Author’s note: This was submitted to a flash fiction contest in (the author thinks May of 2022) where the author was treated like a lab rat, but hey, the lab rat took the cheeeezzzzz- I mean- first place!
“1,000 words, Boss?” I asked Catherine.
“That is correct, Mrs. Prime.” she replied, taking a long drag off her cigarette, not even bothering to look at me. She was apparently enamored with some documents.
I tried to get a look at the papers, and asked, “Like that song from Final Fantasy X-2?”
She slammed the documents face down on her desk and pointed her cigarette at me, “1,000 words is the limit! Not the target! Not the minimum! The limit! So you can’t go over that! Got it?” Her eyes were daggers that pierced the deepest parts of me. She didn’t look away as she slowly and rhythmically stamped out her cig. I hadn’t seen her this furious since the P.R. disaster following my F.B.I. story.
There’ll be no sexy times with the boss today, I’m afraid…
“Of course we won’t be fucking today, you disgusting pervert!” She pointed at her office door. “Get out!” She seemed more than a little frazzled.
I stood and curtsied. “Yes, Ma’am,” I said, then exited.
In the break room, I saw Beatrice. She smiled warmly.
I prepared a cup of coffee, adding copious amounts of cream and sugar, and took a sip. “How is your day?”
She gave a troubled waters hand gesture, grimaced, then smiled, obviously trying to make the best of some terrible situation.
I took another sip. “Yeah. Same, yo.”
Beatrice shrugged. Rolled her eyes. Plopped her hands at her sides, slumped her shoulders and shook her head.
Beatrice always was a very private person. I think I’ve heard her say two words in the entire time I’ve known her: “Yes, Ma’am,” to Catherine back in 2019. Which led me down a rabbit hole of thought and memory.
I made another cup of coffee, putting whipped cream and sprinkles and caramel syrup on top.
I texted my boss, “Go open your door in 10 seconds.”
She texted back and asked, “Why?”
“Just do it!” I replied.
“Fine,” she texted back.
9.27 seconds later, I was in front of her door with the besprinkled coffee and a smile. “I’ve figured out what to write about!”
She did not smile. I noticed for the first time that day she didn’t have her makeup done. Not even the basics. Her hair was a mess. Her outfit was on point, as usual, but it was like the clothes were on a mannequin with Catherine’s face rather than Catherine wearing the outfit. On top of all that, she’d been crying.
I raised the mug. “Can I come in?”
She walked away from her door. She waved me in with a flick of her wrist and commanded me to close the door behind me.
We sat at the coffee table in her office rather than her desk since it was Vanessa Carlton’s high-quality mahogany, after all. The coffee table was made out of a simple metal frame with a glass sheet on top surrounded by pink chairs that were softer and cushier than they looked. It matched the way the office was surrounded by the outside greenery on three sides of glass nicely.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said.
“You were my sister in Sappho before you were my boss. It matters to me.”
“It will matter if and when I say it matters where it pertains to me,” Catherine sniffled, wiped away a tear with a tissue, blew her nose, and threw the tissue away. “What are you going to write about?” She picked up her mug and took a drink.
I sat with my mug, losing myself within the violent abyss of cream, crystallized carbon rings and coffee that swirled within it.
My boss took a loud, intentional slurp of her coffee and said, “I’m waiting.”
I looked toward her. Another eternity passed us by before I could spit out my response. “I wanted to write about how we met.”
Catherine calmly placed her mug on the table, removed her glasses, placed them on the table, uncrossed her legs, unbuckled her heels, and removed them. She placed both feet firmly on the floor, her elbows on her knees, and rubbed her temples with her fingertips. “That is,” she said, followed by a poignant and pregnant pause, “an ABSOLUTELY DREADFUL idea.”
“What?” I asked. “I don’t understand.”
She looked at me. “Of course you don’t.” My boss walked around the table, dropped to her knees and grabbed my face.
I felt very fish-faced.
“But how can you not understand, Brandi? Every time you write about history, about how the past impacts the future, about how interpretations of the past inform interpretations of the world, all you do is drive people away from you, away from us, and make people around us angry!”
I said, muffled, “You’re hurting my face,” and she released me. I could see she was hurting. I took her hands softly in mine. “I love you, but I can’t not do that kind of stuff. That’s just how I operate. I’m sorry, Catherine. It’s that ‘happiness vs. truth’ question from ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ or ‘The Matrix’. I’m gonna go with truth. Red pill. Whatever. Every time. No matter how miserable it makes people – including us – in the now, because in the end, that’s how to, in the words of Dr. King, bend that arc of history toward justice,” I wrapped my arms around her. She returned my embrace with a warmth I had been missing from her. “It’s not a choice for me. It’s a way of life. Our stories are what make us who we are. If we aren’t willing to tell them honestly, how can we know who we really are? And if we don’t know who we really are, is life even worth living?”
“You’re right,” she said, looking at me. “You usually are. It just takes me a while to get there.” Then the tears started for us.
A moment later, the door opened.
Beatrice stepped in and stated solemnly, “1000 words.”
[The next one – Selfish Virtue, Selfless Despair – hopefully isn’t such a downer!]
Our Lady of the Perpetual Metamagic 