Ichabod Peppercorn opted to take the stairs.
It would not have been much of a wait for the lift, but even a small amount of idle time would invite the danger of having to talk to his co-workers. It was not that he disliked them, really, but he was simply not in the mood for the topic they were sure to bring up. Not today.
He had barely ascended the first set when the stairwell door opened again. "Peppercorn, wait!" Ericson scrambled up the stairs on his stout little legs. Ericson was helpful, friendly, polite, and the most annoying person in the office.
Ichabod considered quickening his pace, but social graces demanded he acknowledge his colleague. Feeling defeated, he stopped and waited for Ericson to huff and puff his way to catch up.
"Whew, good idea taking the stairs, Peppercorn. Getting in shape, I see?"
Ichabod mumbled a noncommittal answer.
"I really should do the same more often. Hey we should be stairs buddies!"
"Sure, why not," Ichabod said with as little enthusiasm as he could muster. He did not like where this conversation seemed to be going.
"Hey, you should come out with me and the guys tonight."
"I didn't know you had 'guys'."
"You know, from the office. Blevins, McNeil, Harris..."
"Harris is a woman."
"It'll be great! We'll have a few drinks, a few laughs, pick up some girls..."
Ichabod sighed. "Sheila changed her status to 'single,' didn't she?" For once in his life, Ericson said nothing. "Did you approach me on your own accord or did the others nominate you?"
"I... may have discussed the situation with Harris." Ericson admitted.
Ichabod chuckled to himself. At least, he thought, the sacrifice of personal privacy came with the slight advantage of not having to be party to as many awkward conversations.
"What happened? With Sheila, I mean?"
Ichabod thought wrong. Luckily, they had finally reached their floor. "It was amicable. I'd love to discuss it further, I really, really would," Ichabod hoped his sarcasm wasn't so subtle it would go over Ericson's head. "But I'll see you later. Maybe."
He ventured through the office toward his cubicle. As he passed Harris' and McNeil's desks, they each gave him a sympathetic fake smile. He knew that smile all too well.
No. He shook his irritatingly painful memories away with a jolt. It was far too early for such self-pity. He had things to do and couldn't afford to waste the entire day feeling sorry for himself like a self-indulgent asshole. Again. Besides, he had plenty of more current reasons to feel sorry for himself to reach his pity quota for the day.
Ichabod powered up his computer. The gears on the outdated machine whirred painfully, as if screaming for mercy from another day's hard labor, heaving the information he entered, using every physical effort they could to manipulate it into his desired output. At least that was how Ichabod personified them. He actually had no idea how computers worked, or if there were even gears in them at all. His background gave him a somewhat fanciful perception of technology which he couldn't shed no matter how much he actually learned. Secretly, he sort of preferred his own conceptions to reality.
His peculiarities were probably what attracted Sheila in the first place. That and his intangible aura of a misanthrope with a heart of gold, which always worked to his advantage in attracting the ladies. Not so much in keeping them.
He had been in love five times since he was fifteen. As a result, his heart had been broken as many times. Women consistently seemed to believe they could "fix" him, as if his very personality were a problem that could be solved. Every time he would believe her when she told him she loved him just the way he was. Every time he would begin to think maybe, just maybe she was the one he was truly meant to be with for the rest of his life.
And every time he was shocked when she ended it. Every time, that is, except this one. After ten years of being jerked around, he had danced this dance before. He didn't even remember Sheila's exact words, merely her expression that their relationship was not going in the direction she had hoped, an expression all too familiar to him.
He couldn't blame her entirely. He knew that if the same situation kept happening over and over, it must be his own fault at some level. But what could he do? He was a grumpy jerk with glimpses of kindness, not the other way round. He always had been.
Well, that was not entirely true. He could certainly remember being a delightful child. Before he realized he was a squib.
He remembered it to the day. He was nine years old. He and his sister Evelyn were fighting, as siblings are wont to do, about which Ichabod could not remember if he tried. In a fit of anger, Evy blew his ears up to the size of dinner plates as was quite normal, if frowned upon, for a ten year old witch. That night, she was sent to bed without dinner, where Ichabod received an extra slice of cake for keeping his temper and not retaliating.
But he had not kept his temper at all. He had been raging, inside and out. If he could have made Evy explode into a million pieces, he would have. If he could have any magical influence over her whatsoever, she would have seen it. He told nobody about this troubling fact.
That night, Ichabod cried himself to sleep.
For the next few years, he held onto the small glimmer of hope that he may be a late bloomer. Or better yet, he may have such control over his magical abilities that he would never accidentally hex someone or inadvertently charm something. His magic would be controlled and deliberate, blowing everyone away once he got to Hogwarts, and someday grow to be one of the most powerful and respected wizards of his day. He wanted it so much he may have even believed it at some point.
His hope came to a grinding halt one day in the early summer of his eleventh year. His parents called him in from outside. They wore those despicable sympathetic fake smiles he would eventually come to abhor. Two strangers were also standing in the kitchen, a man and a woman. Ichabod felt a pain in the pit of his stomach. His worst fears were coming to pass.
