Henry sat at his desk, frantufrantically scribbling away as always. The desk, yellowing with age and scratched from years of his habitual kicking of it when he got frustrated. I peered over his shoulder at the cartoon he was drawing, half amused as he penned a figure, flipped the page, penned again, erased, and penned once more, only to find that it wasn't correct, and scrunched it up into a tiny ball which he threw into the already overflowing waste basket beside him. His old chair scraped across the floor as he got up, a sound which set my teeth on edge. He didn't look up and was muttering to himself half heartedly when he almost bumped into me. "O-oh, Sammy, didn't expect to see you here"

"Yeah, well, neither did I, and look where I ended up" He chuckled at that one. "But really, we got a piece of that music for the latest cartoon, the one with the angel girl in it, and since you're head animator, you got to give us the thumbs up" Which is exactly what he did, and now it was my turn to smile. But that was dampened when Joey came marching round the corner in a foul mood again. He glanced in our direction and barked at us "Are you two gonna be standing around gasbagging for the rest of the day, or do I have to tell you to GET BACK TO WORK?!" We both nodded hurriedly, though Henry did have an absent-minded look on his face. I grabbed his arm and steered him down to the music department.

When the music had stopped playing and the reels had stopped rolling, Henry sat back, pleased. "You done good, Sammy, that girl is perfect. And the song is just what I had in mind"

"Thanks, but, you'd better get going," I glanced at my watch. "The animator's break finished five minutes ago"

Henry looked up with worried eyes and dashed from the viewing booth faster than I had seen him ever move before. He stopped before the door and called out a hurried "Thanks Sammy" over his shoulder as he ran out. I looked back to the band sitting below me on the stage. "Dismissed!" I called out to them, and soon they were gone.

But, now that my distraction had gone, I was left with back that task of slaving away over another piece of music. Grabbing out a spare piece of stave paper, I knocked on the wall next to me and called out to Norman 'Hey, play the next reel"

The studio had become so gloomy after Henry had left, and it seemed like our employer had snapped. He had become more and more obsessed with these 'positive messages' he would randomly play throughout the day, talking of dreams, success and whatnot. All rubbish. Anyone who though that he actually believed the words he said was a total idiot in my eyes. But, I guess if they want to cling to false hope...

It didn't help that the workload grew larger and larger, piling up on me until I was at one point trying to write five different pieces of music at once. The standards dropped lower and lower, until I was turning out sloppy work daily, reusing tunes so many times the songs practically blended into one. It was noticeable, and even Susie had to agree that it wasn't a good situation.

And then she left.

There was no goodbye note, no notice of leave, just one day she was working and the next she didn't turn up. Joey sent us in a new girl, one by the name of 'Alison Pendle', and expected us to deal with it. Not only did she not have half as good a range as Susie, but she also lacked that stage personality that Susie had always brought with her when recording. But, she sang, so it was good enough for me, it wasn't like I cared about the work anymore.

This place just sucked the soul out of you

I guess the situation is worse now, though. Stuck, rotting just like the building we're trapped inside. At least back then we had two angels.

Now we have none.