Showing posts with label The Boss. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Boss. Show all posts

67: Or Something Worse

Michael Frearson has written a follow-up to his last installment...

The Boss is humming to herself. Quite audibly. Sometimes the humming gives way to words, which gradually dismantle themselves and become humming once more.
‘Dancing Queen, young and free and the tambourine…dancing queen, you can da daa da hmm hmm hmmmm.’

‘Oh god,’ says Linda, ‘is she delirious?’

‘Deliriouuuussss’ sings The Boss. ‘616.8’ she says.

‘I don’t know,’ says Mike. ‘Part of her is certainly still functioning. Maybe a cup of tea will sharpen her up.’

‘I think she might need something a bit stiffer than that,’ says Linda.

‘Stiffer’ says The Boss. She sighs. ‘Belle comma Monica’

‘Oh my god that’s the Black Lace she’s on about. We need to hurry, Mike; she’s definitely not well.’

The commotion in the staff area below suddenly gains substance on the penultimate staircase. Linda and Mike look at each other in horror.

‘Oh no,’ he says.

‘We must have run out of customer feedback slips,’ says Linda.

‘Or something worse,’ says The Boss, still smiling. ‘Something Much Worse.’

The trio hears the growl in unison as they descend the final staircase; it sounds a bit like a man. A man being strangled. They press on in trepidation.
The disheveled silhouette of John is gradually revealed with each downward step. He is holding aloft something large and yellow. Beyond him The Borrowers are swarming towards them like angry daytime TV chefs, but John barely seems to be aware of them.
The growl becomes a roar.

The lift chimes as the doors open.

62: A Smile To Give You Tumours

Linda and Mike are coming down the stairs. Slowly though, and with The Boss propped up between them. Linda isn't sure how to drag someone down a stair-case respectfully, but she holds onto an elbow and tries to be gentle.

The Boss is mainly unconscious, but every now and again she opens her eyes and mutters something about War, about the Shame of the Christmas Club Theft, about Scotch Eggs and Who's Who and Games and Puzzles. Sometimes she chants Dewey numbers to herself, but Linda is too focused on making sure they get down the stairs in one piece to pay much attention to her.

'Mike, can you hear something?'

'What?'

Mike rests against the wall. They are both panting slightly. The Boss goes limp in their arms and they prop her against the bannister. From the bottom of the stairwell, Linda can hear bumps, bangs, and shouts.

'I can't hear anything,' Mike says.

Linda blushes. She'd forgotten, but sometimes, when it's been a while since she's had a special drink (something medicinal, for her nerves) she tends to hear things. Not things. Just bumps. Shakes and scratches in the walls. That sort of thing.

'My mistake,' Linda says, and coughs, 'lets get to the staff room. The quicker we get a Gin... I mean, a cup of tea, the better I'll feel.'

Linda and Mike take The Boss's arms again, but suddenly she opens her eyes and smiles at them quite calmly.

'Are you feeling better?' Linda asks. She wants to say, 'Sir' but she bites her lip and stops herself just in time.

'Oh yes,' The Boss says.

Her smile is like cool blue water with the reflections of pine trees in it. It is melted glacier warmed by geothermal activity. It is water stuffed with unknown minerals: the kind that will make you cleverer, and live forever. Or the kind that will give you fast growing tumours. No-one knows.

'We'd better hurry up dear,' The Boss says, 'it looks like I made a mistake putting Rosalyn in the basement, doesn't it?'

52: Something Nasty In the Library

As Mike runs into the office something strange happens to The Boss.

She was starting to feel like she'd been dangling upside down for a long time. A really long time. She was starting to wonder if everyone in the library and the outside world (it's been years since she's even remembered there was such a disordered, noisy, bookless place) had forgotten about her.

And then the blood started to throb through her brain, beating like a drum, like a whole pit of percussionists, like a bin-bag of pots and pans being thrown down the stairs. Her gums and eyeballs started to throb. Her skirt, brushing against her chin, seemed to be throbbing too, although that wasn't possible.

These migraines are enough to make the library itself tremble, The Boss thought, and then the sentences in her head scattered and made themselves into a picture that looked like a heap of broken twigs and umbrella spokes, and was frightening.

The Boss closed her thrumming eyes and let her legs go limp just as Mike opened the stationery cupboard door.

She collapses into his arms, and he catches her, but she doesn't know anything about it.

'Linda,' Mike says, 'get the First Aid Box, The Boss has...'

Linda hesitates at the door. 'I'm not allowed to do First Aid on The Boss,' she says, 'it's a rank thing. It's about line-management structure, and council hierarchy. It's in the Staff Manual.'

Mike sinks to the carpet on his knees, half in and half out of the cupboard. He pulls The Boss' skirt over her legs and doesn't look.

'She's fainted!' he says, 'she needs some First Aid.'

'What she needs,' Linda says, 'is a cup of tea and some Fresh Air.'

