The Workplace Gothic Dream I had
It's the beginning of Summer, and I move to a secluded house south of the city of Edmonton. Desperate for work, I get a job at the car scrapyard down the road. I have my doubts but after meeting The Manager I find it's hypnotically ideal there. Everyone is unrealistically compliant and happy all round the clock, even throughout the bad pay and dangerous work conditions.
I never see any customers, but the work keeps piling up. It's just me, my muscular and classically handsome coworker who works with me on the vehicles. The pretty, young Secretary with slim hands and a kind face.
Time passes in a cheery haze as I work there. Summer turns to Autumn as I mindlessly perform my duties. Looking back, I'm not even sure if I go home during this time period.
A workplace injury, falling from a scaffolding as I pry off a part from a scrap car upon a pile. The wind is knocked from my lungs... and I am freed from my managers spell. I remember my who I am as a person.
Then, I start to feel miserable at work. I ask for compensation and time off. I am refused. Angrily, I threaten to tell the labour board. The Manager doesn't like that. The Manager let me go home that day. When I returned the next day to see the schedule, it was outlined in a furious scribble on my coworkers shift listings:
I flee for my life, and my male coworker chases me to my house down the road. I barricade myself in, and start trying to talk him out of his trance. It seems to be working, until the manager shows up. He goes even deeper into a state of mindless compliance. He breaks through the door, and him, the Secretary, and The Manager enter.
I escape through a window. He climbs out after me, and I ambush him outside the property line. I break a solid wooden branch over his head. Holding him down, I talk to him about his life wishes, ambitions, ANYTHING. He slowly begins to reminisce. He wanted to go to the city, get a real life and real job in the early 2000s, 20 years ago. He hasn't aged. The smile breaks. "If you see The Manager, or hear me tell you to put your hands over your ears, do it." I tell him. We escape down the road.
We're back at the junkyard. There, the Manager and the secretary catches up with us. I pretend to he entranced by her spell. I approach her. She orders me to kill my coworkers, who have failed her for the last time. I pick up a prybar at her command. Switly turning on my heel, I crack her in the face with the tool in my hands. A look of shock crosses her face as she crumbles to dust, leaving nothing but her nametag behind.
Instantly, my coworkers snap ot of the trance. The three of us exchange confused looks, before the Secretary starts sobbing. Her name is Wendy, and she's seventy three years old. She doesnt age. Neither does my coworker Samuel, who still retains his youthful look even though he must be nearing the age of fourty.
We leave, not looking back.
I offer them my home to stay in. They are my friends, and we reclaim our lost youths. The next time we past by the junkyard is an empty plot of land, like it had never existed.
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