Evil Thought
Tokens
Gula
1
Luxuria
0
Avaritia
0
Superbia
1
Invidia
0
Ira
1
Acedia
2
“Gula, how long are you staying?” he asked.
She shrugged and smiled at him, wiping her mouth with a napkin. She was still full of crumbs on her large chest, however. “For as long as success takes. Or failure.”
“How cryptic,” he nodded, grinning. He made a mental calculation of his bank account. Most of the groceries they’d bought were gone. Or, all over the table and the floor. Gula was a messy eater. Acedia, on the other hand, could nibble on a crumb for two hours. Both were maddening.
If he kept this up his cash would be gone in a week.
He needed to get out and look for a job tomorrow. Hanging out with Acedia was nice but he couldn’t postpone it.
He stood up and washed the dishes. Acedia still munched on a cornflake, and it could still very much be the same one he saw her holding earlier.
“I’ll help,” Gula said and pushed him aside with her butt. “Actually, let me do them all.”
“Okay,” Horace agreed. “I’m tired, didn’t get much sleep yesterday. And I slept on the couch which is terrible for my back.” Then he realised he had guests over. “Ugh, sleeping arrangements, right.”
“Wow. I’ll sleep on the sofa. It’s my spot,” Acedia said slowly, raising a hand.
He opened his mouth to argue but he didn’t really have the strength for it. “Fine. You, Gula? The guest room is right down the hall. You can sleep there. It’s practically turned into an office space but the bed is comfortable. Got anything you might need?”
She turned her pretty face and nodded towards her backpack. “It’s all in there.”
“Excellent. Well, ladies, make yourselves at home. Not that you haven’t already, but here it is formally,” he chuckled. “Goodnight, I’ll bring down clean sheets and some extra pillows and I’m off to bed.”
Chapter 12: Horace
Horace opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. He kept trying to remember if the insanity of the last couple of days was a dream or if it was real. And if it was a dream, was it a normal one or a nightmare?
He heard giggling coming from the living room.
Real, then.
He got up, threw water on his face and became presentable, then made a frappe for himself. From the aftermath in the kitchen, it seemed Gula had already made herself one, plus a couple of sandwiches. At least she cleaned up after herself in the end.
Sipping glorious coffee, he walked into the living room.
Acedia, not surprisingly, was curled in the same spot on the sofa. Gula sat on the armchair. They were watching some sitcom.
Horace didn’t need to watch no sitcom. His life had currently turned into one. All that was missing was the canned laughter. “Good morning, ladies.”
“Good morning,” they both said in different reaction speeds.
“It’s already eleven o’clock. I’m gonna be off to hit some of my old jobs in case there’s some spot available. Will you be okay on your own back here?”
Gula looked hesitant. “If you could get some chocolates on the way back, then I’ll be fine.”
“Chocolates, sure. Anything else? You, Acedia? Need anything?”
“Nope,” she said softly. “But I would like you to hang out with me and watch the rest of the season.”
Horace chuckled. “Hah! You can watch ahead, I don’t mind, that show is really formulaic anyway. I don’t think I’m missing out on much. But I will join you tonight.”
“Wow!” Acedia said with the excitement of a dead person.
Chapter 13: Horace
He spent most of the day looking for work at his old haunts. Horace had gone through a bunch of menial jobs, he was a waiter at a small little taverna in his neighbourhood. The old boss really liked him but he was fully staffed and he admitted that customers didn’t spend like they were used to. Then he went to the local McDonald’s, but the manager had changed and he impassively slapped a job application form on the table. Horace filled it out but he knew they wouldn’t hire him, he was in his thirties, and they needed young and naive people to squeeze under the corporate thumb. Then he went to the local newspaper, which of course, had gone out of business.
Horace felt a touch of sorrow at that. It had been his first real job as a teenager, he even got paid for it. Knowing computers and having some graphic skills he worked in the small enterprise, preparing the layout for the articles and the ads and the classifieds of local interest.
But paper was dead. Had he even kept up his subscription? No, now that he thought about it, his parents had one, which they must have neglected to renew, understandably since they had left the country for good.
He asked around the neighbours about what had happened to the little newspaper. The owner had died, heart attack. His grandkids didn’t bother sorting out through the mess and the debt, and just shut it down.
An entire legacy, gone.
Horace had fond memories of the place. He enjoyed the summer he spent there, a place where he was treated as an adult. He knew stuff about computers, they didn’t, and his opinion was respected and his advice instantly applied. The boss was a kind old man even back then, and the employees were grumpy but had nothing bad to say about the man. The sole reporter was a flirty redhead that teased Horace every time she came over to deliver a story or proofread some piece, and he had masturbated furiously every night thinking about her.
But, looking back, the thing he liked about the newspaper the most was that feeling of making something real. They worked on the computer and printed out stuff and resized pictures all month long, then they sent it to the printer and it came back in smelly piles of newspaper.
