THE blue cat watched the path in front of him as he peddled as hard as his short legs could muster. The sun was up, the sky was blue, and a cool breeze fluttered through the air like the wings of a butterfly. Kinthe was late for work again, and this time he feared it would be his tail.
He had woken up at the sound of his shrieking alarm clock, but had foolishly slapped the off button and returned to being lazy. He had finally been shaken sober by the ring of his back-up alarm, gotten out of bed, ate breakfast, looked at the newspaper, noticed it was from the previous day, and realized it was his job to deliver the new one. That had been his morning, and now he was peddling on his bicycle having a nervous breakdown.
It was the fifth
time he had been late to work that month, and he was already getting threats
from his boss. He liked to deliver papers, it was something he had found
relieving, but lately he had been getting his priorities confused, which
had become evident in his attendance. Life was becoming stressful for him,
and it was becoming too much for a short, blue kitty to manage. Work had
allowed him to feel important. People relied on him for information, and
he kept that on his mind. Or he tried to, for the most part.
2
A jingling of a tin bell signaled the opening of the front door of Handler’s Paper Delivery. Kinthe peered in the doorway for his boss. His plan was simple: get in, get papers, and get out, doing all without getting caught. The front room was empty. He took one small step forward, and one leap of faith.
“Late again, Kinthe,” boomed a voice that seemed to surround the cat.
Kinthe’s shoulder’s tightened in fear. He turned to see a large, purple walrus, his employer, sitting in a reclining waiting chair. He had an expression on that Kinthe didn’t like.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” he said.
“Hello, Mr. Handler,” Kinthe said, his voice cracking accidentally. His face was becoming hot, and his hands sweaty. Kinthe hated negative confrontations.
Mr. Handler sighed and got out of the chair. “Kinthe, I want to talk to you.”
Oh… Here it comes, Kinthe thought to himself.
“Listen. When you first started working here, you were an energetic and youthful go-getter who took pride in his work and showed a lot of potential. And now you’re coming in late and seem to not show the same effort you put in originally. Customers used to call in and compliment your work, and now those same people—the same people, Kinthe!—are calling in to complain. Your mind is wandering, Kinthe. I know what you are capable of, and I am certain you can do much better.”
Kinthe listened to the entire lecture, paying attention intently for his unemployment. Each word seemed to add another five-pound weight to the back of his conscience.
“That is why,” continued Mr. Handler, “I have decided…”
Brace yourself, Kinthe.
“…that you need to take some time off of work.”
Kinthe’s eyes widened in surprise.
“What?” Kinthe uttered in disbelief.
“I want you to take some time to get yourself in order, get your head straightened out, and come back to me fresh and ready to work. If you can’t do that for me, then I’ll sadly have to re-evaluate your employment here. Understand?” Mr. Handler looked deep into Kinthe, as if he were looking through him. Kinthe tried to divert his own, but they were drawn into Mr. Handler’s gaze, and what he saw there was a strong emotion. Not of hate or disapproval, but of deep concern.
“Yes sir, Mr. Handler,” he replied almost reluctantly.
“Good. You can
cover today’s route, and tomorrow you will take a two-week vacation. But
remember, it isn’t entirely for luxury. I want you to do whatever it takes
to help yourself. I want the Kinthe I originally hired to return. Keep
it in mind.” Kinthe nodded in agreement. “Now get your load and do your
route.” He nodded again and got to work.
3
A gust of cold air engulfed Kinthe as the doors of Pulgic Law Offices slid open from his approach. A shiver ran down his spine as he stepped onto the glimmering tile of the first floor lobby. Across the room sat a small desk that belonged to a female Goomba, whose attention was directed towards the receiving line of a purple telephone in front of her. As Kinthe approached her, he noticed that she was bickering with the person on the other end of that conversation, he figured a boyfriend or a sibling or roommate or—heavens forbid—a person that filled all those qualifications. When he stood in front of her, she set the speaker against her shoulder and inquired as to what he was there for. He gestured to the newspapers and mumbled a timid pile of words, and she got the picture and pushed a button that opened a pair of large, wooden doors down the hallway. He thankfully nodded and walked down the hallway and through the doors, which slammed loudly behind him, causing his ears to ring.
