Stress Mangement

Slightly different format then we were going for, so Williams will post his stuff after this story post.

Theme: Revenge/ Switching Spots
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Stress Management

It never used to be this way. It never does right? We all enter into the workforce rich with optimism and eagerness and it doesn’t take long until we crack and settle into a mundane, routine based, robot like life. Some of us take longer, and when they crack, it’s even worse. Some of us just put on a façade. These people are the ones who sling around accusations about your lack of cheer being a direct result of “the Mondays.” Well let me tell you something, when you work in a 10’x10’ cubicle, everyday is Monday. Those optimistic people? They are even deader inside then those of us who have embraced our grim circumstance. These people are robots, programmed with the same ideas, and the same lame Jokes.

“Safety meeting! Nobody moves nobody gets hurt!”

Good one Beth, now don’t forget your ear scraping banshee laugh…there it is, lets get together and talk about how you’re the company cut up over the coffee pot at break. The phone rings and like a good little drone I pull myself away from frivolity and enter back into the rumble and tumble world of inks and toners.

“Hello and good afternoon, you have reached Ink Express, adding color to your office needs in a jiffy! My name is Neil Goodwin and I will be your service provider today. Can I start by telling you about this month’s special offer? Pardon me? Are you serious? What in the seven layers of hell is wrong with you? No, this isn’t Pizza Shack, how did you even get the numbers mixed up? They don’t even share the same digits! Ya, you can talk to my manager, you can talk to him all you want, if you can find the bloody number!”

I don’t have a regular phone, I use a head set, probably for the best I would assume. I could have snapped the receiver in half slamming a phone. People are already looking at me, they are just jealous because I did, no, have done four times now, what they have always wanted to do. And from the look on Beth’s face, she may not take to my uncaring attempt at riotous laughter over her less than satisfactory joke at the coffee pot. I don’t know what’s worse, Beth’s jokes, or that inevitable creaking sound that Dan’s office door makes when he opens it. Time stands still for a moment as I imagine myself leaping on top of my desk and wrenching open my jacket to reveal myself strapped with TNT set to blow, laughing in pure pleasure as I see those miserable people scream in horror. I don’t think I could ever do something like that though. I mean I just bought this jacket and its dry clean only and…well you get the idea I am sure.

“Neil, can you and I dialogue for a moment please.”

Or could I?

The floor supervisor is Dan. Dan is an idiot. This guy has just about every book on how a positive attitude can improve your workplace and every book on how to climb just one more wrung in the ladder of success. He is reprimanding me for my fourth outburst, but I am not really paying attention to him, my eyes begin to glaze over and scan over the office. The office of an idiot, decorated for idiots, by idiots. Complete with artwork that no office could be without! Newspaper clipping’s of Dilbert comics with the character names changed to match personalities of people in the office. Tres bien! And let’s not forget the classic motivational poster. A picture of some prat climbing a tricky rock face with the clever caption; “Determination, only those willing to climb life’s obstacles will come out better on the other side.”. I work hard to suppress the bile creeping its way up my throat. I wish Dan would just hurry up and finish this talk, we both know where its going to lead anyway, I was “warned”.

“Here is the number, Lucy will be checking up with me so I know your going. After this, well, if this doesn’t work that is, we will have to let you go Neil. And none of us wants that, wacky tie Tuesday wouldn’t be the same again!”

BOOM.

If only.

“Hello everyone, my name is Neil Goodwin and I am a stress-a-holic. My work is making me come here because I have stress issues. It has been exactly ten minutes since the last time I have been stressed out, because that guy, ya I’m pointing at you ham steak, cut me off in the parking lot!”

Perhaps not the best way to be making friends, but I am not here for friends. And Lucy, the instructor, is burning a hole in my forehead with that glare, and I am pretty sure I can hear a death rattle coming from her chair. Not that I mind the look though, this fiery little strawberry blonde has got my mind running with all kinds of horrible and depraved thoughts. So much so that I miss what she tells me and I just continue on with a story assuming she told me to continue.