Physical stuff. You could touch it, you could smell it, and it usually ended up in the trash after expending its half-life. If the newspaper was lucky, it ended up being recycled as a papier-mache or on the floor of some repainted room.
He really liked that feeling, creating things.
The other jobs he had never quite delivered on that front. It was always serving meals or spreadsheets or some mindless data-entry.
Turning away, Horace realised he had tears in his eyes.
It was lunchtime and he was sweating now, walking in the sun all this time. He wiped the sweat off his brow and thought of ice cream.
That was it. He was forgetting the ice cream shop. It was at the far side of Kifisia, it was quite a large suburb, but he needed to check it out. Horace started walking there. He knew the other people of his generation might have just looked up the phone online and called to check if there was work available, but his dad had taught him otherwise.
‘Horace,’ his dad would say, ‘showing up is half the work. That applies to everything, your job, your relationship, your friends, family. Remember that.’
He smiled at the memory. He missed his parents, but they were having fun chasing kangaroos or something. They deserved some fun for themselves.
So, he showed up at the ice cream shop. It was called Zillions, ‘cause it had a zillion tastes to choose from. It was slightly different than he remembered, they had changed a bit of the interior, chairs, some decoration, but it was otherwise the same. A large single space inside the shop, the bar full of ice cream flavours at the side. The staff area and the storage at the back, plus the customer toilets from a different entrance beside that. Then the real attraction, the lovely outside with comfy chairs and tables. It was a wedge shape little plaza, surrounded by trees and covered by humongous umbrellas on top. Horace hated those in particular, they needed quite an effort to open and close. The place was cool and inviting, in soft earthen tones with touches of modern design. He actually liked working there, it was a place where people came to cool off and h
ave some ice cream and feel happy.
It wasn’t as great as creating things, but it was the next best thing.
And he knew they’d need more people, at least for some extra shifts.
As he went inside, he heard screams.
Ah, yes. That was the only memory he had repressed.
Screaming children.
Chapter 14: Horace
“Horace, my man!” Nico said and came around the ice cream bar to hug him. The man was always friendly and Horace really liked him. He was a fair boss to everyone, and only really shitty employees had anything bad to say about him.
“Hey, Nico, looking good. Tasting all the flavours, I see,” he teased him, pointing at the man’s expanding gut.
“Oh, so what? The ladies love it.” He put an arm around Horace’s neck. “Come, sit down. You look thirsty. Um, let me think, your favourite is...” He raised a finger. “No, don’t tell me. Gelato cheesecake!”
Horace smiled. “You remembered!”
“Of course I did. I’m Nico,” he said proudly and got up again to get behind the counter. He scooted the girl working there over and put a hefty amount in a cup. Some syrup later, he brought it over to Horace, along with a cool glass of water.
Horace didn’t hesitate to dig in, brain freeze be damned.
Ugh! So good.
Nico’s expression changed. “Can I assume you’re here for work?”
“You guessed it, Nico.”
The man sighed. “Ugh, Horace, Horace... What am I gonna do with you? What about that doll business you’ve always been talking about? Didn’t you start that one yet?”
Horace needed a second to realise what the man was talking about. Oh, yeah, he had shared his dream of making custom figurines and such. He decided not to chew his hopefully future boss’s head off for calling them dolls. “Yeah, right. That never quite took off.”
“Why?” Nico asked, his expression a sincere feeling of pain.
“I dunno. Never had the money to start it, I kept going from job to job,” Horace shrugged. “It was never the right time.”
Nico licked his lips and leaned forward. “Horace. You see this place?”
He looked around, following the man’s motion.
“This was all a dream once. Just a dream I had. A zillion flavours of ice cream. Neat idea, huh?”
Horace nodded in agreement.
“That was all it was, an idea back then.” Nico knocked his knuckles on the table. “I took the leap. Now it’s real. And we’re doing great!”
“I see that! I always knew with summer creeping in business would pick up but this is great, Nico.”
The man sighed. “So, you see how it saddens me to see you coming back with the dream still on your shoulder?”
“Yeah...”
“I have work for you. Heck, I’ll always have work for you.” He went at the employee area and came back with a job application form. He slapped it on the table without sitting down and said, “Same pay, 4 euro per hour. You can start tomorrow. Think it over, fill out the form for appearances sake and leave it with Martha over there.
Then he left, tending to business.
Horace picked up the job application and looked it over. He ate some more of the divine ice cream and frowned at the letters, filling out the spaces with a pen.
Then someone sat on the chair directly opposite him and he started, spilling ice cream on the table. “Wha-”
The woman before him was classy. She was Asian, adorned with lots of golden jewelry, and carried herself as if she owned the entire suburb. It wasn’t that weird to see opulent people in Kifisia, this was a wealthy place. But it was weird them sitting down next to strangers.