Mike opens his mouth to argue, but The Boss twitches in his lap. She flutters her eyes open.

'There's something nasty in the library,' she slurs, 'Games and Puzzles.'

The Boss closes her eyes again. Mike taps her face gently. He doesn't quite dare a slap. How old is The Boss anyway? She could be twenty-nine, or eighty. There's something strange about her face, like the skin has been creased up and ironed out again hundreds of times, for hundreds and hundreds of years. He doesn't quite want to touch her, but she is a woman, and she is ill, and Mike is a Gentleman.

'What's she talking about?' Linda says, 'lets get her downstairs to the Staff Room.'

'Hide the Evidence!' The Boss screeches, eyes still closed. 'Dishonour! Shame! The tax-payer!'

Mike looks at Linda, and shrugs. 'Maybe a cup of tea would help,' he says, and shakes his head, 'we've all had a hard day.'

47: An Orphaned Ice Skater

The Boss has been standing very still for a long time. She can see through a tiny crack in the stationery cupboard door. No-one seems to be coming, although she can hear noises on the stairs. She isn't sure if they are getting closer or not. The reams of paper are pressing into her back. She thinks about an alternative career.

The Boss wouldn't mind being an Ice Skater, actually. It's a secret she's never told anyone before, not since she was a child. And then, it was all she talked about. She made costumes from tin foil and cling film, tinsel and milk-bottle tops. She practised twirling on her own, in a quiet corner of the playground. She never got dizzy. She practised, and while she was practising she waited for a man with a side parting and tight trousers to throw her upside down and whirl her through the air until her teeth rattled.

Her father told her she had thick ankles, and her mother thought the flesh coloured tights and glittering mini-skirts were 'inappropriate'. In cold weather The Boss used to pour water on the patio and practice sliding and twirling as soon as it hardened. There was an accident. The Boss frowns. It wasn't her fault, although everyone blamed her.

An orphan doesn't have too many career options.

When the door opens the Boss leaps up quickly and clambers onto the top shelf of the cupboard. There isn't enough room for her here. She hooks her knees over the top of the shelf and lets the top part of her body dangle downwards. Her neat skirt ruffles gently downwards and the hem brushes her chin. Her careful curls uncoil downwards and then spring back up again. She can feel the blood rushing to her head. She can feel her pulse hammering hard in her eyeballs. It has been a very long time since she has been completely upside down.

39: A Head in The Clouds

The Boss likes being up at the top of the building. The stairs are steep and take a long time to climb. The lift is old and clanky and there are rules surrounding its use that means she doesn't get bothered too often. The Boss can sit at her desk and bask in the brightest sunlight in the world. Her office is the only room with a proper window.

And what a window it is. A sky-light that takes up the whole ceiling, slanted against the roof. A ceiling wall papered with blue and clouds, and at night, the black and the stars and the orange glow of city light pollution.

Often, The Boss will lie on her back on the desk and look at the day turn into night and back again. She will chant the Dewey Decimal System. She will conjure classifications eleven decimals long. They work like spells.

Today, The Boss has been feeling twitchy. It started in the morning with a new recruit and a bouncing ball. She'd taken a trip downstairs to see Rosalyn, and make sure she was all right for food and water. Rosalyn had seemed odd. The Boss had wondered about offering her an extra day's leave, or perhaps sending her on the Pre-Retirement Course, but then Linda had nearly caught her on the stairs, and she'd forgotten about it.

She'd slept, most of the day. She'd rested her feet inside the wastepaper basket and held a hole punch against her heart while she dozed. Music. There was the most beautiful music.

And now? Now the electric lights aren't working and there is a noise on the stairs. The Boss sniffs the air. She tries to sense what is coming. She does not want to do another induction. She doesn't want to give advice about Google. She is not very interested in new search terms or keywords. She used to think about Service Performance and User Surveys and Event Evaluation Monitoring. There are forms for all these things. She pats her desk and looks for the forms. The grids and tick-boxes are comforting. Nothing. There's nothing there.

It is as if the lights have gone out in her too.

The Boss opens the stationary cupboard and gets inside. It smells of Heavily Supervised Items in here. Printer paper. Toner cartridges. Elastic bands. She closes the door behind her, and waits.

