8810

by Nicholas Taylor

  Chapter 14 – They’re Out to Get Me

  Why oh why did I have to move my desk again!? This was the second time this week and I was now in a very bad situation. Behind me was Star Wars, to my left was Chester (which was fine), but the cube to my right was Moleth! Thank goodness she was still on vacation. But she was bound to be back soon. She was supposed to be back last week, I thought.

  Chester rolled his chair in my cube and gave me a conspiratorial look. I knew that look. That was the look that he gave whenever he thought people were out to get him.

  “So, are you and your little friends in the Velvet Hand plotting against me again?” The thing that was sad about this was that he wasn’t joking. He really did think everyone was out to get him.

  I gave up being sarcastic. “Chester, no one is out to get you. I’m sorry you’re just not that important.”

  “That’s what I thought but you people are always trying to screw me over.”

  I shook my head, started to speak and then stopped, my finger flashing under my nose. I held back the sneeze.

  “Sorry, no one is after—achoo!”

  I barely got my face buried in my elbow before it happened. Two or three others would follow this initial sneeze, the last one invariably leaving my eyes watering.

  Chester’s face hardened. “Fine, don’t talk to me, dick. This is crap.”

  “Chester, are you serious? I can’t—achoo!” I sniffed. “Dang it. ACHOO!”

  That was the big one, the one that always made my eyes water and would cost me at least two tissues. Chester was gone now and that was just fine with me. He was being a moron and more importantly my face was covered in tears and mucus. Riders was one of the richest companies in the world. So rich in fact, that the empty building next to us was a spare just in case we ever needed it. A spare building was a cost well worth it, but air filters for the building that people worked in? Oh, heck no. Why on earth would you want that? Most sawmills had less crap flying around than this place. People at Riders didn’t suffer from seasonal allergies. No we suffered from nine to five allergies. That’s what we had. It was bad now, too because the jungle flooded the other day and when that happened, it took the building a while to clean it up. Needless to say, there was more mold flying around the air ducts than there was in a thousand pound block of blue cheese. The company wasn’t big on buying tissue either so most people kept a stash of one or two boxes at their desks.

  Someone cleared their throat and Star Wars’ voice rang with irritation. “I’m trying to make phone calls. Please keep it down if you don’t mind.”

  I turned to glare at him. “Sorry man.”

  “Maybe if you turned off that fan you wouldn’t get stuff blown in your face.” As he spoke, he tightened his gray cardigan around his shoulders.

  Star Wars could care less about my well-being. He was cold, but I didn’t understand how he could be. The office temperature hovered around 75 all day long. Most of the office had little fans on their desks just to keep from sweating to death. I was no exception. My little black fan hummed away, but it wasn’t a strong fan by a long shot. It didn’t even blow the papers sitting in front of it around. It also wasn’t pointed at Star Wars. Even if it was, the cube’s half wall at the end of the desk would block the almost nonexistent breeze. Let’s just call a spade a spade here: Star Wars was just a pussy who liked to whine. He had on a turtleneck and a cardigan all year long. I own one turtleneck and I didn’t even know they made cardigans for men until I worked here. Oh well;I didn’t care.

  My email icon flashed at the bottom of my screen as I turned around. ”Meeting in front of Larry’s office in five”. Great, what now?

  We all milled around the door to Larry’s office (which was closed), all of the management and Yoda, who was kind of like a manager, locked inside. They came out looking concerned. Well, all but Yoda came out. He was on the phone with someone and he looked confused and a bit worried.

  Larry spread his hands wide. “Everyone, there has been… an… an accident.”

  We all perked up.

  “As many of you know, Moleth went to Peru to look for crop circles and all that stuff.” There were nods from the gathered crowd. “Apparently one night she and the group she was with were waiting to see…well whatever it is they were looking for. From what we’ve been told, something did fall from the sky. A small meteor we think, but some sort of space rock and it either hit Moleth or hit around her—we’re not sure on that part.” There was a collective gasp. Maybe I wouldn’t have to sit by her after all.

  Larry went on. “She’s alive but is in the hospital.”

  Smoke Stack spoke out with a deep, gravelly voice. “How did she live through that?”

  Larry looked like he was going to speak but I was surprised when I head Yoda’s voice. “She wasn’t hit by a space rock. I just confirmed it with a buddy of mine that works for NASA. There was a plane like a 747 or something flying over the area and there was an issue with it. It had to make an emergency landing and thought it was over the ocean so I jettisoned it’s…well, I guess she was hit by a compressed um… mass of…waste.”

  “Waste?” Adrian asked.

  “Yeah, waste.”

  “Like what kind of waste?”

  Yoda looked down and said in almost a whisper, “Fecal.”

  “Fe- fecal? What on earth is that?” she pressed.

  Yoda’s face turned a soft shade of red and suddenly, the word clicked for me. Without thinking, I answered for him, “Poop!”

  “Bill!” Manager-lady said reproachfully.

  “No, he’s right. It was that and toilet paper and all that stuff.”

