Lord of Time

by Michele Amitrani

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Johnson. Didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “What is it that you want?”

  “I … I was just wondering if I could help you with your workload,” Alfred said. “I know you’ve taken on Mr. Jolly’s assignments while he’s at the Seattle conference, and I thought I could help you with that, somehow …” Alfred trailed off hopefully.

  Mrs. Johnson’s eyebrows rose. “You want to help me,” she said.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Well,” she said, looking doubtful, “that is very … kind of you, White, but I don’t think you’ve been around long enough to handle—”

  “Try me,” Alfred interjected, surprising himself with his boldness.

  Mrs. Johnson was silent for a moment. “You’ve been here for … ?”

  “Over four weeks now,” Alfred filled in helpfully.

  “Right. And you know how to deal with a class-five deliverable?”

  “I think I’ve got the gist of it. Mr. Solidali gave me a class seven yesterday.”

  “Did he, now?” Mrs. Johnson studied Alfred from behind her narrow spectacles, like she was seeing him for the first time. “Very well, then. I could surely use some help. I think Mr. Solidali believes there are three people working in this cubicle. Here.” She handed him a file.

  “Thanks, Mrs. Johnson,” Alfred said, taking the file from her bony hands. “I’ll give it to you in one.”

  “Day?” Mrs. Johnson frowned.

  “Hour,” Alfred answered.

  Alfred pushed his chair forward and went back behind his desk, happy with his new task.

  He wasn’t aware his typing had gotten louder. Remarkably, no complaint came from Mrs. Johnson this time.

  “Hey.”

  Alfred turned. It was Jack, leaning on his cubicle.

  “Wanna grab something to eat at the bar?” he asked, sniffing. “I’m heading there now with a couple more folks.”

  “Thanks, but I’ll pass,” Alfred said cheerfully. “Maybe next time. I’ve got a deadline to meet.”

  “Sure thing.” Jack cleared his mouth. “By the way, thanks again for the help. I owe you one.”

  “Don’t mention it,” Alfred said.

  Less than forty minutes later, Alfred handed back the file to Mrs. Johnson, who looked at it diligently. When she closed it, she studied Alfred. “This will keep Solidali off my neck for a while,” she said. “I guess I’ve misjudged you, young man. You do seem to have some hidden qualities, after all.”

  “I’m happy I could be helpful, Mrs. Johnson.”

  “Debby,” the older lady corrected him, waving a hand like a queen granting one of her subjects permission to exist. “Just out of curiosity: why did you decide to do this kindness to me?”

  “As I said, I just wanted to help. I had some time on my hands and—”

  “Yes, sure,” Mrs. Johnson interjected, smiling briefly. “But why, out of all the things you could have done, did you decide to help me?”

  Alfred opened his mouth and closed it. He was genuinely speechless. “I’m not sure I understand—”

  “Very well, then,” the old lady said, her expression knowing. “Let’s keep playing the low-profile game. I know a climber when I see one.”

  “A climber? Mrs. Johnson, I honestly—”

  “You’re young, and you’re ambitious, and I’m not a fool,” Mrs. Johnson said. “So let’s just keep talking for a while, for the sake of it. Is that okay?”

  “I-I guess so,” Alfred stuttered, not really knowing what she meant.

  Mrs. Johnson looked around as if to make sure nobody was listening. “As it seems you’re going to stay with us for a while, let me give you a piece of advice. Be smart, and don’t reach too far too quickly.” The old lady pointed at a cubicle on the other side of the office. “We had a bright fellow a couple of months ago who believed he could skip the grunt work, go straight ahead, and charm Zeus himself.” She glanced at the boss’s office. “He was a fool who didn’t know how things worked and never bothered learning. I’ve been here long enough to know this: if you want to open the shiny gates of Olympus, you don’t bang at them. You bribe the gatekeeper. That’s him.” She glanced at Mr. Solidali’s office. “Suck up to him, and then you might get your first taste of ambrosia. Have I made myself clear?”

