Chapter 3 – Unwanted surprises

"Fucking Jeremy" he muttered once again.

He started thinking over the last few times Jeremy had surprised him. A few weeks ago he and some of the neighbour hoodies had made the bottom three floors of the staircase into an indoor extreme sledding slide, No 6 broke their back. Jeremy shouldn't be hanging out with the youths. "He's either into them or he's selling drugs to them" Mark didn't think very highly of Jeremy.

Mark looked at his watch. 9:15 already late. He hoped that jogging the last mile into work would warm him up and would give him time to think of a good excuse for why he'd missed the meeting. He jogged for about 200 yards before he started panting heavily. Marks wasn't a physically fit man. He decided to keep a brisk pace. He arrived at work at 10.04 he would of been faster if it hadn't been contemplating how fast brisk actually was on a scale of speed.

Mark entered the office and started walking quickly to his cubical, he could feel eyes on him. He worried that Sophie may of told them about his vomiting and begging for change.

Before he could make it to his desk, he heard the tell tale noise of Johnsons door almost coming from its hinges.

"Corigan!" He paused till every person in the office looked at Mark. "In my office now!"

He walked over to Johnson office, it was the walk of shame in front of his colleagues. Johnson looked down at mark with disapproval as he wormed under his arm to enter to office.

Mark sat down on small wooden chair as Johnson pushed back his large executive chair and stood at the other side of the desk.

"Hey Mark! Nice of you to join us. I've asked you to come into the office to make sure you okay.." he placed his hands on the desk and leaned forward for full effect "and ask you what the fuck you think you are doing showing up late today! Did I not stress the importance of this meeting, for us, for you, for your career! So come on the Corigan, What is it? Who died for you to miss the most important meeting of your career!?" Johnson smiled and his eyes widened , He waited for Marks shit excuse so he could unleash his full wrath.

Marks phone vibrated in his pocket

"Fucking Jeremy" he bleated automatically at the familiar buzz.

" Ahhh , Jeremy, I'm so sorry Mark, Suzes always talks about him,How did it happen?" Johnson demeanour softened.

Mark had two options tell Johnson about his mistake and perhaps lose his job, or he could pretend Jeremy is dead, keep his job and maybe he would get a day off work on the anniversary of his death. He needed to answer. Johnson eyes started to narrow.

"Sledding accident" Mark replied. He regretted it immediately.

"Sledding accident? There hasn't been snow here in weeks. Where was it?"

"France" Mark said knowing Jeremy doesn't actually have a passport and thought every country had a coast line.

"France? France! I ski in France, Which area?" Johnson said visibly excited.

"I don't really want to talk about it" Mark said dodging the question

"of course, respect and all that.." Johnson tailed off, He wanted to ask more but had recently been to a seminar on workplace bullying and had to check himself "..But the meeting, well I guess I cant fire you over someone dying, new union rules or something, I'm sure Il find a loophole as some point." Johnson stared out into the office, he picked off the weak in his head. "Anyway, You're on probation and Il be keeping a close eye on you, you show up late one more time more, you're arse is mine" Johnson flashed Mark a smile that made his guts want to escape.

Mark scurried out of office while Johnson he continued to mutter names of employees he disliked.

He realised that Johnsons glare had really unsettled him, He started running to the bathroom but at the half way point he stopped an inch short of Sophie.

"Hello there you, I see you made here in the end. I'm sorry about this morning, I switched bags and I didn't realise, are you okay?" She asked with a sympatric smile.

"Oh Fuck" Mark thought. He held himself as straight as he could, while he tried to stop himself from shitting.

"Fuc-Fine" He barked, he wanted nothing more then for the lovely woman to leave.

"Are you sure? It looked like you weren't very well and I..." Mark pushed Sophie out the way and ran.

He was sure he heard the sound at cup shattering.

He'd only just made in to the bathroom when he was lucky enough to find it empty. He struggled to get his pants down. As his arse made contact with the seat, he finally released a two day stress shit.

Everything that mark had been holding was now released. He felt his body go limp.

He thought about his morning and what had brought him to this point. He knew it wasn't going to be the best day, but he didn't expect it to be this low before 10.30. He needed to apologize to Sophie. He needed to try get Johnson on his side again. He needed to fucking kill Jeremy.

Jeremy! He'd remembered his phone was buzzing in Johnsons office. He checked his trousers for his phone. It wasn't there. After a few minutes of searching, he wiped his bum and stood up to fix his trousers.

ZZZZZ ZzzZZZZ he could hear his phone buzzing. He looked down and there he saw that his phone was buried in his deep in his excrement .

"FUCK" he shouted as the phone flashed the name

Jeremy