Dobby was sitting in a box by the river reflecting on his life and pretending that he was a character in a Mark Twain book. Dobby was a free elf, but he had a hard time finding a job. After Harry Potter saved him from living as a slave to the Malfoy family, Dobby went around to find new work. He tried to work for other wizarding families, but couldn't find a single family who needed a house elf. He tried some wizarding stores, but none of them thought that the house elf would be able to perform the skilled labor required of anyone working for them. He couldn't lift 50 pounds or type 50 words per minute, and had never touched a suite office. Additionally, it didn't help that he was asking for wages. His asking rate? One dollar an hour! That way, he could buy sweaters, machine guns, and Japanese stationery - all the things necessary for the fine life.
The same scene played out everywhere he went:
"My name is Dobby, and I'm a great house elf looking for new work, so I can get sweaters, machine guns, and Japanese stationery!"
"Oh, I'd love a new house elf!"
"Good, my rate is one dollar an hour."
"No, I refuse to pay you," they would inevitably say.
Dobby found himself trying to find Muggle work. As he walked around the town, many people asked him why he was so short and ugly. He did not have an answer. If he was just a short person, then why would he have an explanation? Would Elijah Wood say that he was short on purpose, so as to be a better hobbit? Dobby thought he might, but Elijah Woods was a very smart human being, and Dobby was a house elf. They had different education levels.
"Why are you so small and gross?" the woman at the Seven-Eleven asked Dobby. Dobby did not like admitting that he did not know. So he had begun telling people that he had the Benjamin Button disease - he had lived his life already, he just looked like a baby. Most people seemed to believe that. This woman just told Dobby to leave and not steal any gas.
At every restaurant and retail store Dobby walked into, he jumped on the counter and asked for a job. He always got pieces of paper in return. Sometimes they also gave him a pencil. Never once did he receive a pen. Dobby didn't know what the difference between the two was, and didn't dare ask. Dobby didn't know how to read or write, so he just stuffed the papers down his trousers and went on to the next place. The town had everything: Dunkin Donuts, A & W, and a Jamba Juice. Dobby had already been to each place and had gotten papers from all of them.
He sighed and kept walking. On the street, Dobby saw a few flyers for a new reality television show. He called the number on the flyer, but when he told them he was homeless, short, and had big ears, they hung up. This frustrated Dobby greatly, as there were only two things that he loved more than reality television.
He finally got to the edge of town, and that's when he saw it: a small building with a single table out front. The shining neon words blinded Dobby at first, but then he cleared his eyes and saw a glowing, neon pink fish shape. He walked directly towards the fish shape and into the small building. As soon as he opened the door, he saw about 50 fishes on the wall. As he walked past the wall of fish, they began to move and sing a song. Dobby smelled a terrible rotting fish scent. It was absolutely overwhelming and he could barely breathe.
He walked up to the counter, hoisted himself up, and tried to get someone's attention.
"Hello? Dobby is wanting a job," Dobby called. He tried to wave his hands, but no one seemed to notice him. "HELLO?"
Dobby began typing on the cash register. Still, no one did anything. The cash register opened, and Dobby poked at some of the coins inside. Dobby had never felt money before. It felt cold on his fingers, but he craved more. No one noticed him fingering the change. Dobby felt small, like Danny DeVito, but even smaller than that, because Dobby was only 3 feet tall.
"We got another rat," a man said, and pointed a gun at Dobby's face. "I'll take care of it, boss."
"No, no, no! Please sir, Dobby is just looking for a job, you see. Dobby is not a rat." Dobby began to beat himself with the cash register. His ears started bleeding. Blood was running onto the coins he had been fingering.
"Whoa, this rat is killing itself," Arnold said, lowering the gun, and all the other employees in the store looked at Dobby. None of them pulled out their guns. But their hands were all laying on top of their pockets, ready to pull the gun when Dobby made a move.
"Arnold, that's no rat - that's a man going through Benjamin Button disease!" said a big, barrel-chested man who happened to look a lot like Ronald Weasley. He was obviously a big David Fincher fan. That was the only way a person in this part of town would have heard of the early David Fincher work, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button."
"I am a tiny man, and I'm looking for a job. I can do anything. I can disappear and reappear, I can beat myself with various objects, and I can even do the dishes if you so please." Dobby stuck his chest out proudly. His nipples were erect. He was wearing a newly knitted sweater that accentuated them, and that made him feel quite handsome.
"Well, we do need a new dishwasher, ever since the Dursleys' boy ain't been showing up for work. What do you say to being the Fish Fry's newest dishwasher? It pays 3 dollars an hour and the only raise you'll be getting is a stool to ensure that you can reach the sinks," the man who looked like Ronald Weasley said.
"Dobby is much pleased, sir. Thank you, sir!" Dobby cried. The man then handed Dobby a large stack of papers and told Dobby to complete them and come back tomorrow for his first shift.
Dobby left the building and began to walk towards his home. He walked past the street that Harry Potter's muggle overlooker friends lived in. Dobby wanted to be close to Harry Potter, even though he couldn't talk to him. He didn't want Harry to know what he'd become.
Dobby had nothing. Nothing. He'd spent two years looking for a job. He lived in a small cardboard box next to the levee and stole food from Whole Foods dumpsters. It was a difficult life, and Dobby often wondered if he should just find a wizarding family who wouldn't pay him, but he would have to be a house elf for that. Then Dobby remembered how he'd read Karl Marx's Capital once. That was enough to keep him searching for a job. And finally, he'd found one. But now, faced with the paperwork of a human job, he was scared.
House elves were never taught how to read or write. Dobby remembered how once, a house elf from the Lestrange family had learned how to read, but had gotten caught by Rabasatan Lestrange. The house elf had been reading Treasure Planet'. After he got caught, he was separated from all the other house elves. He was forced to do all the laundry for the house alone. For extra torture, Rabastan made Dobby the subject of his ongoing experiments with the shadow realm.
Dobby was very afraid of the Shadow Realm and all things Yu-Gi-Oh related, including Seto Kaiba and playing cards. Dobby would never have dared to pick up a book, or a pamphlet or any other literature. But he did have audiobooks, which was how he read Karl Marx's Capital.
Dobby was walking by the levee that he lived in when he bumped into a toad-shaped woman. She was wearing all pink and looked like Vera Drake from Mike Leigh's Vera Drake. Dobby's first instinct was to projectile vomit at the sight of her, but he was determined to be polite. So instead he just shat his pants.
"Oh goodness!" The woman was taken aback by the terrible smell. "Get away from me, you awful short homeless man!"
The woman began attacking Dobby with her bag, swinging the bag left and right. Dobby was thrown to the ground, where he noticed a shiny green locket had fallen out of the women's bag.
"Miss! No, wait!" he cried. But she had run off into the nearest alley and Apparated away. Dobby clutched the locket in his hand and walked inside the box he called home. Dobby sighed, put the locket in his pocket, and decided to get some sleep before his big day at the Fish Fry tomorrow.