jueves, 19 de febrero de 2015

I´ll Take Mondays (Flash fiction challenge)




 Here Participating in part 2 of this challenge at terribleminds.com

Following Casz introduction.

I’ll Take Monday



I’ll Take Monday
Thursday was out to get me. Most people hate Mondays and call it their worst day of the week. However, mine was always Thursday. This Thursday was already a beast and it wasn’t even 6:45 a.m. My neighbor woke me with his bag pipe playing. When I yelled at him, he apologized and said the mused has attacked him and he couldn’t resist. I would mind being awoken by the sounds of two geese committing Hari-kiri much less, truly, if he could play something other than Brian Boru March and actually played it well. But badly was my neighbor’s playing style.
He continued to play even though I yelled at him. I tried to pretend it was a soundtrack for my shower. Not very sexy or invigorating.
Looking in the bathroom mirror, I found a pimple in the middle of my forehead. Strange desires to take my razor and shave off the zit hit me. I honestly couldn’t stop myself. Blood ran everywhere. The hand towel looks like it was tie-dyed in blood. Not attractive in the least. Eventually I got it to stop bleeding and put one of those stupid-looking circle bandages over where a simple blemish had been. At that point I was late to catch the bus to work. I needed coffee and shoes. I dashed to grab a travel tumbler of coffee and felt my stocking feet ooze into something wet and sticky. I looked down. Cat puke.  I love Mr. Waffle, but he truly is a cocksucker sometimes.
Ten minutes later, I was finally out the door. At the bus stop, I was alone. The next bus didn’t arrive for another fifteen minutes or so. However, I felt like I was safer leaving the house than staying. I was deep into a puzzle app on my phone when I smelled something foul. I looked up and a few feet away stood a woman. She was just barely a senior citizen, I reckoned. She didn’t look at me, but only at the zit on my forehead, or rather the bandage that covered it up. I hoped she wouldn’t’ ask me about it. The fact that she hadn’t showered in quite some time was assaulting my nose. I tried to covertly stick my nose deep into my shirt. This, I remember, is why Europeans where scarves all the time. I put my phone away and tried to make a mental note of everything I had to get done at work that day.  Ugh. I still hadn’t gotten in my weekly report to my supervisor and she was going to be all over my ass as soon as I walked in the door.
The bus arrived and I took to my normal seat, although because I’d  missed the earlier bus, this bus was less crowded. The seating options were plentiful. But, I’m a creature of habit – about a third of the way back in the bus on the right-hand side, against the window. The stinky lady took her sweet time getting on the bus and then scanned around. She took a moment longer to look at the seat next to me. Shit. I put my bag on the aisle seat that was vacant. It didn’t work. Stinky lady sat down right next to me. She’d nearly sat on my bag, but I ninja’d it back into my lap before her noxious gas was on my bag, too. There were more than a dozen other seats she could have sat in. I would have gotten off at the next stop if I wasn’t already late for work, so I had to ride all the way into downtown, nearly gagging all the way there.
In the elevator at work people looked at me funny, and when the mailroom guy, Toby, got on at one of the stops towards my floor, he flat out told me, “Killian, You stink!” I stammered about a hobo lady sitting next to me on the bus, but nobody listened.
This is why so many people keep a spare set of clothes at the office.
At my desk I sprayed air freshener hoping it would eat the stink fumes I’d inherited on the bus. I made the guy in the cubicle next to me cough.
Sorry,” I meekly offered.
The message light on my phone was blinking. It made me feel annoyed. First message was from my boss:  weekly reports. I deleted it. Second message was from my friend, Frannie. “Killian, you have to call me right now, it’s an emergency!” Her last emergency was trying to decide between a Main Coon or a Scottish Fold cat.
Frannie’s likely non-emergency or my boss?
I let my computer warm up and just sat there a moment. Just being. Doing nothing.
When I could justify no more “downtime,” regardless of Bag Pipe Alarm Clock, I opened my email.
My mother had sent me an email and the subject line read YOU NEED TO CALL ME RIGHT AWAY. My mother still did not understand that all caps meant you were yelling.
Boss, Frannie, or Mom?
Then I opened up the spreadsheet to populate the report.
I was just about to export the data and the phone rang.