Once through the
doors, he continued down the long, quiet hallways, nodding apprehensively
to any passerby that looked at him, towards another pair of doors that
opened to the elevator. Kinthe stepped inside the elevator, finding that
it was empty, and breathed a relieving sigh for having not to bare standing
with a bunch of strangers staring at him as many stories up until their
destination. He pushed the button for his floor, the doors closed, and
he was on his way to deliver the morning paper for Mr. Pulgic himself,
accompanied by a cheesy soprano from some old opera playing on the speakers.
As the elevator made its way up floor by floor, Kinthe just thought about
how he would set the paper in the proper tray and walk away, same as always,
without making any eye contact with anybody, especially high end employees.
CHAPTER THREE
1
MR. BENDELL PULGIC was, to be entirely upfront, not a very nice Koopa at all. If you ever got in his way, you might as well write up your resignation, because if you didn’t, that would mean he would have to get his secretary to write it up for you, and if he were to do that, all chances of mercy were out the door, and so were you by his next coffee break. And he takes a lot of coffee breaks. He was mean because he was the boss of his own business, and he got in that position for being mean, and if you were to argue with him about how that was circular reasoning, then you’d be demoted to unemployed.
Mr. Pulgic—Mr. B. Pulgic (as he liked to be called, as a way to differentiate himself from his father of the same name)—will argue with you about how arguing is arbitrarily a complete waste of time, and time is production, and production is money, and so is transitively a waste of his money, and despite the fact that he had a large amount of money, wasting it was arguably one of the things he hated most. He had gotten his large amount of money by being a good attorney, which he had become by being sent through law school, which his father, Mr. Pulgic, had put him through, which he had been able to by a large amount of money he had earned by being a good attorney.
Now that school was over and he had proven himself to be one of the best attorneys around, Mr. B. Pulgic sat upon his fortune and throne on top of Pulgic Law Offices, firing the meager peasants that filled his law firm, whether they deserve it or he was just bored.
Mr. Bendell Pulgic was not a very nice Koopa.
2
BENDELL’S assistant and secretary, Amilla Raffer, was a nice Koopa, despite all her attempts to hide it from her employer. She didn’t fear Mr. Pulgic—Bendell, he liked her to call him—but she wanted to be respected and treated like a colleague, though she knew he would never hold her in such a position.
Bendell was the type of boss that kept his offices running like a caste system or a food chain: he was the top, and everyone that wasn’t him was less important than himself. He didn’t treat her poorly—far from it—but she still wanted to be held a little higher than a yokel that could keep a well-organized itinerary. That was embellishment, though, and she knew it. Mr. Pulgic kept a rather nice regard for her. He spoke to her properly, rarely straying from calling her Ms. Raffer; he had given her a well-sized office of her own that he had been using as a storage closet for his suits; he allowed her to replace the old desk and chair that was plain rubbish with a nice, high quality, mahogany desk and an extremely comfortable chair, fully cushioned and reclining; he granted her permission to use his personal bathroom, equipped with lavatories that were fully cushioned and reclining; he even allowed her to take twenty-minute breaks periodically if she was caught up on paperwork. Overall, Mr. Bendell Pulgic was rather amiable of Amilla, so much so that she suspected that he was somewhat subtly transfixed towards her, even though she tried to lead on that she wasn’t interested.
Despite this, Amilla was still a good employee. She wrote down all messages and appointments for Mr. Pulgic, she always finished her assignments on time, and her paperwork was always organized, proper, and legible. She was indeed a decent and curt worker. But that didn’t stop her from keeping a few things from her boss, like how instead of typing her average eighty-six words per minute, she convinced him that she only typed forty-two words per minute—twelve more than needed to get the job. That way she would finish her work assignments quickly and efficiently, leaving plenty of time to do as she wished while he thought she was busy. Little secrets like that she would keep to herself, and both she and Bendell were happy, though that wouldn’t be something foreign to Amilla.
She was always a happy person everywhere she went. While other people in the office held a grimace and looked as if they would jump out a window to their demise—taking the important notes from the day’s meeting with them—she would sit quietly at her mahogany desk, showing her pretty smile to everyone. She was leading a quiet, happy life, and was content with her apartment, her bills, her job, and her paycheck. Sooner or later Mr. Pulgic would have to give her a raise, even though she was making more than enough income to support herself.
Life was good, and Amilla was happy.
