Susan & the Land Of Mach B’alif Part 1



  Susan & the Land Of Mach B’alif Part 1

  Nicholas Clark

  Copyright 2012 Nicholas Clark

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1There’s No Place Like Hell

  Chapter 2Portals, Prophecies & Paths Oh My!

  Chapter 1

  There’s No Place Like Hell

  ‘We’re no strangers to love. You know the rules and so do I…’

  Snooze!

  ‘Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you…’

  Snooze!

  ‘I just wanna tell you what I’m feeling…’

  It occurred to Susan that no day of positive note, had ever begun with Rick Astley. Not that any notably negative day had ever begun with him either. Her less than sunny disposition could be put down to a disliking of 90’s pop power ballads but was more likely down her lack of enthusiasm for the day in general. Susan had been quite a fan of yesterday morning’s mix of playing Russian roulette with the possibly gone off milk and watching Jeremy Kyle in her pajama’s. It was unfortunate that, after such a good start, the afternoon took a nosedive when her temping agency informed her that they had a placement starting tomorrow. Goodbye 11:00am natural wake ups and hello 7:00am pop power ballads.

  Susan got out of bed and went through a sped up bathroom routine, with a mixture of disappointment, apathy and annoyance. She then faced the question she had never previously needed to answer. What does someone working in a legal filing department wear? Deciding on an outfit that was somewhere between Thursday night drink wear and Sunday best; Susan caught sight of her reflection in the bedroom mirror. It was not a look she was glad to have caught, her short dark hair that she had been so happy with when it had been styled into a punky bob now felt shackled and depressing behind a black Alice band. Her ears felt bereft of piercings as she noticed each individual hole of teenage rebellion that she had taken for granted, and now, due to page 17 of the Happytemp code of conduct, felt almost naked and at mercy of the world’s judging eyes. Everything about what she was wearing annoyed her in some way, the legs that were usually so comfortably covered in a pair of jeans now felt on display and showy in the skirt she had found at the back of her wardrobe. Whilst her shoulders felt hunched and weighed down by the accompanying jacket. It was like she was staring at a stranger that the world would pass by in the street. This was not her; she was supposed to be doing something interesting and fun with her life, doing a job that allowed her to be herself not one that paid her to pretend she was someone else. Unfortunately pending bills aren’t paid with pipe dreams and the land lord wouldn’t take laments about waiting to be inspired as rent. Susan knew all the perfectly logical reasons why this person staring back at her was a necessary compromise, but at that point would have given anything to be a million miles away and to see any other reflection.

  She rode the bus across town scowling out the window as the morning blurred by her with occasional stills of people sat in traffic, workmen drinking tea, postmen invading peoples garden paths and children and lots and lots of children. Her life had managed to exist quite well without children. They rarely seemed to encroach upon her environment, but as in the last few months those environments had been; her flat, the local pub and the 24 hour garage, it was not likely they would. Here and now Susan found herself on a bus full of children all on the way to school, loud children that had no appreciation for the truly horrible day Susan was going to have. When she was their age she was quiet and polite, she would never have loudly discussed how her friend Ashley caught her boyfriend Rio kissing Jennifer behind the cafeteria. This time yesterday she was asleep, content, warm with only the promise of Coco Pops and Reality TV ahead of her, now today seemed to be descending through a modernized circle of hell and the only thing she had to look forward to was filing.

  Susan got off the bus and followed the directions she had noted down from Brenda at Happytemp, a few left turns here a right there and soon she was in front of her new place of work. It was a narrow building that stuck out into the street, giving off the impression that it was being squeezed out by its larger neighbors. It resembled a child dressed in hand me down clothes being judged by his designer clad school mates when compared to its neighboring buildings. Susan looked up at the old, worn brickwork, the original colour faded beyond recognition, it was as if all the other buildings had managed to wake up in time for a shower and this one overslept by a good few years.

  She entered the offices of Baum, Carrol & Henson and it was like stepping into a filtered world, as though the walls drained the colour from your cheeks. She imagined what it would be like to spend every day here and how long until you considered this to be the norm and the outside world to be too bright and warm. She turned the corner to a small corridor where at the end sat a middle aged women behind a grey desk barely acknowledging her presence, unlike Susan who felt out of place and awkward in both her clothes and her surroundings Ms. Gale looked completely at one with her desk. She was typing at speed and without looking up from her work began to address Susan still without any visual recognition she was actually there.

  -Do you have an appointment?

  -No I...

  -I am afraid that we only see clients on an appointment basis.

  -You don’t understand, I...

  -I’m afraid we don’t make any exceptions; you need to make an appointment no later than three business days before you wish to be seen.

  -But listen, I...

  -No buts, no exceptions as I previously said, if you would like to make an appointment now for next week I can see what we have free but otherwise I am afraid there is nothing more I can do.

  -Really if you would just let me…

  Ms. Gale looked up from her desk gazing at Susan, her stare swept down the corridor like a sharp wind. She had stopped typing but her hands had slight twitch to them as though the tips of her fingers had not got the message that the typing was no longer the top priority. Her back straightened as her shoulders leveled as she calmly poised herself to speak, it was a change of body language she had clearly honed and refined in her years of service and if the desired effect was to make herself seem twenty feet tall and Susan a few inches it was one she clearly had perfected.

