The exercise:
Write about: the journey.
... yeah, all right.
Mine:
So quite nearly four years ago I joined the clerk relief pool with the Town of Osoyoos. Rereading this just now brought a smile to my face, particularly the last bit of it.
Anyway. About six months later I got my first call to actually come in and work a shift. Which was followed by somewhat regular calls, at least compared to the previous six months.
I think it was August of the following year that I interviewed for a full time, permanent position with the Town (front desk at Town Hall). I lost out on that one to Amy (more on her in a bit), so I continued on in the relief pool.
The following April I applied and was hired on for my first round of the cleaning job with Public Works, a six month contract that got me to October. At the conclusion of which I returned to the relief pool.
I signed up for my second tour of duty in the cleaning job when April rolled back around for another visit. Whilst patiently waiting for a new full time permanent job to be posted at Public Works. When that finally arrived I applied and interviewed and lost out on that job to Justin at the Community Centre.
So I took his old job at the Centre, a permanent part time gig. Which, to be clear, I have both enjoyed and come to realize is a better fit for me than the Public Works job would have been.
So that brings us to last August. In March Debbie at Planning and Development retired, so I applied for her job and... lost out to Amy. Yes, again.
But! That meant Amy's job at Town Hall needed to be filled. So I applied, once again. And found out last week that I got it and will be starting April 16th. Full time, permanent at last.
I've got... after this publishes... three days of work left at the Centre. If something full time comes up there I'd certainly be open to applying for it, as I have enjoyed my time there. But I equally certainly wasn't going to wait around for that to happen.
I'd say it's safe to say that I've waited plenty long enough already.
Anyway. I'm very excited. I'm looking forward to my next step forward with the Town. And I'm feeling glad that I found a way to stick with it this long.
5 comments:
I’m stuck at Frankfurt airport waiting for a flight back to Malta at the moment, which is due at 2pm. It’s not terrible, but there are the usual oddities: the asian couple travelling with a cat, the women who can see people trying to sleep but who still won’t shut up, and the woman nearby who has fingernails to long to type with... but is determinedly rattling her keyboard anyway.
Well done on catching back up with the comments, by the way :)
Well, I like how this journey has played out to be honest. I’m sure that along the way it didn’t always look like it was going in the right direction, and it certainly seems like Amy is either your Nemesis or rather higher up your assassination list than she’d be entirely comfortable with. I can ask Mac to stalk her for a few days and gather information if you like? But it seems like it’s been a useful road despite the turns and twists. And a distinct lack of talk about your time being the Mayor’s body double....
The Journey
“We need to get Samual back,” said Tomasz abruptly. He interrupted the mages as they bombarded Lord Derby with questions, and for a moment they both stared angrily at him, and then, as one, they relaxed. It was a bit like seeing an angry dog suddenly recognise its master.
“He’s missing too?” said Memnith. Tomasz sighed.
“He flew off on the spear,” he said. “Yellow light made it glow, and he and it departed.”
“OK,” said Memnith. “That’s another item for our list. Which is getting rather long. Tell me, Ernest, did you not understand that the point of this little jaunt was just to get Dignity back?”
“Dignity is dead,” said Lord Derby. His voice was calm. “I have the documents she’d collected; or rather Samual has them. So getting him back solves two problems, so your list isn’t really longer after all.”
“Shorter,” said Memnith. “Since there’s no Dignity to rescue or retrieve either. Don’t look at me like that, Ernest, you know she and I didn’t exactly get along. Right, so I would say that we just need to sort out the bodies here then, and go find your batman.”
“Hardly my batman,” said Lord Derby. “Tomasz, what do you want to do with the soldiers?”
“The bodies can stay,” said Tomasz. He stared at Grace. “At least she can’t make more monsters from them now. The rest of us come with you.”
“Making monsters?” said Elizabeth. She was still standing very still, holding the Power around Grace and watching for any kinds of tricks.
“They were making demons out of people,” said Tomasz. “All the bodies here are part of her horrible work.”
“No,” said Elizabeth. She sounded puzzled. “No, demons are mathematical constructs. They’re a kind of mobile null-space. It’s... I need a whiteboard to explain really.”
“Grace was making physical demons,” said Lord Derby. “I killed a few of them. She needed people to make it all work, and someone supplied her with them. Most likely...,” he trailed off, carefully not looking towards Tomasz. Memnith nodded.
“Impossible,” he said. “Or at least, impossible with the Art as we know it. I wonder if there’s really any advantage to giving them physical form though?”