3
THE nervous Koopa quivered in the chair as he sat in front of the executive desk. Bendell couldn’t help but smirk at the pitiful sight displayed in front of him. He looked down at the papers in front of him, and then returned his eyes to the sweating intern. He could tell the kid was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
Maybe I should cut this guy some slack, Bendell thought to himself. He gave the kid a generous smile. The kid stared at him, smiled, and breathed a sigh of relief. Like a crack of a whip, Bendell immediately changed his generous smile into a malicious one. The intern, eyes grown wide, stopped sweating bullets and began sweating shotgun shells. Bendell chuckled a bit to himself and decided to end this little game of cat and mouse.
“You’re fired,” he calmly proclaimed. The kid’s eyes closed as he made an expression of a person getting stabbed in the heart with one of the custom executive pens on Bendell’s desk.
After he collected himself, the intern managed to reply in a cracked, nervous voice. “For w-what r-r-reason, Mr. Pulgic?”
“Well, you see, you deliver the doughnuts to this office…” began Bendell before pausing for dramatic effect. “And you delivered a certain flavor of doughnut that I don’t like. Do you know what flavor that is?”
“…N-no sir?” stammered the Koopa.
“I don’t like doughnuts!” screamed Bendell, flinging spit all over the poor sap. “Don’t you know that I’m a Bagel man?! What type of incompetent fool are you?!”
“I don’t know—”
“An unemployed one!” he yelled. “That’s what type! Now all you are is an incompetent derelict! Now I want you to—”
A knock on the door interrupted him in mid-sentence, and how he hated to be cut off while he was ruining someone’s self-confidence. The door opened and out popped the pretty head of Ms. Amilla Raffer.
“Mr. Pulgic?” she inquired.
Bendell’s mood immediately changed from charging bull to charming wolf. “Bendelli,” he corrected in with a smile on his face.
“Excuse me, Bendell,” she said modestly.
“Yes Amilla?”
“Ms. Rafferi,” she said in a strong, curt tone.
“Amilla,” he said, just as strong.
“I have a private message for you, sir.”
“Oh thank god!” the intern exclaimed with utmost relief. He jumped out of the chair and ran past the secretary, whispering words of thanks as he exited the room. Amilla stared at the fleeting intern, and then redirected her attention to Bendell.
“Another unemployment? Sir!”
“What, what, what?” Bendell moaned as if being lectured by his mother and swiveled his chair around as to show he was uninterested.
“Mr. Pulgic—Bendell—you can’t fire people left and right like this. It’s…It’s not good for business.”
Bendell rolled his eyes and swiveled back around. “Why should it matter to you if you aren’t the one being fired?”
“Well, with as much as you get rid of people, how can I manage to stay assured of my employment?”
Bendell flashed an alluring smile. “You know I’d never fire my favorite worker,” he said and finished with a wink. “Now what is my lovely secretary doing standing in my lovely office?”
Amilla cleared her throat and handed Bendell a Manilla envelope. “This came for you, sir.”
Bendell looked it over, and his smile changed into a scowl. “First that stupid little paperboy cat comes in here and interrupts me while I was writing up a report for a case, and now you interrupt me firing someone for a stupid parcel?! What do you think’s happened here? That I rolled over or something?!”
Amilla remained her stature and calmly explained: “Sir, this was sent to you directly from the source. Premium shipment. Whoever sent this to you wanted you to have it immediately. It’s important.”
Bendell’s scowl changed into a modest and embarrassed smile before he began chuckling. “Ha ha ha. My little secretary. Even when I think you’ve goofed up, here you go and prove to me you’re ahead of the game. Keep up the good work.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“You may leave now. As you said, this message is private.”
Amilla nodded and left the room as ordered. Bendell chuckled again and opened up the envelope and pulled out its contents. He read it over once and then yelled for his Amilla. She immediately popped her head into the room, still wearing her cheery smile and gleaming those diamond eyes through her glasses.
“Yes sir?”
“I’m going to need you to pack up my suitcase.”
Amilla stared at him quizzically, but nodded and slipped her head out of the room.
“Amilla!” shouted Bendell again.
“Sir?” she said as she popped her head back in the room.
“Pack a suitcase for yourself.”
Amilla stared at him longer than before, this time being entirely confused.
To Be Continued...
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