  There wasn’t a sound. The looks on all the managers’ faces told us that this wasn’t a joke but I mean come on, it was kind of funny.

  “How big?” I asked, morbid curiosity getting the best of me.

  “Around forty pounds they think. No one is sure. It broke up a bit and hit most of the crowd. They think Moleth caught the brunt of it though.”

  The image of a large group of people with tinfoil on their heads being slopped by crap filled my head and I bit down hard on my tongue to keep from laughing. For the second time today, my eyes filled with tears and Star Wars turned to me tapping is shoulder.

  “I know you guys are close, Bill. If you need to cry, there’s always a shoulder here for you.”

  Adrian coughed out a laugh. “Sorry,” she said looking down and turning red.

  After that, all of us just hung around for a while. Moleth was going to be fine, or so they said. Though really how normal can your life be after getting hit by compressed poo? No one knew if they should be concerned, so they weren’t sure if they should cry or laugh. I mean after all…

  It was relatively early in the morning when I got back to my desk, but I still picked up the phone and called Cory.

  Her voice was rough with sleep when she answered. “H- hello?”

  “Hey babe, sorry to wake you up.”

  “You should be,” she said but her voice sounded a bit more pleased.

  “You’ll never guess what we were told this morning.”

  “You’re right. That’s because it’s…” There was a pause as I presumed she turned to her clock. “…it’s seven in the morning.”

  “I know sorry but this couldn’t wait. Ok, you know how I told you Moleth was supposed to be back a while ago?”

  “Yeah, what did she get taken by E.T. or something?”

  Now it was my turned to pause.

  Cory was awake now when she spoke. “She didn’t tell you she got abducted or probed or something, did she?”

  “No, she’s not back. It was the something.”

  “Really? What? It’s too early to string me along.”

  I launched into the story making sure to give every single detail. When I was finished , there was silence on the other end.

  “Babe, you there?”

  “You’re BS’ing me. You called me at seven a.m. to BS me? I’m
so hanging up and tonight you owe me a foot rub or something.”

  “Don’t hang up, I’m telling the truth. Do you want to hear it from Adrian?”

  “You are telling me the truth?”

  “Yep.”

  She started to laugh, “She got hit by crap? No way. That’s hilarious. Was it E.T.’s?” she joked.

  “See, aren’t you happy I called you?”

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “So do you want to come by for lunch?”

  “You buying?”

  “Of course.”

  “I don’t work until one so meet me at BW2’s at like twelve.”

  “Sounds good.”

  We hung up and I tried to start working, but I couldn’t keep lunch off my mind. I was seriously ready for lunch by the time I left to go meet Cory.

  I was about ready to kill Chester. He hadn’t improved at all. He was convinced that he was going to somehow be blamed for Moleth’s work not getting done while she was out, and said that he was pretty sure they were listening to his phone calls now. I had to agree with him on that last part. Riders was like every company. When you called you were told that the call may be recorded for training purposes. So really, all of our calls were being monitored not just Chester’s.

  I sped up I-25 to BW2’s. Normally, I couldn’t do wings on a workday. It just took too long, but since Cory…well, having a girl on the inside helped a ton. One call from her before we arrived and bam, lunch was waiting for you when you walked through the door. Still, thirty minutes was pushing it a little.

  When I was back at work I found several IM’s from a harassed Adrian asking what Chester’s problem was today. I told her I didn’t know but that it was getting to me, too. I heard a small knock on my cube wall and turned to look at Yoda.

  “Hey bud,” I said.

  “Is there something wrong with Chester?”

  I sighed, “I don’t know?”

  “Well can you talk to him? You’re the best with him.”

  “One, he’s not a kid and two, heck no. He’s on about conspiracies and how everyone’s out get him again.”

  Yoda rolled his eyes. “Of course he is. That’s what Chester does. Ok, sorry to bother you man.”

  Yoda walked off and I turned back to my computer. I really did need to work now. There was the sound of someone clearing their throat. I gritted my teeth and turned around trying to relax my face into non-annoyance. It was Chester and he looked pissed.

  “So, you guys are talking about me huh?”

  I just raised an eyebrow.

  “Don’t give me that. I’ve been listening to you guys.”

  I held up my hand. “You’ve been listening?”

  “Yeah, and it’s a good thing I did. It sounds like your trying to get rid of me.”

  I stopped trying to relax my face and felt the look of irritation return. “Chester, you are being a pain today and that has nothing to do with anyone other than you. People are concerned or rather annoyed with you.”

  “I guess that just makes all the more reason for you to try and get rid of me, huh?” It was not a mere question, but rather an accusation, of course.

  I wasn’t one for rolling my eyes. It just wasn’t something I did all that much. That all changed when I met Chester. Now I did it quite frequently. It was like breathing. I didn’t have to tell my eyes to do it anymore. Chester seemed to take this as confirmation and walked off shaking his head from side to side. I took a deep breath in through my nose to calm myself. Bad idea.”A- Achoo.” I sniffled and felt my eyes water. The next two came in quick secession. “A choo…dang— A CHOO!” It was official: this place was hell.