“The reason I am here is simple, it’s probably why the rest of you are here, well except for you ham steak, your probably here because of the stress that keg you got puts on your ankles. But I digress. I am here because like many people in today’s workforce, I was stepped on like a door mat in order for someone else’s promotion. One of the guys who was working on a team project with me and a few others. You think you know somebody and then bam! They toss you out under the gravy train so they can hop on. Things just haven’t been the same since that. I blew up at four customers since then, but really, who cares? I work at Ink express, I sell inks and toners! Customers need to be yelled at sometimes.”

“Ok Neil, your activating your stress chakra’s we need you to pull back a little bit with breathing and soothing words to activate those rest chakra’s. Once you have done that you may continue.”

Do you ever wish that you could have an outer body experience? I do, and that moment was one of them. I wish I could have seen the incredulous look on my face that disgust unmasked and unrelenting in its honesty. Stress chakras? Rest chakras? Was this woman for real? I didn’t need breathing exercises; I needed kung fu class or a pistol!

“Are you kidding? I mean, you can’t be bloody serious, because that has got to be the largest load I have ever heard come out of a person’s mouth. Clearly you weren’t listening to me. I said I work on a phone selling ink and toner all day. I deal with idiots all day! And you come at me with that line? Screw you, I am gonna stay pissed until I finish this story and this session and I can go and get my fucking coffee and donut! Now, like I said, that little pin weasel took credit for some of my work and passed his own shoddy work as mine. He got a promotion; I stayed in that dungeon, that cubicle. So ya, I am little stressed. Be honest with yourselves, what one of you has not at some point wanted to come into work with a higher powered fully automatic rifle and start cracking out shots? Anyway, I have to sit there all day, and the image of that hack sitting in my big office, with my big desk and my secretary drives me mad. Come on, be honest, you, Grey Bush, you got stories, come on.”

As the old woman moved past the insult, she stood up and began to explain about how her care worker had been stealing from her or something, I don’t know, I wasn’t really paying attention to her. I was looking at the strawberry haired seductress across the sharing circle. Thinking of ways to get her to tell the people at work that I was fine enough to stop going to these things, anything to get out of here before the hugging and the crying…anything.

“Ok Maggie, that’s enough, we will take a break and then we can move into the one on one sharing sessions. Neil, I want to talk to you.”

I have been hearing that a lot lately. At least she said talk, and not dialogue.

“Look Neil, I know this your first day and all, but,” Lucy took a drag of a cigarette, a break time staple. “Those kinds of outbursts can’t happen anymore, and stop calling Walter Ham Steak. He is a stress eater.”

“I don’t care what he is, he ain’t the only one with problems, and he is handling them like a schmuck! You’re like a therapist or something, bust out the punching clowns or something. This isn’t stress, its rage, pure and unbridled. Let me hit one of those rebounding clowns or something.”

I hadn’t seen it then, so caught up in my own self pity, the faintest smirk playing across her face. She leaned in a little bit, not enough to make it look like anything more then someone lecturing another however.

“You really think your life would be better if you had that promotion?”

“Yes.”

“What about your friend?”

“Forget him; his circumstances are far from remembering. He’s not my friend anyway.”

“What if I told you I could take his life for you?”

“I would say that you’re probably the worst stress counselor I have ever met, but let’s hear what you got to say.”

“Not a whole lot else to say, I will take away his life, and all I want from you…is you.”

He dies, and I get sex? Win win baby! Did I accept, yes I did, and who wouldn’t. You morally outstanding people need not apply.

“Good, meet me for dinner, late night shall we? Say tonight at the Flamenco Lounge?”

I was gonna get some tonight?

“Sure, what time?”

“Midnight.”