Following the part I wrote: 



 


“There you are you cheeky monkey” Said the voice on the other side of the phone. “I've been calling you all morning”
“Mom? I told you not to call me at work.”
“I sent you an email and called your phone a few times”
“What's going on mom? What's so urgent?”
“It's your grandfather, he disappeared again from the nursing home”

And that was the one hundredth time. My grandpa was too active and naughty to be in a nursing home, but his health made it dangerous to live outside those walls. Of course, it was always up to me to find him and bring him back safe and sound.

I didn't think the day could get any worse when, just after I hanged up the phone, my friend Frannie showed up at the door, but that was not the worst thing.

There was something walking next to her, some kind of horrible animal, almost bigger than her, with a big tongue hanging out from its mouth and dripping saliva all over the floor. The black beast had messy black hair all over its body and was emanating a horrible, gross, nauseating smell that became almost unbearable when Frannie arrived to my desk.

She introduced me to the “cute dog” that looked to me like a hell hound covered in rubbish. He was indeed covered in rubbish. My animal lover friend found him that morning in some alleyway and she decided to take that monster with her. Now she didn´t know what to do with the dog as he was leaving town that day.

“So I've got a biiiig favour to ask you!” Here it was coming. “I need you to take care of the dog for a few days” She was right about one thing, it was a BIG favour. I tried to mumble I can't have this big dog in the office, but she pulled the “I've done so many things for you and you can't do me this little favour.”

So I had to say yes and my Thursday was becoming the worst Thursday of my life. After Frannie left the office I tied the beast to the table and I went to find some room I could put him in while I was working. 2 minutes I left but it was enough for this beast from hell to destroy my day and
probably my entire career. When I went back to my desk the monster was munching on my computer cables and the keyboard was all bitten and wet. Some colleagues were trying to pull the animal away from the computer, to no avail. For one minute the beast eating my computer and stood up to stare at me with ferocious eyes, showing its big dirty teeth that looked like they wanted to pierce my skin and drink my blood. This dog was like an evil demonic Beethoven. I seized his leash and, not effortlessly, I pulled him to one of the empty meeting rooms and locked the beast in.

Get new cables, get a brand new keyboard, probably have the cost of those reduced from my already very low salary. The worst thing was that, when I turned on the computer, my recently finished report was nowhere to be found. I was already imagining the scene. My big boss, asking me to see her at the office. “I´ve got to tell you straight, you´re fired.” Me, kneeling in front of her, begging and crying. Big black dog monster laughing on the background.

I sat down, fight back my frustration and start once again the tedious report. At that point I was smelly, tired, destroyed, and furious with Frannie and her demonic dog.

Before I could finish the report, my cellphone rang. The lovely voice of my mother pierced my eardrum,

“Killian!!!! They called me from The Green Faith Hospital, your Grandfather arrived this morning complaining of backache.” Knowing my grandfather he probably just checked in to flirt with the nurses, he was a dirty old man my grandpa. Unfortunately the hospital was only two blocks away so I had to go and get him to come back to the nursing home. I always wondered why I had to get in these kind of troubles, but I just couldn´t say no to my mom.

At that moment when I was heading to the hospital, I wished I would have shot the bag pipe man on the head that morning and had gone back to sleep all day. Maybe my bad luck started when I destroyed my forehead pimple that morning, who knows.

The message light on my phone kept blinking since I left the office. My boss I imagined. I still hoped I could come back on time to finish the report.

I arrived to the hospital, found out what room number was my grandpa in and took my way there.

I hadn´t arrived yet and I could already hear my grandpa´s voice. I entered the room and of course, he was giving orders to the nurse, like bring me this, bring me that, like some kind of disabled person. When the woman was leaving the room I could see my grandpa´s lascivious eyes looking at her butt.

“Oh Killian, you came to see me!”
“Hi grandpa, how are you feeling?”
“I´m feeling fine, but don´t tell the doctor or they will kick me out”
“Why are you here? You have mom worrying.”
“Aaah Killian, at my age I´m just feeling adventurous you know, I could do anything, sometimes I feel so young and I want to explore the world and enjoy the rest of my days” My grandpa kept talking, but I didn´t have much time and I would need to come back to the office soon”

When suddenly the nurse came in I knew by her face something was wrong.
“Excuse me, we have bad news and we are informing everybody in the hospital. A patient came in with a very dangerous contagious disease. We are locking down the whole building. Please stay inside this room for the time being.”

I couldn´t believe my ears. I left myself drop on the sofa. Thursday was way out of the line this time.
My grandpa on the other hand had a big smile on his face.
“Looks like I get to spend some quality time with my granddaughter!”

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