Lucy sighed, opening her email and seeing all the new messages staring at her, the bold letters proudly staring at her. She opened one, and was greeted with the first message in a thread that split in five different directions.
“Nope,” she said, under her breath. “Not starting with you.”
She closed the email and opened the next one, which was clearly a phishing attempt. She sighed, clicking the “Report Phishing” button, and wondered vaguely who received the notice on the other end.
She worked her way through her emails, coming across more threaded messages, a headache starting to build. She glanced up, around the open floor office, and let her eyes skim across the room. She didn’t want to let her gaze linger too long, in case someone thought she was staring at them. Better to keep her eyes glued to her own computer. The office looked the same as it always did, anyway. Not much changed here.
Lucy noticed the date at the bottom of her screen. She frowned slightly. Hadn’t yesterday been the sixth? She shook her head. Sometimes the days just blurred together, she supposed. She opened her current spreadsheet, getting to work on the long lines of numbers she needed to organize. She kept needing to pause, though, and message a co-worker for more information, and it usually took an age to get a response.
Finally, Lucy couldn’t take it any more. She needed to move around, stretch. She stood, rubbing her sore neck, and walked over to the kitchenette. She crinkled her nose as she grew closer. Who left eggs in the refrigerator again? The sulfuric smell almost made her gag.
She joined some people standing around the water cooler, grabbing her mug from the rack and sighing when she noticed it had a lipstick stain around the rim. In a color she never wore. She cursed silently in her head. She was going to have to put up another sign, telling people not to use others’ mugs.
She washed the mug in the small sink, annoyed at the little dribble of soap left in the bottle. She couldn’t believe how often she got the dregs; it seemed like she was always replacing the bottle. She listened the her co-workers chat, about their upcoming trips, their exasperating families, office gossip. Never anything very interesting.
But one thing did catch her attention.
“But that’s Tuesdays for you, right?”
She stopped mid-scrub, staring at the speaker. Was she crazy, or had yesterday been Tuesday? Was that why she was confused about the date? She could have sworn that someone had said the same thing yesterday, about Tuesdays.
She shook her head. She was just tired, maybe a little burned out. Sure, the days could be repetitive, but it was a paycheck, right? Not that bad, not really. Could be worse.
She went back to her desk, being careful to avoid eye contact with a particular co-worker. Once they started talking, there was no stopping them.
She sat down, and noticed a message on the screen from her boss, asking Lucy to go to her office immediately.
Lucy sighed, making her way to the office on the far side of the room. She knocked on the door, and heard a muffled “come in.”
She opened the door, and almost coughed, the smell of something burnt singeing her nostrils. She tried to ignore it, though; her boss was very sensitive, and it was better to not draw attention to her many oddities.
Her boss sat at her desk, filing her long nails.
“Lucy!” she barked, gesturing at the hard chair by the desk.
Lucy sat, trying to not look too uncomfortable.
Her boss stared her down for a moment. “Where are those quarterly reports I asked for yesterday?”
Lucy swallowed. “I’m almost done, ma’am. I’m just waiting on some more data from-”
“Don’t blame others for your incompetence, Lucy,” her boss chided. “It makes you not a team player.”
Lucy nodded bleakly. “Yes, I understand.” She glanced back up, and blinked rapidly. Were those… horns? And were her boss’ eyes glowing red? Lucy shook her head, and everything returned to normal. It must have been her imagination…
“Lucy?”
“Huh?”
She boss shook her head. “Such manners. I don’t know how you were hired in the first place.”
“Well, I-” Lucy started, then paused. How had she been hired? She’d been working here for what felt like forever, but she couldn’t remember when she started, or why she had applied in the first place.
“Yes?” Her boss’ eyes suddenly focused on her like a laser.
Lucy paused, trying to pluck up her courage. “Ma’am…” she started, then rushed through the rest, “what day was it yesterday?”
Her boss stared at her coolly, calculatingly. Then she finally sighed, and picked up her phone. “Yeah, I think Lucy is having some trouble again,” she said, lighting a cigarette.
Where did that come from? Lucy wondered. She’s not supposed to smoke in here, right? And when did it get so hot?
“I know,” her boss said, taking a deep drag. “This is like, the seventh time this decade. I don’t know, she must just be more perceptive than other humans.”
Than other humans? What? Lucy struggled to understand her boss’ side of the conversation, and the fact that the temperature kept rising in the office.
“Yeah, go ahead and send someone. I can’t have anyone realizing what’s going on, and stirring up the others. Yeah, I know, what are they gonna do, unionize?” Her boss laughed, although it sounded more like a cackle.
“Um,” Lucy said, coughing on the cigarette smoke, “I think I’m just going to go…”
Her boss slammed the phone down, and glared at her. “Listen, Lucy, I like you, but you can’t keep doing this. You have to be a team player, understand? We need alignment throughout the department, and you are causing problems.” There was a knock at the door, and two large men appeared.
“Now, Lucy,” her boss said, almost kindly. “You’ll go with these nice men, and they will supervise your corporate training for the rest of the day.”
Lucy stared at the men, and for a moment, they seemed normal. Then their faces began to waver, almost like their skin was melting. She gasped. Horns sprouted from their heads, and she could spot scaly wings and forked tails behind their backs.
“No!” she cried, falling out of her chair and backing away. “I don’t want to go to the corporate training!”
“I know, dear,” her boss said, pity dripping from her tongue, “you’ve already gone through it several times. But you just can’t seem to accept your role here, can you?”
The two horrible men grabbed her arms, and dragged her from the office. She pleaded with them to just let her go, yelled at her co-workers to help her, but they just looked up idly and didn’t seem to care very much. She was pulled down the hallway, and spotted the company name on the wall:
Hell, Inc.
Lucy screamed, until her throat was raw.
“Come on,” one of the demon-men grunted. “You’re not even down there yet.” He pressed the “down” button for the elevator, and she fainted.
–
Lucy opened up her email, seeing the long list of messages and shrugging. That was the job, right? She worked through them, pulling apart all the multiple threads, and checking in with a few co-workers on some outstanding projects.
After a few hours of work, she stood, walking over to the kitchenette. She grabbed her mug, and sighed as she saw a rogue lipstick stain. Eventually she’d need to make a sign, or maybe call HR. She joined her co-workers at the water cooler, laughing at a story about someone’s kid’s antics.
One person finally sighed, stating they should probably be getting back to work and bemoaning the mountain of emails waiting for them.
Lucy chuckled, commiserating. “That’s Tuesdays for you, right?”
© The Lightning Tower, 2020