With that, I ducked out of the rest of the session, I didn’t think there would be any point in staying for the one on one’s since I had pretty well insulted everyone at the meeting. I was pretty sure that if any of them were going to hug me, it would be with closed hands around my throat. No, I would go home, shower up, clean up and later on, bone up.

Midnight proved to be rather uneventful, filled mostly with silence and eating. It was not the crass dinner conversation I was hoping it would be before we finally forwent with dinner and just went to either her place or mine for a night of commemorating the death of that tripe that skewered me. No, it wasn’t actually until about quarter to three in the morning that a word was spoken, and when it was, it was even further away from what I had in mind.

“So I took your friends life.”

“What? How? It was only a few hours before we met up with one another after the meeting. I thought stuff like that took, well, planning and time. Things like that.”

She reached into her purse and put a flask on the table. This was perhaps the most macabre looking flask I had ever seen. The stopper was a skull, a horse skull with skin stretched over it and a thousand little tentacles hanging out of the mouth, so life like in their design. The flask itself was a series of bones, forming a shape confined within the shape of the flask. The whole thing looked like it had dank grey skin pulled onto the embossed images, stretched to form fit and loose and hanging off certain places.

“Um…ya…I am all for like freedom of religion, but I ain’t down with vampirism or goth stuff.”

“Its not vampirism, well it is a bit. This flask has your friend’s life in it. You need merely to drink from it and take the life of your friend.”

“I just drink it and he dies?”

“I didn’t say he dies; I said you take his life. His life will be your life, and your life will be his. Think about it, you can rid yourself of all that anger, you can get that promotion you deserve, and, I agree, you do deserve it. After all, you put in the work. That’s why I want to help you. You deserve the cars; you deserve the pay, the luxury, and the girls on the side.”

I liked that last part. Maybe I can put off blowing up the company. I reached out for the flask but Lucy interrupted me.

“We have one more thing to attend to before you can have this flask. You must be mine first.”

“What, here?”

“Yes.”

She reached into her purse again, she was prepared it would seem. But she didn’t pull out what I thought she was going to. Instead it was a stack of papers and a pen.

“Your soul, I want it.”

“What are you the devil or something?”

“Neil!” She laughed, it was musical. “Come on, we both know the devil doesn’t exist, just consider this all a part of the game.”

Games…did you hear how she said it? I like games, I didn’t need to read it, and I just signed it.

“So did you draw this up?”

Her reply cut my laughter short, but I continued laughing thinking it was a joke.

“William Zanzinger’s lawyer. Well, that about wraps up what we have to do here.”

She got up and slung her purse around her shoulder and looked at me from her shoulder and gave me a wink. “Give me a ring when you come into some money, we’ll do this again, maybe some dessert next time.”

I like dessert.

It was three in the morning by the time I got outside of the place and onto the street. The flask felt wet and clammy against the palm of my hand. It all seemed like a big joke; maybe she was setting me up into her program, like an explorative exercise. But still, I couldn’t shake the sense of foreboding that flask practically leaked! But I had already made the deal; there was no turning back now. I wanted it all; I wanted the money, the respect, the power, and the women. I forcefully removed the stopper from the flask, expecting some strange event to take place, but nothing happened, I could only hear the faint sloshing of the liquid inside, and I could only see a gentle steam rising out from the flask.

“Bottoms up.”

I poured the flask back into my mouth and the piping hot liquid inside reached down my throat like a tentacle. It drank like warm sake; it may even have been just that. The steam reached down my throat, carrying the flavor with it, the drink itself following shortly after, carrying even more flavor with it. Every sip was the same, tendrils of steam and liquor. When I was done, it was just me, the night sky, and an empty flask, my watch telling me it was 3:01. I guess there wasn’t much in the flask. I knew it had to be some kind of prank; she would get an ear full at group tomorrow night!

The again, maybe I would take a personal day.

Wind pulling through my hair, the top down on a cherry red Porsche and people looking at me with more envy on that one street then my entire life! That woman, she wasn’t lying! I don’t know how she did it, but I was taking a personal day, driving around with a couple tennis instructors, and that guy, was sitting in what used to be my cubicle forging onward through a slew of calls from idiots. Dan was on quick dial; maybe I would give him a ring.