“You could ask her,” said Lord Derby. “I don’t know how talkative she’ll be.”
“She dies here,” said Tomasz flatly. He turned away, looking across the quarry. “Too many good people have died here because of her. It is just that she dies here to redeem them.”
“You don’t get a say,” said Memnith. “This is now a magical crime and will be handled by the Courts Thaumaturgical.”
“I am here, though,” said Tomasz. He turned, and with surprising speed threw himself at Grace. She, held rigid by the spell, couldn’t even flinch, but there was a look in her eyes that made Lord Derby wonder if she would even have tried. Tomasz’s hand closed around her neck, choking her.
A moment later, his eyes wide and shocked, his hands opened themselves and pulled away from her neck and Grace looked slightly shaken but unharmed.
“The spell binding her can exert force in all directions,” said Elizabeth. “It can be used to push away harm as well as inhibit her movement.”
“This is wrong!” shouted Tomasz. “She killed them all! They never had a chance. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” Szymon came to his side and put a hand on his shoulder, but Tomasz shrugged it off and stared from Memnith to Elizabeth and back again. “How can you consider letting her live after what she’s done?” He turned to Lord Derby. “Is this justice, Derby?”
“Who said anything about letting her live?” asked Memnith. His voice sounded like a whisper after Tomasz’s shouting.
“You said I couldn’t kill her!”
“And this is true,” said Memnith. “Even if I let you choke her I doubt she’d die. You’d just get some Yellow ailment from touching her. She’s steeped in the King’s evil, man. Leaving her alive and here might be the worst punishment we could inflict on her. But we will take her back with us and execute her for her crimes, and you may attend if it makes you happy.”
Tomasz spat on the quarry floor. “I will be there,” he muttered.
“Now,” said Memnith. “Samual went on a little journey, I hear? Let’s find him next then.”
Greg - yes, it's unfortunate that Amy is so nice and likeable... which I suppose means she is my Nemesis. But she's also training me on Tuesday and Wednesday this week, so perhaps a vulnerability will be revealed...
Yes. Yes, let us find Samual. Thank you. :P
This is excellent in its own right, by the way. I'm just excited by them finally getting on Samual's trail.
Congrats!! I'm in the midst of that hunt myself, and that long haul is hard, but I'm so glad you've landed something solid.
I've been caught up in another game that was intended to be a one-shot (which was fun), but will now be a monthly affair, which is quite exciting. But to get to that story, my bud had to make his own journey...
===
Walking at night was good, he had decided. The desert around him seemed to relax after the sun went down, releasing the day’s heat back up into the sky, and letting itself hum along with the stars as they appeared. The earth always hummed, but he could feel it resonate with the buzzing in his core at night, and it steadied him, reminded him he did indeed exist. He was glad to be his own self, but he had barely skirted a small settlement on his first night and only saw a few people from a distance before moving on. He had crossed a few roads, but had seen no cars. Most of the animals he spotted kept their distance. Being your own self was good, but it was difficult to remember you were a self at all without anyone else present.
The resonance of the night in his chest helped, though.
But one night there was a faint light lingering on the horizon long after sundown—that was new. He tried following it, and found it did get larger as he approached. Even closer, and he saw it came from a low building with one car and one large truck that was almost as long as the building parked along the side, and lights on inside. Curious, he made his way in.
A person in an apron watched from behind a counter as he came in, which immediately made him shrink back, but he was too curious to leave, and he didn’t want to be rude. So he came and sat down, one seat over from the person sitting at the counter. This person hadn’t moved when he came in, and only when they followed where the person in the apron was looking did they turn to see him. They had an older, weathered face, and their eyes felt sharp as they looked him over. Something about their gaze felt familiar, but somehow he was relieved that it wasn’t exactly familiar—though he couldn’t explain how or what that meant.
It would be rude not to say anything. Nervously he smiled and gave a small wave. “Hello.”
They gave him a nod. “Mornin’.”
The clock up on the wall pointed to 2:30. He turned around to look out the windows behind them—still dark, same as it was five minutes ago. “Is it morning?”
“It is if you’re startin’ your day. I am, so it is.” They took up the mug in front of them. “Time’s a wash, anyway.”
He had no idea how to respond, but before he could say as much they asked, “Got a name, kid?”
He hadn’t thought of that—people had names, and he probably should but he didn’t have one yet. “Well, I was created, and—”
“Eh?” They leaned towards him. “You’re who?”