  -I have informed you of the appointment system, if this is a problem then I can only apologize but it is still the appointment system. We do business a set way here and we have rules we adhere to, without which there would be anarchy and I can assure you a legal firm is the last place anarchy needs to be introduced. If you do not wish to make an appointment then I will have to ask you to please leave.

  -I’m the temp.

  A silence hung in the air as both women took in what had been said, Susan retraced every single infliction she had put on each syllable and wondered if any may have crossed the line or conflicted with the Happytemp code of conduct. Ms. Gale’s expression did not change, nor when she spoke did the tone of her voice.

  -Well that’s a horse of a different colour, you’re late.

  -Pardon.

  -You are late, you were expected to begin work at 9am it is now 9:05, and tardiness will not be tolerated in future. You will find Mr. Collins in the third office on the right, he will give you a brief tour and show you where to begin, you will be expected to take your lunch between 12 and 2 which would normally be an hour but I am sure you will have no problem making up for your lateness from your lunch break.

  - I guess...

  - We do not make guesses nor accept them here; you will be paid for 8 hours today after having worked for 8 hours today, not 7 hours and 55 minutes. Am I understood?

  - Yes.

  Susan had been employed f
or less than ten minutes and was already contemplating retirement. She walked down the hall to Mr. Collins office and knocked on the door no longer knowing what to expect, if that was just the gatekeeper of this greyscale world what lay through the looking glass. In her mind images of Mr. Collins came flooding in, a nose long and crooked, eyes focused and piercing, furrowed brow and a stoop with a mouth that had forgotten what it was to smile. It was a patchwork man part child catcher, part Ebenezer Scrooge and part wicked witch of the west and had he been who greeted Susan behind those doors she may of turned to flee then and there. Instead she was met by a man not much older than herself, no stoop, no crooked nose, no furrowed brow and a mouth that could clearly remember how to smile as it was doing it currently, a beaming technicolour smile in the world of grey.

  - Can I Help?

  - I’ve been sent by Happytemp.

  - You must be Susan.

  - Yes Mr. Collins.

  - Please call me David; well I guess I owe you a tour.

  The tour consisted of basically retracing steps down the hallway she had just walked although this time with the odd bit of commentary from David, they passed Ms. Gale and Susan was pleased to see she gave David much the same look she had received when entering the building. She couldn’t decide whether all people were treated this way or you had to earn it but felt it would require further study. She was lead to the filing room, a mountainous maze of dimly lit shelves filled with all manner of boxes, folders and containers most of which appeared older than Susan, if the Noah of stationery required collecting two of every type of ring binder he would need to look no further than this filing room. David talked her through what she would be doing with a friendly tone that made the herculean task almost feel manageable before leaving her to get started and as quickly as it had brightened Susan’s world returned to the monochrome reality, a little girl lost in a forest of files.

  Most of Susan’s morning was taken up getting to grips with the task at hand, being given little more than an instruction to sort with no real direction as to how they wished her to go about it she had a lot of room for error, although she felt error would not be high on Ms. Gales list of acceptable outcomes. The first thing Susan did was remove her jacket which gained her no ground with the filing but instantly made her feel better, like she had removed a weighty pair of shackles. She spent what she considered a fair amount of time plotting her best course of action and started to undertake her task, which although it started slowly it wasn’t long before she was caught up in her own momentum and failed to notice the time as it pressed ever onwards towards lunch. In fact the first time she even considered what time it might be was when she started to feel familiar rumblings in her stomach and stopped to look at her watch. It was already twelve thirty so she decided to take a well-deserved lunch break and wandered towards the entrance area to enquire where she might be able to eat her sandwiches.

  It had taken her a little while to build up the courage to face Ms. Gale again, she had been going over the possible conversational outcomes in her head. It wasn’t that she thought asking where she could eat her lunch was a ridiculous request for her to be making, but she had felt rather steam rolled by Ms. Gale during their first confrontation and did not wish for a repeat performance. As it turned out she needn’t have bothered, Ms. Gales desk was vacant with a neatly typed gone to lunch sign placed at its center. In fact it seemed the whole office was empty as she could hear no sounds beyond her own footsteps, she called out to see if anyone would answer but received no more than a mild echo in reply. If the office had felt intimidating before now it felt hollow and eerie, it had the feel of a ghost town and all in all did not seem like a welcoming place to have lunch. Deciding to find anywhere else nearby to have her sandwiches she walked over to the main entrance, she noticed the hallway felt a lot shorter without Ms. Gale staring down it. When she got to the door she discovered to her horror that the door had been locked, she was trapped in.

  Well isn’t that just wonderful, she thought to herself as she went back to filing room, which compared to the hallway felt overflowing with warmth. Susan sat on a box full of files, cheese sandwich in one hand muttering to herself. Was this the working world she had to look forward to, rude receptionists she had to fake pleasantries to and monotonous tasks she would be expected to fulfill for an office that thinks so little of her they lock her in for lunch. Forced to pretend to look like and be a person she wasn’t just so at the end of the day, tired and begrudgingly she can try and fit in being the person she is. Well you can forget that, she thought, if that’s the best the world has to offer me then the ground can just swallow me up right now, and as luck would have it, it did.