  “You have, Mrs. John— I mean, Debby. But I still don’t—”

  “Now,” the woman continued inexorably, folding her hands and looking casually over her shoulder. “It happens that Mr. Solidali is facing a problem these days.”

  “A problem?” Alfred asked. “What kind of problem?”

  “Let’s just say he has a python strangling his neck, and has a deadline making things even more difficult for him. It might help you to know that the problem is the lack of a solid sales proposition for our King in the Moon client.” She looked at the file Alfred had helped her fill. “Since it’s pretty obvious to me that sales pitches are your strong suit, it might help you to pop into his office sometime today and offer to take a look at the very, very weak draft the marketing department has given him. I’m sure he could use some fresh ideas, and you seem to have plenty of them.”

  “Well.” Alfred brushed away his hair from his eyes. “Thanks for the heads-up, Mrs. … Debby.”

  “You’re very welcome. You keep up the good work and avoid getting ahead of yourself, and I’m sure someone will notice. Lesson time is over. I’d better go back to work now.”

  Alfred went back to his cubicle.

  He looked at the time. It was still three in the afternoon, and he had accomplished all his tasks. He started to think about Pacific, and about the impossible event that had happened that morning. But he shook his head and pushed the thought aside.

  He glanced around with a new resolution and got a glimpse of Mr. Solidali before he entered into his office.

  Alfred fidgeted for a few seconds. He glanced at Mrs. Johnson, rose, and walked to his project coordinator’s office. He knocked twice on the door, was admitted, and asked his superior for more work. And Mr. Solidali, a man who had engraved on the door of his office the words “In work we trust,” gladly obliged.

  4

  Gold Digger

  Alfred White woke at seven thirty as he did every morning. This time, there was a sheet of paper placed under the cell phone, with a message written in capital letters: AVOID THE MADMAN! DON’T GO TO THE PARK!

  And Alfred didn’t. He prepared for his day, went out, and did not take his usual breakfast, giving him extra time to walk the longer way to work.

  He arrived at the Spear with a feeling of relief. Nothing out of the ordinary had happened that day. He would follow the same plan tomorrow, avoid the park altogether, and never see Pacific again.

  One day followed the next faster than usual that week. Much faster.

  Meanwhile, Alfred did everything he could to forget about Pacific and put much effort in reimagining the events that had happened the day of the déjà vu. He repeated to himself that what he thought he saw had been caused by stress or his imagination. One or the other. Or maybe both. Whatever. It just never happened the way he’d thought it had.

  Alfred focused on his job more than ever. It became almost an obsession to him. Every morning, before going to work, he spent five minutes in front of the mirror repeating the same sentence over and over: “Work harder, forget what you saw, and stay away from that place.” And he committed to long hours in the office, staying even after the last person had left. He buried himself under paperwork and became the most proactive person on the twenty-fourth floor, always looking for things to do, problems to solve, tasks to accomplish.

  As time passed, his productivity and his confidence in his new job increased. Alfred was now able to deal with multiple projects at once, usually twice as fast as anybody else.

  Mr. Solidali learned to trust Alfred the way he did the most senior staff. He was clearly pleased with the young man’s skyrocketing performance, and told him so a couple of t
imes.

  Alfred’s project coordinator was not the only one who looked at him differently. Alfred had proved what he was worth, and slowly but surely, new possibilities opened up for him.

  People decided Alfred White was, after all, an okay guy who just wanted to be helpful and that was just trying to fit in.

  As Alfred familiarized himself with his coworkers, some people even started to talk with him about their private life. It was amazing how, if they were stressed and tired enough, a person could open up and say all the private things that made their days miserable. Alfred learned, for example, that Dora from payrolls had a huge debt choking her up; that Mr. Brown from HR would have killed to get his daughter into the Golden Lock Private Academy for Art and Music but lacked the necessary connections to make it happen; and that Mrs. Shiva from merchandise had lost a fortune in the stock market due to impulsive investing and was now looking into real estate to compensate for her loss.