“Created?” he repeated uncertainly.
“You say Ted?” They straightened up and looked at him. It wasn’t what he had said, but it bounced around his head in a way that confused him. He could only blink at them, until they asked, “Mind if I call ya Ted?”
He shook his head—in fact, he didn’t mind in the slightest. He could be Ted.
They seemed satisfied with that. “Donna,” she said, and put out her hand. After a moment of staring at it he put out his hand the same way, and she took it and shook it once before turning back to her mug.
“So where you coming from, Ted?"
He—Ted, he supposed—pointed back out the door. “Just out there, coming through the desert.”
“Ain’t we all.”
“What about you?”
Donna shrugged. “Was last in Flagstaff, stopped here for a couple hours. Gotta hit Bakersfield by mid-morning.”
“Oh.” He paused to think. “Is it a nice staff?”
“Eh?”
“The flag staff. If you were inside it, I imagine it’s very big.”
The corner of her mouth twitched up. “You’re real funny, kid.” She took another drink from her mug, then looked to find him confused.
“There’s not an actual staff,” she explained, “it’s just the name of the place.”
“I see. Is it the same with the bakers’ field?”
“Yeah, it ain’t a field of bakers.”
”Is it far?”
Donna shrugged. “Couple hours from Flagstaff, under six to Bakersfield if I make good time.”
That didn’t sound far at all—he was surprised he hadn’t seen any hint of either place in the last few days.
”Where you headed?”
“I hadn’t thought about that,” he admitted. “Where would you go?”
”Me?” Donna propped herself on her folded arms to think. “God, probably Vegas.”
”Vegas?”
”Yeah—Las Vegas.” When she saw she was met with another blank stare she raised a brow. “You’ve never heard of Vegas?”
He shook his head.
”Lordy, you’re really not from around here, are you?” she asked, bemused.
“I’m not,” he said sheepishly. “I’m sorry.”
She waved it away. ”You’re good. But yeah, if I was goin’ somewhere, it’d be Vegas.”
Then that’s where it sounded like he should go. “Is it far?”
”Nah, couple hours north-ish from here.” She pointed towards the right, presumably up the road outside.
”That’s not far at all. I could probably walk there by morning.”
”Wait, walk?” She turned to face him more directly.
”Yes. It’s how I got here.”
”Where’d you say you were coming from?”
He pointed back outside again. “Out in the desert.”
She stared at him quizzically, then blinked and turned back to the counter. “Well damn, okay then. If you’re gonna walk anywhere there’s a bus that picks up in Chloride. That’ll be easier.”
That sounded complicated, but before he could say as much Donna had slapped down some money on the counter beside him. “That should be good for a bus.”
”Oh no, that’s okay,“ he sputtered, “you don’t have to–“
”No, just take it—if you don’t need it there you’ll need it when you get where you’re going.” She set down a few more bills next to her plate. “Here’s for mine,” she called towards the kitchen, “and get one for him, too.”
Ted couldn’t quite see the person in the apron back in the kitchen, but Donna briefly held out a fist with her thumb sticking up before getting up. “They do good food here. Just follow 125, there’s signs along the side.” She pointed straight out the door, then clapped him on the shoulder. “Good luck, Ted.”
Confused as he was, he still nodded. “Thank you, Donna.”
Another pat, and she was out the door. He watched her go, and after a moment he heard a large rumble to life and saw lights sweep across the parking lot and out to the road. At that point a plate dropped on the counter beside him, startling him back inside. It had a pile of something yellow, another pile of something starchy and shredded, some crispy brown strips, and a couple pieces of bread that were now crunchy. He hadn’t been hungry as he walked, but Donna had said it was good, and it would be interesting to try—and it was. It was all savory, though quite salty, and rather satisfying.
After he finished Ted stood and thanked the person in the apron. They looked up just long enough to give him a nod, but they went back to their magazine.
And back into the desert he went, shortly finding a road marked with signs numbered “125”, like Donna had said. He rolled their conversation around in his mind as he walked—much of it was confusing, but he had liked talking with her. He particularly liked how she called him Ted—she had made a mistake, but he liked the sound of that name, how it settled in his head into his hazy notion of who he was. He didn’t have much there, yet, but he did have a name. He liked that.
And he had a place to go: a place called Chloride, and a place called Las Vegas. His core buzzed, though differently than it usually did at night—this might have been excitement. He definitely liked that, too.
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