while those responsible remained unknown? The incident wasn’t brought up in his reviews last year. But they did mention that they wouldn’t be allowed to consider the incident because nothing was ever proven either way. Stephen could tell that it was on their minds the whole time and an unofficial probation delayed his annual raise by two months.

Stephen picked up a paper clip and fiddled it around his fingers before dropping it down near the twelve-inch mark on the ruler. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Damien laughed at Stephen’s bluff and started trailing off on another subject.

Stephen stopped paying attention. His eyes wandered over to the edge of the cubicle’s opening adjacent to where Damien was standing. A spot on the wall’s corner caught Stephen’s eye.

Stephen, who was now leaning on his right hand, sat up straight to address Damien. “Look, Damien, don’t you have somewhere you need to be?” Stephen asked. Not leaning on his hand anymore, he allowed it to drop. It smacked the edge of the ruler that was hanging over the edge of his desk. The paper clip was launched through the air, banked off the edge of the cubicle’s opening and straight up into Damien’s right eye. Stunned, Damien slapped himself in the face and almost fell back. “Oh shoot!” Stephen acted as sincere as he could. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean that. Are you alright?” He tried to look at Damien’s eye. The eye and the area around it was already turning red. Some of that was probably from Damien slapping himself in the face. But Stephen only caught a glance of it before Damien shoved him back into his chair. Damien stormed off. Stephen was free for now. But this freedom only lasted a moment before his desk’s phone rang again.

The hours continued to drag but eventually it was ten minutes to five. His shift was almost over and the calls actually started to slow down. Stephen had just started to relax when Kramer, his boss, appeared at his cubicle’s opening. He was very large and round with pasty skin, an egg-shaped face and two chins. Thin white hair barely managed to cover his scalp. He always wore an expensive tailor-made suit.

“Stephen, how are you?” he spoke in a slow monotone.

“I’m holding up. How are you?”

Kramer skipped right to the chase. “Can we talk before you clock out?”

“Sure, right behind you,” said Stephen. Kramer hardly ever appeared unless there was an assignment he needed to give or an issue he needed to address. This wasn’t likely going to end well. Once Kramer had his back turned, it took an audible grunt to summon the energy to put Stephen on his feet.

Stephen arrived at Kramer’s office and took a take a seat across from his boss. Kramer’s office was perfectly tidy with a large oak desk and a computer. Spread out on the desk was a calendar with notes marked on various dates. On the left wall was a whiteboard with a red-ink to-do list scribbled on it. Most of the items had been crossed off.

Kramer looked Stephen dead in the eyes. “Did you launch a paper clip into Damien’s eye earlier today?” his voice remained monotone despite the stern look on his face.

Stephen recoiled at the question but regained his composure. “What? No!” That was a lie. “Well, yes,” There was the truth. “Not intentionally anyway,” that was a half-truth. “It was an accident. I accidentally slapped a ruler that accidentally had a paper clip sitting on it and then the paper clip accidentally bounced off my cubicle and into his eye.”

Kramer dropped his head and rubbed his eyes. “It’s almost time for us to go home so I’m only going to say this;” If he only had one thing to say that meant that this would be over relatively soon. Kramer’s drone made long conversations and lectures very difficult. Kramer traced his desk’s calendar with a finger, eventually landing next Friday. “Your reviews are coming up and you need to look better than you did last year. So let’s not have a reason to put ‘trouble working with others’ in your notes. Is that clear?”

Stephen was practically frozen in place. “I hear what you’re saying,” he said.

“Good. Now go ahead and clock out. We’ll see you bright-eyed and fresh in the morning. Damien pointed out that you were feeling tired today. We don’t want that to drag your performance down either.”

That dirty snake. Stephen thought behind closed eyes and a fake smile. “Sounds good,” was all he said before leaving.

Comments

[TundraStanza]

For some reason, I have a very unreasonable urge to kick Damien in the nuts... and the spine... and drive a bullet through his cerebellum... and maybe throw in a lava pit filled with alligators just for kicks and giggles.
...
What the heck is wrong with me?

[TheBBofC]

1461473
As long as you don't turn that feeling into action we can qualify it as normal. Although I am tempted to ask how one would get alligators into a pit of lava without the result of very crispy alligators. I never thought anyone would hate Damien more than Stephen and Stephen is the one working with him.

[InarJollyhound]

Dang, wouldn't want to work there, but i guess someones gotta do it!

1461473
Mmmmmm Alligator stew!

[The Dimension Traveler]

1492481

They're a special breed of Lava Alligators. A cross breeding of alligators and Lava Whales from Atlantis.

[TheBBofC]

3431394
You know what I meant.

[Godiswithus3]

This job does not sound appealing. At all. I pity those who have these kinds of jobs.