“Hey Dan! It’s Neil.”

“Ah Neil, enjoying the sun I hope, you deserve a little time to yourself. What can I do for you today sir?”

“It’s about Jared Dan, I don’t know, he has seemed kind of down lately.”

“I haven’t noticed anything sir, but you were both in the same marketing project, so maybe you can see something I can’t, what should we do?”

“Send him in to see the office counselor, tell her to get him on with working on depression. I think he might still be down over the promotion. Let him know that whenever he needs me, I’m there for him. Any time, I can take him out on the boat for a bit.”

“Sir, you are far too generous, it’s good to have you looking out for things up there.”

“Dan, it’s what I am there for, you taker her easy good buddy, talk to you later.” Hanging up the phone I turned to the girls, standing up and letting the wind in through their hair. “Ladies, let’s hit up a bar!”

I love hearing them scream!

The bar was classy, a lot more classy than anything I had ever gone to before, suppose it could have been middle class, if anyone asked, we were gonna be slumming it up that day. I was going to spread around my wealth in that bar, a drink for you sir, your welcome, how about you mam, don’t mention it. Hey you, lonely fella, how about a stiff one, you look like you could use it.

“Hey, thanks pal, aren’t you Neil Goodwin? Ya…you are, you just got promoted at Ink Express a couple weeks back there.”

“You work there?”

“I did.”

Did?

“You did? As in you don’t anymore? Did you quit?”

“You’re kidding me right? You laid off like tones of us.”

“Ya, good one, enjoy your drink man.”

“It’s not a joke, you did, how can you be so cool about it?”

“Something like that doesn’t go unnoticed pal, your making up stories. Now I bought you a drink, stop trying to make stories. Ladies, lets go play some pool.”

I had my back turned, I didn’t see the man on his feet, pointing his finger at me and shouting his accusations.

“You prick! You gave us extra severance pay to keep it quiet! Didn’t want to make a scene! Well I haven’t seen any of that extra severance! I got a family to take care of man! You made promises.”

“Buddy, enjoy the drink, Ladies, lets get out of here.” I started making for the door. “Man, you need to stop putting your problems on me, if you got laid off, you weren’t meeting the bill, maybe at your next job you won’t put out such a bad performance. Give them my name as a reference, I will hook you up!”

The girls laughed and gave me praise; spoke about how generous I was for humbly putting up with that “ugly old man’s” abuses. We made our way into the parking lot and towards the car. I could hear the door to the bar kick open and angry footsteps coming up on me. The girls screamed when we turned around.

I hate when they scream.

A gun barrel in my face.

“Gimme your money man.”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m taking your money! You won’t gimme what you promised, so I am gonna take it! Now empty the wallet.”

Turning my back on him was probably the wrong thing to do.

“Whatever man, you’re gonna stick me up in broad daylight, go home.”

My head swam, the vision in front of me turned to white and I could hear the girls screaming, he must have cold clocked me from behind. All I can remember is uttering out a few choice curse words and then I ended up…well here, talking to you, relaying every grueling second of my life up until this point. I didn’t think you existed, you said you didn’t, we shared a laugh about it. I suppose the jokes on me. I don’t know what is worse, the wailing and gnashing of teeth, or these sessions with you. Sitting here and pouring over every single detail of my life, millennia at a time, watching every mistake, every step closer to you and to this place. But you said you weren’t real…this place shouldn’t be real, this shouldn’t even be happening right now. There wasn’t supposed to be any consequences. I was supposed to get to live the high life, I didn’t get to live. You promised me dessert! I suppose it’s a little to late for all of that now, speculation now. And I have all the time in existence to speculate on it all now. Here with you.

Boom.

If Only.

All characters and stories are ©2008 to Jonathan Elric.