"Sit down, Ichabod," Said the man. "Can I call you Ichabod?"
Ichabod said nothing. His heart beat so hard he felt it would knock him over. He knew exactly what the man was going to say, but was terrified to hear it out loud.
"My name is Herman Flippando, and I'm from the admissions board of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. As you may know, we specialize in the training of children with magical abilities. Unfortunately, we feel you simply lack the magical ability necessary to succeed at Hogwarts, so I'm afraid we cannot accept you." As an afterthought, he added, "Sorry."
Ichabod decided this must be what it feels like to be stabbed in the heart. Repeatedly. He began to feel lightheaded. He sat on his trembling hands and glanced over to his mother, whose smile stretched wider across her face. He supposed she thought it was comforting to him, or supportive or something.
Flippando continued brightly. "But don't think we'll leave you high and dry! This is Valerie Butternut, and over the summer she'll be tutoring you about, uh, muggle things to prepare you for your muggle schooling, which I will discuss with your parents. She's a squib just like you!"
To hear the word out loud was the final blow. His eyes began to burn and he felt a lump in his throat, but he pushed it back. He was not going to cry in front of a couple of strangers.
"So!" Flippando pressed on, "I'll take your mother and father into the other room here and talk about a few things and you can get to know Miss Butternut. Unless, of course, you have any questions?"
Ichabod had about a million questions, none of which he could articulate into words. Even if he could, he would certainly not be able to speak, since he was using all the effort he could in not dissolving into a puddle of goo on the floor. So he shook his head no.
As his parents followed Flippando out of the room they each gave him a hug. That almost broke him. Didn't they know they were making it worse? As they left, he heard Flippando begin a muted conversation with them. "Again, you have my deepest sympathies…"
"I think it's bollocks the way they break the news to you," Butternut said, startling Ichabod. He finally turned his attention to her. She was an older woman, dressed in a robe adorned with colorful scarves and bangles, which seemed to be fashionable among a certain bohemian subset of her generation. "No empathy at all. Then again, they've certainly progressed since I was your age. A man from the Ministry named Boris Krumpet came to my house. He told me if I work hard, I may be able to live something close to a normal life. Then he spent an hour trying to explain what a protractor was." She laughed.
To his surprise, Ichabod felt marginally better.
She sat next to him and leaned in close. "Ichabod, I'm going to give you something. Before any of your peers get theirs, I'm going to give you your wand." She reached into her satchel and pulled out a pen. "Six inches. Plastic. Inky core. Unyielding." She held it out to him, as if presenting a sword to a knight.
Ichabod felt slightly disappointed. "It's just a biro."
"Yes, and a wand is just wood. It's what you do with it that matters." Butternut set down the pen and put her arm around Ichabod's shoulders. "Let me let you in on a little secret: Wizards are morons. They spend their entire educations learning to wave wands and spout magic words. They never learn to think. You, on the other hand, will receive an education that will allow you to make a true difference in the world, whether you choose to live in the muggle world or the wizarding world, and yes, you will have a choice. At Hogwarts, you would have learned how to be a wizard. With a muggle education, you will learn how to be much more."
Ichabod picked up the pen.
"But first," Butternut said as she pulled a giant book out of her satchel," You need to learn about parliamentary democracy."
After a summer of preparation for the muggle world, he left for muggle school. As time went on, he stopped thinking of himself as a squib, or even as a muggle. He was a regular person, like everyone else. In fact, he found himself quite academically successful, eventually landing himself several generous job offers. Returning to the magical world where he would be a second-class citizen was simply not an option.
Now, sitting at his desk, in his cubicle, staring at his computer screen and listening to the little thing wheeze painfully, Ichabod had an epiphany. The magic in his life had gone. He had left it behind when he set off to the muggle world, and never returned to get it back. He was too afraid. He would be nearly incapacitated in a world that could never be his own.
He slowly opened his drawer and pulled out a pen. Six inches. Plastic. Inky core. Unyielding. Yes, you will have a choice. He was ready. Those magical idiots had nothing on him.
Ichabod stood up and strode into the middle of the room. "I'm taking an early lunch," he announced.
"Oh, great, we'll go to," said Harris, gesturing like mad to the others.
"I don't know when I'll be back. Probably never." Ichabod declared.
"Oh, come on, man, she's not worth it," said Blevins.
"Who? Sheila? Fuck Sheila. This was never about Sheila." Ichabod marched to the lift and pressed the button. "Alohomora!" He shouted without inhibition. The door opened. Ichabod entered.
"So... who's going to tell head office we lost another one to a nervous breakdown?" McNeil said.
As Ichabod walked out the door, he realized he didn't know exactly what he was going to do when he got to the magical world. Maybe he would take a class or two.
He stood on the corner outside his building, breathing in the dingy city air. The late summer sun was already oppressive, despite the fact that it was not even noon. For the first time in a long while, Ichabod Peppercorn felt truly alive.