The Magical Mystery Tour!

'The magical mystery tour! Is dying to take you away!'

-

I had just finished it up. My 'MASTER CREATION'. Yeah. Right.

My OC, this weird, almost war-ponyish scarred Pegasus with black iron wing guards. I stared at the pony, half ashamed to actually post this to my Face2Face profile.

Y'know what? Screw it. I saved the image and rolled back over to my F2F profile page and selected 'Post New Image'.

Well, there it is. Now available for all my friends to grief me on. Sigh.

Oh well. It's midnight so I'd best to check out. I slipped into bed and let myself drift off to the sound of the radio dreamily buzzing 'Strawberry Fields Forever'.

-

I woke up gasping. I was covered in sweat. What's weird is I have no clue what made this happen. No recollection of any dreams or waking before now.

Still trying to catch my breath, I looked over at my clock.

"What?!" How could I have overslept until 3 in the afternoon?

"Shit, shit, shit!" I jumped out of bed, barely comprehending I still had on the clothes I'd had on the previous night. I pulled my glasses on and grabbed my wallet, cellphone and keys and hurried out the door to my bicycle.

Work is a short ten minute ride away, at a little paper manufacturer's organization office. I worked in shipping, on a computer keeping track of what needed shipping from the nearest plant in Mapleport, California.

I quickly chained my bike and raced inside for the afternoon shift. Gasping for air as I sat down, I noticed someone had left a sticky note on my monitor saying: 'Don't be late again, Jaxby! Boss wants you in his office, three thirty SHARP.'

Great. Just great.

I glanced at the clock. It was 3:18. I swallowed nervously. My boss was by no means an angry or aggressive man, but he did have a way with words that left you feeling worse than if a prize fighter had just taken the mickey out of you.

I sighed, then logged onto my computer. The alerts read 'Two new shipment requests'. I clicked and looked at the two. One was for a SaveLots outlet in Washington, the other for an address in North Carolina. Usually I knew all of the addresses that I received during the day, but this one I didn't.

Oh well. No matter, I clicked the confirmation button and clicked OK to fax all documents.

I leaned back in my chair, put my hands behind my head and glanced at the clock. 3:23.

Besides, when had anyone ever gotten in trouble for being early to a firing meeting?

I stood up and stretched, silently wishing I had better control over my own habits that caused things like this to happen.

Oh, me.

I knocked on Hobbes' door. A murmur from the other side told me to come in.

I opened the door and took a seat in the corner of the room, fearful for my manhood should he attack me verbally.

He continued to stare down at the papers he had at his desk, then scrawled out something on the /\bottom. He silently slid the paper to his left and stared at the following piece of paper.

"...Sir?" I asked hesitantly.

He sighed, not looking up. "Alistair, have you counted how many times you've been in here in the last month?"

I shook my head mournfully.

"Twelve times, Alistair. Twelve times. That's a grand total of over an hour you've spent having me lecture you. Did your parents ever lecture you on being punctual? Or did they abandon you to some fat bloke who never even gets out of bed?"

I sank further into the chair, bring my knees up to my chest and hugging myself.

"I sincerely don't want you to have to leave. Honest. But there are only so many times a man can play nice and still break the rules. I can give you one more chance, Jaxby, after that, if you mess up, you will be out faster than you can say 'Hobbes Baronesso is a terrible boss'. Do I make myself clear?"

I swallowed. "Yes." All I could manage was a mousy squeak.

"Then you may go."

I shivered involuntarily and unbound myself. Standing up and striding over to the door, I turned the knob, only to have Hobbes address me again.

"Alistair?" he asked.

I turned on my foot. "Yes?" I said, trying to keep the squeak out of my voice. That worked well.

He chuckled. "You're a good man, Jaxby, don't let anyone tell you different."

"Thank you, sir."

The rest of the day was fairly slow. It was mostly a fax or two every twenty minutes or so, and occasionally the weird phone call that a fax needed to be resent or a complaint which was promptly handed over to customer service.

Around 8:30, I stood up, grabbed a cup of coffee, went back to my desk to get my things, checked the computer one last time, then clocked out. I finished the coffee before I had even gotten to my bike. Chucking it into the dumpster, I unlocked my bike and went home.

The door shut quietly behind my bike tires, and I put my bike away in the closet. As the door to the storage room closed, I leaned against it, letting the friction from my sneakers stop me from sliding all the way to the linoleum floor and put my head in my hands. I was suddenly ridiculously tired and I had a raging headache.

I logged onto my home computer, checked my Face2Face, which of course had no updates to speak of, then I checked out and dozed off without so much as a second thought.