  Every single person on the twenty-fourth floor had a story, and the more time Alfred spent with them, the more he understood that they put themselves into difficult situations they had no idea how to solve. And they loved to complain about them.

  After several weeks of keeping himself busy, Alfred started to get the boss’s attention. Yes, indeed, his boss was very pleased with his performance, Mr. Solidali said during one meeting. And the next day, to Alfred’s surprise, the boss himself summoned him into his office.

  “You’re a good lad with fire in your belly,” his boss said as soon as Alfred closed the door behind him. He was in his early sixties, very slim, almost bony, his face full of angles and his chin as sharp as a pyramid turned upside down. “Now, I understand Mr. Spencer hired you and put you in the prep and research department.” He took a bite of a ham and cheese sandwich and resumed talking with his mouth full. “Is that right, Arnold?”

  Alfred bit his lips, not knowing if it was wise to point out his real name. He decided to simply ignore the mistake and to reply with a polite, “Yes, sir.”

  “The man is an idiot.” His boss spit into the trash bin then drank eagerly from a can of Coke. “He got a damn gold nugget as big as his fist and mistook it for brass. Unacceptable. I’ll pop up to his office tomorrow and make sure he knows how displeased I am. He’ll be on his toes for a month or two.” He laughed a raucous laugh then took another bite of his sandwich and washed it down with more Coke.

  Alfred said nothing. He just kept standing, hoping to look confident but knowing he looked, at best, just plain awkward.

  “You’re a thing of value, young man,” his boss said, nodding approvingly. He put a finger inside his mouth and dug out a piece of ham that was stuck between his teeth. “I’ve asked around. People like you a lot, Arnold. Apparently, you have a knack for problem solving, and you are not shy when it comes to taking responsibilities. Isn’t it right?”

  Alfred cleared his throat. “I’m still learning, sir. I’m just trying to get my feet wet.”

  “Also modest,” his boss said. “I’ll have to add that to the list. Now, I’ve checked your profile and your opt-in score. Best damn percentile I’ve seen in a while. Not to mention that no one in your age group has received a score so high in the history of the marketing department. What are you doing with us, Arnold?”

  Alfred was taken aback by that question. “I … I don’t understand, sir,” he admitted, shifting weight from one foot to the other. “What do you mean?”

  “Our company,” his boss said. “What brought you to our firm? I mean, look at this.” He indicated a number of sheets scattered on his desk. They all began with the title Candidate #139—Inclinations and Expectations Evaluation. “I see a number of different things you could have been in your life.” His boss took a sheet from the pile and started reading it. “The opt-in test tells me volumes about your skill set. You could have been a terrific engineer, a cloud architect, a security trader. Anything better than this!” His boss spread his arms wide as if indicating the whole floor.

  Alfred glanced around awkwardly. He felt like he was missing an important piece of information. “Sir,” he said, “I’m not sure I’m following.”

  His boss frowned. “You’re crammed all day inside a cubicle, filling out forms, for God’s sake,” he said, then paused, clearly expecting a reaction.

  “Yes, sir,” Alfred admitted. “That is correct.”

  His boss’s eyes narrowed. “A trained monkey could do that.”

  Alfred imagined a monkey sorting papers and filling out forms. He started wondering if he was supposed to laugh to a joke he didn’t understand. He studied his boss. His boss was not laughing.

  “Sit down.”

  Alfred sat.

  “I can’t quite figure you out, son.” His boss took another sip from his Coke. “Do you even know why you are here?”

  “Not really, sir.”

  “You took on the assignments of half the damn floor, stuff you’d never been trained to do, and completed them in a few weeks.”

  Silence followed that statement.

  Alfred swallowed hard. His boss’s face was unreadable. “Is that … good, sir?” he asked. His palms started sweating.

  “Good?” his boss leaned forward. “You saved me almost one month of effort, Arnold, and proved that you could do the job of several people paid twice as much as you are. I call it remarkable—that is what I call it.”

