Mary stood in the doorframe of her office, she had on a hand me down
pantsuit from her sister, it was worn in some places, but still usable. When
she’d gotten the job she hadn’t bothered to buy new clothes, either way It
wasn’t really exciting work and people at the office didn’t dress up, pant
suits where the local uniform around there. –I’m not going to work there
forever, why buy new office clothes? - was her usual answer to her mom’s pleas
for her to buy new stuff and two years later she still told herself that same
thing each morning.
It was a Wednesday and her boss had just left a pile of documents to
scan, sort and archive, all before five thirty. It was four o’clock. It wasn’t
the first time her boss had done this either, usually she was prepared for
these sort of things, usually by three she was done with all her forms and
worksheets, for when her boss decided he needed something urgently she would
have it before five thirty when she would be able to leave and not worry about
work for the rest of the blissful afternoon.
“This man wants to drive me crazy, I’m sure of it” she thought wanting
to take the pile and imagining herself throwing it in the garbage bin, pouring
some lighter fluid over them, and lighting them on fire, she often had these
daydreams.
– Hey Mary! How’s your day going? –
It was Paul, who usually interrupted her daydreams of setting things on
fire. Paul blabbed on as Mary thought how his head had the shape of a Q-Tip and
his shirt was two sizes too big, she thought about how sad it must be to be an
accountant, how utterly unexciting it would be to push paper incessantly,
numbers after numbers. “But that’s exactly what you do dummie, at least he
likes his job” she told to herself. Four, five minutes had gone by? She had no
clue of what Paul was blabbing about, if she squinted, his mouth resembled the
beak of a turkey.
–Gobble, gobble, gobble, out,
gobble, me, gobble, Mary?-
-Yeah, sure Paul, I have to get back to work though, talk to you later?-
-Ok, pick you up at eight on Friday, sounds good?-
Something in her told her she had made a horrible mistake, had she just
accepted to go on a date with Q-Tip head turkey over there?
-Mary?-
She got up, sprayed some lighting fluid on his shirt and set it on fire.
Or at least she imagined doing so; Paul would run away screaming in pain, would
be for a few days in the hospital and would be back to the office to continue
their routine of him asking her out and her rejecting him.
-I’m sorry Paul; I can’t go on a date with you.-
Maybe he would understand one day after all. “How many times can a dude
be rejected before he got a clue? Whatever”. Mary got back to the pile of
papers. Blue forms, pink forms, yellow forms, green forms, forms, forms, forms.
The truth was Mary had many dreams; she wanted to relocate to Cancun and be a
scuba instructor, which was one of her “crazy person dreams” as her mother
called it. But it wasn’t that crazy, you could make good money by teaching
tourists how to dive, and Mary didn’t need much, a small home, three dogs… a
cute surfer husband. She had even gotten certified as an instructor on a summer
break from college. Taking this job was her way for paying the rest of her
student loans and saving up a bit of money for her plane ride and getting
settled in. But it was all a “crazy person’s dream” apparently.
-MARY!!!- The boss from hell was hollering again.
-Sir? - She asked in the most condescending tone she could muster, she
was sick of him and of her almost pavlovian reaction she had when he
shouted. Revulsion, sweating, but
recently she had started to push through.
-I need you to go to the pharmacy and get me some aspirin. - “Doesn’t he
have a freaking secretary to do those things?”
–Oh and get me the strong kind,
the one they sale in the downtown shop- Mary frantically started making a
schedule, no way was she going downtown and back in an hour.
-And please have those papers done before you leave today, tomorrow is
the meeting with the partners and we have to show them the figures for next
quarter- “So I have to go downtown, and finish scanning, sorting and archiving
these stupid papers, all before my blissful five o’clock?” She checked the
traffic report, no way would she make it back in an hour, she would have to
sacrifice some of her blissful afternoon.
Mary opened her desk drawer, took out her purse and the lighter fluid
she had stored in there. She unscrewed the lid, grabbed it from the bottom and
walked out. She would never have to go back to that wretched place again.
“Cancun, here I come!” she thought with a grin before Morrison Chemical
Corp. exploded in a thousand pieces.
