Toris inwardly groaned as he heard his superior idea. So now the next few days were not meant to be his long awaited Easter holidays and escape from work, no, they would be only work.
"I hope you didn't book any expensive holidays over the break" his boss had the courtesy to sound at least a bit remorseful. Wrinkles on the old face prominent while frowning.
"No, no. It's fine. This is an important project and it needs to be ready for the Tuesday after holidays." Raivis is right, I'm such a pushover.
"You are good boy Toris and I must thank you for taking care of this," he sighted trying to think of an accurate descriptive word "this mess, Francis made. I can only assure you that there will be consequences for his actions. He's being more and more full of himself, only because he became a bit popular for a novelist"
Toris could only stand in silence in the office of the head of the company. He didn't want to complain, he liked his job as an editor. Most of the time it was unnerving and chaotic. Stomach ache got worse at times. Toris was the youngest editor, which meant being a gofer half of the time.
He graduated half a year ago from a University and with a stroke of luck found this position. It was like a lottery ticket, his school wasn't the best and his marks weren't on the top of the class but somehow or other (it may have helped bumping into a high school friend that was a nephew of his current boss) the door to dream career opened.
Toris had a degree in literature but as an editor he was stuck working with the illustrators. The company mostly published children books. In charge of few artists, his main task was to check on their progress, secure them new jobs and overlook the process. But maybe, soon, he could jump to another department and start working with the writers. Thrilling idea. No more accidental paint splats on his new clothes, problems of reformatting from RGB to CMYK or angry calls from the printers about the joke notes on the slug.
Why were the printers and illustrator always fighting.
Toris tuned in back at the end of his boss' long monologue
"… so you must make sure that the guy makes it to the deadline. I don't care how." the boss looked as fierce as a bulldog (behind his back, Alfred always called him Churchill), then his expression softened "I know he was supposed to have at least two weeks to make the drawings but nothing we can do about it now. Five days to go."
"It's ok, we'll make it" Toris smiled reassuringly, the boss eye lit up with a bit of hope "I'm going to grab some stuff form home and then dash to catch Lukasiewicz at home."
He heard a firm thank you from his supervisor as he exited the room.
"Yes, I'm sorry Rai. You should really go and have Easter at Eduards" he smiled to the phone in his hand as his younger brother proclaimed for the 3rd time that he would not celebrate holidays without him "Don't worry to much, I enjoy this job. I'll see you after Tuesday then."
Toris stood with his weekender bag on the doorstep of the "lucky" illustrator's apartment. The door he was facing was painted pale green. After ringing the bell he heard some clutter and cursing, then the door opened slowly, and a hesitant blond head peered out.
"Oh, hiya. You came already." the man took a step inside and let the editor in.
"Sorry to bother you" Toris said sheepishly, "but Francis was two weeks late for the deadline."
"No worries, Francis does it all the time and" the last word was stretched as the blond shook his head in disbelief "we all allowed him to do that since beginning. Our enfant terrible." fake french accent, Toris snickered "I can't understand why we spoiled him so much"
"maybe the boss is a fan of his stories" After breaking the bad news and getting an amused not angry reply, Toris stopped feeling the need to stare and his shoes.
A shorter man stood right besides him. It was Feliks. They worked together a couple of times before. The man gave the impression of being friendly but shy. The illustrator's clothes were always pastel, coordinated pale hues of gray, blue and lavender. They suited his light hair and pale skin. Actually they even matched with the pastel palette used in Feliks' miniature apartment.
"So I'll get us some tea and we'll talk over this new story from Francis" Feliks was already heading into the kitchen.
Don't kill me, it's not what one may think. I can explain why this story is up instead of an update to the others. It's just written already (apart from 2 scenes and double checking the grammar).
CMYK - print format for colors, Cyan magenta yellow black
RGB - screen format for color, Red Green Blue
Slug - a space to note stuff for printers
Yes, there is an ongoing war between the designer and printers