  Alfred’s tension loosened a bit. “I am … glad to hear that, sir.”

  His boss grunted his approval. “We are the third biggest company in the country because of the hard work of people like you, who go above and beyond without being asked. You are a kingpin, son. Proactive people like yourself power up our brand and give us new lifeblood. I wish I had ten more guys with half your shine. So tell me.” His boss leaned back on his chair and stared at him. “Where is all this drive coming from?”

  Alfred moistened his lips. He was avoiding his boss’s stare entirely, now. Instead, he was looking at the tips of his shoes.

  “Well?”

  For a split second Alfred considered telling his boss about Pacific to explain why he worked like a madman to simply avoid thinking. That was the truth, but somehow, the truth seemed out of place there, inside the office of the most powerful man on the floor.

  So Alfred decided to provide his boss with the second-best answer he could come up with. The standard answer.

  “I’m working hard to contribute to the well-being of the company,” he said simply. “I hope, in the future, that my work will be rewarded.”

  His boss studied him then trashed what was left of his sandwich and the pile of papers on his desk. “Very good.” His boss nodded, clearly satisfied with Alfred’s answer. “That is what I thought. Now, let me tell you a story.” The old man drained his pop in a few gulps and trashed that too. He cleaned his lips with a napkin and pointed to the wall behind Alfred. “See that?”

  Alfred turned. His boss was pointing at the picture of a young man inside a gold frame. The man had a very big hat and a very long face. The picture seemed awfully old, and the guy vaguely familiar.

  “My great-great-grandfather,” his boss explained. “He was a forty-niner, a gold miner of the first hour. He broke his back digging holes in Sierra Nevada, I think. Or was it in NorCal? Anyway, at the end of the gold rush, he had so much gold he could coat himself with it. He built the foundation of my family’s wealth because he knew the value of things. That trait runs in my family, and I know how to spot the same value a mile away. Now listen up. You keep up this pace and show me your will to grow, and I’ll make sure your name is in front of every single face on the main floor when it’s time to decide which seeds are worth watering. Do we understand each other?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good.” He pointed an index finger at Alfred. “You stay with me, son, and I’ll groom you into a better version of yourself. You are smooth and unused, like a raw gold nugget. You stay with me, and I’ll cast you into the fire of perfection until peopl
e see you for the gold ingot you are. What do you say?”

  “I thought raw gold nuggets were rough, not smooth,” Alfred said without thinking.

  “Whatever,” his boss said dismissively. “That’s beside the point.”

  “Of course it is, sir.”

  “Now get the hell out of here, and produce me results!”

  Alfred left the office a bit dazed but unmistakably happy. His promotion was now closer at hand. He needed to hang on a little while longer and work harder. Just a while longer.

  For the next few days, Alfred redoubled his efforts and kept waking up, going out, and getting things done. In the following weeks, he also worked on Saturdays, and he promised his boss he would continue to do so until the company’s big project was completed.

  Alfred welcomed the increased responsibilities. He needed them to avoid thinking too much, and so he shrouded himself with the very same things Pacific had warned him about: repetition, routine, and habits.

  He woke. He went. He worked.

  Then one day, something happened.

  Alfred noticed that something the next morning. At first, Alfred didn’t know exactly what it was. A feeling, maybe. He just knew it popped up every so often. He felt it when he was walking, browsing the Web, and reading documents.

  The feeling was ubiquitous and disturbing at the same time. And there was nothing Alfred could do to silence it.

  It took him several days to figure out what that feeling was, and when he did, he realized it wasn’t one feeling at all but many of them blended together. There was regret in the mix, nostalgia, curiosity, and something else that felt very much like the fear of missing out.

  It was a Friday night when something sparked in Alfred’s mind as he walked home from work. He decided he would slightly change his routine the next day. He needed to do something different. He would once again get his Thai breakfast on Keeper Street and get to work faster by walking through the park.