List Of Chapters

1: 146 Books About Hearts
2: Face Fascists
3: Barcodes
4: Restricted Items
5: Night Eyes
6: Induction
7: 500 Squat Thrusts A Day
8: Green Hair Ribbon
9: 'Existential Crisis'
10: Dirty Shit
11: The Enquiry
12: 78 Rubber Plant Leaves
13: No 'Gun' At All
14: Bob's Peak Peaks
15: This Is More Than Stab-proof Underwear And Glory
16: Now We Have The Internet Librarians Are Going Extinct
17: A Hankering For Pernod
18: The Boy With A Glockenspiel Spine
19: A Message From The Boss
20: The Music Of Lemons
"Commercial Break"
21: Lunch Break
22: Staff Manual
23: The Squid And The Quail
24: Risk Assessment (Google)
25: The Dewey Chakra
26: The Power Of The Pink Wall
27: Working Towards The Same Goal
28: I Used To Work In An Office But I'm All Right Now
29: Forbidden Areas
30: Basement Rapunzel Vibrates Lemon. Angry Penguin Watches On Disgruntled Skateboard. Red Gloves Receive Tune Of Rage
31: Angry Library Music
32: Treason
33: A Number all of His Own
34: Meanwhile, Down in the Basement
35: Sweetcheeks
36: A Charred Man, But a Man all The Same
37: When the Music's Over, Turn Out The Lights
38: A Rescue Rope Made Of Nylon Stockings
39: A Head In The Clouds
40: Adjacent To Miss World
41: Onwards And Upwards
42: Rosalyn Versus The Stranger
43: Big Ball Of String
44: Dead Zone
45: Not Green But Puce: A Story of The Incredible Hulk and the Zombie Borrowers
46: Today Is Not A Good Day To Die
Audience Participation
47: An Orphaned Ice Skater
48: A Genius, A Superhero, And A Dream Of Keyboard Shortcuts
49: That'll Pigging Do Bob
50: It's Me, Katerina
51: A Cup Of Tea Solves Everything
52: Something Nasty In The Library
53: An Army Of Borrowers
54: Dealing With Borrowers
55: The One True Grail
56: Paper Roses, Only Imitation, Just Like Your Imitation Love, For Me
57: A Barrel Sailing Over A Waterfall
58: Relationships Between Staff
59: Hive Mind Hatches A Plan
60: Three Scotch Eggs, Inalienable Rights and A Great Wrong
61: Breaking Out The Big Guns
62: A Smile To Give You Tumours
63: This Isn't War, It's Love
64: The Thin Grey Line
65: Search And Rescue
66: The Lingering Smell Of Sellotape

17: A Hankering For Pernod

Linda stands in the corridor outside The Office. Being in the lift has made her feel really light, like she has stepped out onto another planet with gravity much lower than Earth’s. She lifts her leg out in front of her and slowly lets it fall back to the floor. She does this again, with her other leg, and then with her arms. She pretends she is a puppet. She feels like she is swimming through a vodka slush puppy.

Light usually glows through the window of The Office door. This light painstakingly forces itself through the layers of dead skin cells and sweat that have collected on the glass. Linda always gets a hankering for Pernod whenever she stands outside The Office. But not now. The light is missing. There is only blackness beyond the door.

Linda thinks about knocking. She knows she should be in control now. She is the Health And Safety Warden, and this is definitely a Health And Safety issue. Emboldened, she makes a fist and raps on the door twice. The noise of the knocking sounds like drums. It fits so perfectly with the music. She knocks again, louder, and hears the notes soar up to meet the knocks. The music is wrapping itself around her. She starts to sway. She takes the roll of cling film out of her dungarees pocket and uses it to tap the walls on either side of her. She spins then, eyes closed, limbs flailing. She moves up and down the corridor like a whirling dervish.

She doesn’t hear the high-pitched screech coming from the lift shaft. She doesn’t see The Boss slip silently into The Office and the door click shut.

6: Induction

Garry stares at the door. The frosted glass window is coated in a film of yellow grime. It looks like it has never been cleaned. He doesn’t want to get any closer to it. The woman in dungarees has gone back down in the lift. He feels scared. He doesn’t like being alone in this corridor. He wishes she had stayed and accompanied him into The Office, introduced him. He knows he will have to move soon. He can’t stay in the corridor all day. So he slowly walks towards the door.

Garry imagines spores launching themselves onto him from the grime. He holds his breath, anxious not to let them get inside his lungs. Pulling his sleeve over his knuckles, he knocks on the door, hoping the rattle doesn’t dislodge anything. From inside the room, he hears a dull thump thump. He waits a few more moments before knocking again. He hears the thump thump again, and then a voice calls out Enter.

Still with his sleeve over his hand, he turns the knob and pushes on the door. It opens into a room bright with sunlight. Garry has to shield his eyes as he walks towards the desk. He can’t make out the occupant of the chair, all he sees is a silhouette framed by blinding white light.

Thump thump.

Thump thump.

Thump thump.

I’m here for the Induction, Garry says.

Thump thump.

The hand is moving. A whole arm is moving. It dissects the window in a perfect line. And then thump thump. A ball bounces into the hand. It is a tiny ball. It is all the colours of Planet Earth, but with more green than blue. Thump thump.

Pick a number between 0 and 999, the person in the chair says.

Thump thump.

Er....393?

A-ha! Death customs! Another!

616

Diseases. Another!

212

Existence. Very good. Now leave, there is much work to do.