She parted her thin lips, giving it a beat. It looked like a rehearsed gesture that demanded your attention. “No wonder people come in here in this heat,” she said and pulled out a fan to cool herself. It had oriental dragons on it. She sniffed like a baroness, and then said, “I am Avaritia Philargyria. You may address me as Ava.”
“Uh, hello, Ava. I’m Horace. Why do I get the feeling you’re a sister of the others?”
“Correct. But that is irrelevant right now. What do you think you’re doing over there?” She pointed a manicured finger at the job application.
“Getting a job.”
She tsked like a lady and rolled her eyes. The gesture was far more expressive when done with Asian features. “With standard terms?” she said, the words bitter in her mouth.
“What else is there to do?”
“For starters, you can ask for better pay. You’re worth more. You’ve worked here before, right?”
“Yeah. Three years ago.”
“So you know the job, you don’t need any training. An instant-hire, right?”
“Well, yeah.” Horace looked at the employees. “Nothing seems to have changed as far as I see.”
“And you’re what, thirty years old?”
“Yes.”
“So, you could easily be a manager.”
“I guess. But I haven’t been in touch for years.”
“And that fact could be spun like a benefit to the employer. Here you are, knowing the ins and outs of the entire business, but being absent for so long as to not have any personal connection with the current staff. If this were a franchise, it would be like you were sent from management to oversee the business, correct?”
Horace rubbed his chin. “Hadn’t thought of it that way.”
“Of course not. You are worth more, Horace. The job is still pitiful, but even in this environment you should grab what is rightfully yours.” She grabbed the air with her thin fist. She was wiry from top to bottom, you could run an anatomy lesson on her. Her fist was small and powerful.
Horace mumbled something in agreement.
The Asian woman leaned forward, her fist containing the entire expression of greed in the universe. “You should take it all.”
Chapter 15: Horace
“Nico?”
“Yeah?”
Horace leaned on the boxes in the storage area. “I want the manager’s position.”
Nico smiled at that and carried boxes over, cataloguing. “There is no manager’s position.”
“Exactly. Make one and give it to me.”
The man stretched his back and stared at him for a moment, mulling it over. He then shook his head and Horace could see the rejection coming his way. So he interrupted.
“How are the kids?”
“Oh, all grown up now. We’re very good, thank you for asking.”
“Wouldn’t they enjoy a summer holiday with their dad, for once?” Horace knew where to push.
“Uh, I guess. Ever since I’ve build Zillions I couldn’t get away, it’s the busiest season! Doesn’t make sense for me to do so,” Nico grunted.
“Naturally.” Horace pulled the tablet off the man’s hands and took over seamlessly, cataloguing the inventory like he had done so many times. He sighed, cross-checking the boxes. “There’s so much work and who would you trust to manage the store while you were gone?”
Nico had his mouth open, started a few syllables and ended them immediately.
Horace kept working, going through the entire stack. Then, without a thought, started on the next. It was syrups, tons of flavours to choose from. He turned to his boss for a second and said, “Could you please roll this stack back in the fridge since you’re waiting around? We don’t want the chocolate sprinkles to melt.”
Nico grunted but it sounded appreciative. “Right.” He rolled the stack of boxes back in the fridge and came back towards Horace. He slapped him on the shoulder and squeezed. The man had been powerfully built, even before a lifetime of carrying stuff around.
“It seems,” he said, “I’ll need to break the good news to my wife and kids. We’re going on holiday, since I’ve got a trusty manager to mind the shop for me.”
Ava smiled at him. It was impossible to ignore the woman, she demanded attention with her posture alone. Not that he minded. S
he looked older but quite sexy, in that well-kept way rich women did with a combination of pilates, botox, and very expensive spa sessions.
The fact that she looked at him hungrily through her fancy sunglasses also helped.
“Excellent. I knew you had it in you.” She stood up gracefully and clutched her... well, clutch. She opened a palm at him and blowed gently on it.
Horace checked the app before the notification came. The token was there, floating and spinning in all its augmented reality glory. It said Greed in Greek, ΦΙΛΑΡΓΥΡΙΑ.
Evil Thought
Tokens
Gula
1
Luxuria
0
Avaritia
1
Superbia
1
Invidia
0
Ira
1
Acedia
2
Horace admitted to himself that he was getting quite addicted to the whole thing. Not to mention that despite the ladies making a mess of his life, it seemed to work out fine.
So far.
Chapter 16: Evie
Evie stewed alone in her apartment. Horace had just cancelled movie night with a text. Again.
Maybe she should get dressed, pretty herself up and go check out what was going on over there.
What time was it? Eleven. Even if she dove right into a cold shower right now, she’d need at least an hour to get herself together. She pulled the tangles on her hair. Ugh, it was a mess. And then she needed at least half an hour to actually get there, which would leave her stranded in Kifisia after midnight with no way out. She could get a taxi home but it would be double-tariff, and she really, really couldn’t afford it right now.
7 Deadly Roommates Page 4
