The Fairy and the Ogre (Part 2)

WEDNESDAY

Sally entered the office with a hint of trepidation. Everything looked perfectly normal. She peered into her boss's office on the way to her cubicle – empty as normal (he typically got in late and left early – regular hours and overtime were for the plebs). Nothing was out of place. Probably, she thought with rising hopefulness, the cleaner had forgotten his bizarre promise 5 seconds after he'd wandered away.

Wednesday was meeting day. You'd expect a break from dull routine to be welcomed, but somehow work meetings managed to be duller and feel more routine than even the work managed to be. Maybe it was because lots of people, all radiating dullness and hopelessness, were stuck in a small space together instead of dispersing their misery over the office.

The boss walked in late (standard) with a scowl on his face (mostly standard – the only time he smiled in a meeting was when someone was about to be publicly humiliated or fired). He sat down, farted loudly (not standard) and blushed (extremely non-standard). He picked up a pen, which exploded. Not a minute into the meeting, and he looked ready to cry or explode himself. Sally wiped a drop of ink from her cheek and boggled, while trying to pretend she was noticing nothing. All around her, she heard the sound of desperately-muffled chuckles giving way to fits of fake coughing.

Brownies?

The manager thumped the desk, and said, “Right, let's start this meeting! Stuart – what's the status of -”

He coughed. He spluttered. He hacked... and out of his mouth came something looking suspiciously like a furball to Sally's practiced (cat-owning) eye.

Stuart – a bit weak-stomached at the best of times – gagged and ran out of the room. Everyone else kept to their seats, too shocked to do anything useful.

Sally smirked internally (never externally – that would be career suicide in this place). Whatever was happening, she was determined to enjoy every minute. The boss slumped, head in hands, silent.

After a number of very quiet, very boring minutes in which everyone glanced covertly around the room while trying to avoid eye-contact with anyone, the boss thumped the desk again. “Meeting adjourned!” he choked out, then strode out of the room, head held high and arms clasped over his abdomen.

Sally returned to her boring cubicle and looked at her work, thinking hard. Brownies? Mischievous ones? Coincidence? Or had the cleaner poisoned her boss's coffee cup or something? Crud, how would she explain herself to a murder investigation? “Well, Your Honour, the cleaner said he was a fairy and would grant me a wish...” She gave in and banged her head on her desk for relief.

“Sleeping again, eh? That performance review is getting worse and worse, girlie!” boomed a familiar, nasally voice. Well, he wasn't THAT sick, she mused angrily. The boss moved on to his next victim – at least, started to, before tripping over nothing and hitting his head on the ceramic ornamental fern pot. Sally choked back the giggle as he bounced to his feet and looked around wildly for whatever had tripped him. Looking just a little red, he gathered his dignity and strode off into the bookshelf. Someone broke, and a coworker was wracked with laughter. The boss, bright red now and with two lumps competing for dominance on his forhead, swore inventively and fired the nearest employee.

“Someone didn't have his morning coffee,” whispered Stuart from the other side of her cubicle. “Cripes... have you ever seen him so mad?”

“Only that time when his wife walked in, told the entire office that she hadn't had a decent shag in the ten years they'd been married, then dumped him!” whispered Sally.

Stuart boggled, “I missed THAT?”

“Nah, I made it up. She should, though, I reckon it's true!” whispered Sally, then ducked down to avoid the enraged glare of the wounded boss.

The day passed, with miscellaneous mishaps causing regular bellows of fury from the direction of the boss's office. The employees kept a low profile, attempting to reign in their sniggers and keep their whispers from reaching the (bright red) ears of the boss.

Just before 4:30, the fire alarm went off. As the employees dutifully traipsed toward the fire stairs to complete the drill, they were met with firemen – armed with fire extinguishers – heading into their office. What the heck was going on? Not a drill after all?

They met and waited downstairs for more than the usual ten minutes. Just as people started to look impatiently at their watches and mutter about going home and overtime, the firemen re-emerged. Between two large, burly firemen was dragged a small, weedy man covered in foam, with curls of smoke still rising from his head.

He was delivered to a waiting ambulance. Frank, edging as close as he could get unobtrusively, returned wide-eyed with the news.

“They reckon he set himself alight... just his hair! Some weird psychosis! I'd say they're taking him to the mental health hospital down the road.”

Stuart grinned, “He's not going to be back in a hurry – halle-bloody-lujah!” he crowed. “That man's been driving me batty since I started here... thank God he's gotten some of his own back, the great psycho!”

Sally collected her belongings and headed home, deep in thought. The 'fairy' had certainly delivered. Coincidence?