A Hard Day's Work…

Sarah slowly dawdled to work as she always did, her head filled with daydreams and fantasies. Since her return from the Labyrinth she had never been one to simply head straight to somewhere without appreciating the beauty of her journey. She touched each flower and leaf when she walked past them as they protruded out of the fencing on the street. One might say she was a rather immature twenty-year-old but Sarah would retort back by saying that she was secure enough with herself to do such things. She worked with a number of adults who had the most mundane lives; they watched reality TV programmes instead of fantasy films, they read celebrity magazines instead of reading books and they scolded children instead of playing with them. Sarah knew that she did not want to become one of these people so she kept her imagination no matter what consequences met her. So there she was walking along in her smart black suit, watching her shadow in admiration. One thing Sarah had always done was managed to keep such a stunning figure. Even if she was a little childish, her silhouette on the ground told her that she was all woman. As she watched her shadow she noticed that another shadow had caught up with her. Funny - she thought, she hadn't heard any footsteps behind her. Anyhow she looked up and waited for the person to pass her, but they never did. Sarah looked back at the shadow. It was just hovering over her. She couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman for it had a masculine figure but long hair and an elegant stance. She kept watching the shadow and paused in shock when she noticed that the persons hand was holding some kind of crystal ball up in the air as if it was a gift for her. She quickly turned her head round to see who the shadow belonged to -she had a fairly good idea, but instead of finding a person there she saw nothing, only the street that was behind her. Sarah looked back on the ground, The shadow was gone. She shook her head and looked at her watch. Realising she was becoming late for work she scuttled off in a hurry.

"Hi Joanna" Sarah said cheerily to the secretary as she walked through the main office doors heading straight to her office. Unfortunately before she reached the door she bumped into her arch enemy - her boss, who seemed to have it in for her.

"Sarah!" he snapped. "Are you just arriving now?" he said looking at his watch. "My my, not very good for your first day back is it."

"No sir, sorry sir" she said.

"Well I hope that your quality of work today is better than your punctuality" he said.

"Yes it will be" said Sarah.

"Well don't just stand there go get some work done" he said. "The first thing you can do is file those papers that I put on your desk."

The boss walked off and Sarah watched as her friend Kate came through the building doors, also five minutes late. She looked in disgust as her boss greeted Kate with a friendly smile. Kate came running up to Sarah and they both walked in to her office.

"Hey Sarah how was your Christmas" Kate said flinging her dyed red hair back from her face. Before letting Sarah answer Kate continued talking. "Well mine was great, you know that guy Mark I was telling you about, well he…"

"Sarah!" shouted her boss as he entered the room.

"Yes sir" Sarah said.

"Stop distracting Kate and get on with your work!"

Sarah so wanted to just freak out and hit him but she couldn't afford to lose her job. Not when she was trying to buy her own flat and escape from her parents' house.

"I'll talk to you later" said Kate as she walked off leaving Sarah alone in her office.

Sarah walked over to her desk and sat in her chair. She opened her drawer and pulled out her organizer which she used to plan her day. She placed it on her desk and began sorting through the files which her boss had given her. Finally she could get some work done in peace. However, it wasn't long before she had to stop as there was some commotion going off in the room next door It was coming from Sarah's colleague Louise's office. She heard a lot of banging noises and screaming. It sounded like Louise was running around the room trying to escape something. Either Louise had suddenly gone cuckoo or there was a mouse in her office Sarah thought.

"Ahhhhhh" Louise screamed as she ran outside into the main hall. Sarah quickly walked out of the door to see what was going on. "An owl, an owl!" shouted Louise. "It was attacking me!"

"Calm down Louise" said the boss who ran into her office. "It's gone now. It was only an owl I'm sure it wasn't attacking you. Everyone was looking at Louise like she was crazy, including Sarah's friend Kate.

"It was!" Louise demanded.

"Louise what did the owl look like?" asked Sarah curiously.

"What does that matter" shouted her boss. "Sarah I don't think I said for you to come out of your office did I. Now everyone get back to work. The owl is gone. Did you hear that. The owl is gone!"

Sarah sighed as she walked back into her office. The day had only just started and already things had gotten hectic. She went back to her desk and sat back down in her swivel chair ready to get back to sorting the files. Maybe this time she could actually get some work done.

After sorting through most of the files Sarah picked up her organizer and began to write:

Mon 07/01/1991

Today has started off pretty bizarrely. I thought it would be nice to be back at work but so far it hasn't been going very well. I'm sure my boss is just waiting for me to mess up so he has an excuse to fire me. Me and Kate were both late today but still he digs at me. If I was a horny slut like Kate maybe it would be different. Anyways that's not the worst thing about today. I think I'm hallucinating, either that or something really scary is about to happen. Yesterday in my other diary I wrote about the Labyrinth and how I was kinda missing it. Well on my way to work today I saw a shadow and I'm sure it was his! He had the long spiky hairdo the cape and the crystal. I looked behind but no one was there. Then an owl flew into Lou's office. Maybe it was just a concidince coincidence but I'm going to be very wary from now on. From what I can remember the Goblin King can be very tricky and scheming so I'm gonna have to be on my guard. There's no way that I'm going to let some crazy bird-man steal…

"Crazy bird-man?! Surely you could think of something more degrading than that to call me" said a male voice who hovered over Sarah.

Sarah put down her organizer and took a deep breath before slowly swivelling round on her chair to meet her destiny. Seeing his face; his calculative mismatched eyes and cruel smile once again made Sarah scream in an instant. Her first impulse was to harshly slap him on the face - (WHACK) - after that she slid on her wheeled chair all the way over to the door. What a sight she must have looked, as the chair wasn't made for winning the Olympics so it wobbled and spun around as she tried to desperately reach for the door. The chair crashed into the door sending Sarah flying out of the office and falling flat on her face in front of her friend Kate who had now witnessed two crazy events this morning. Sarah quickly stood up, grabbed Kate and ran to the corner of the room so they were out of sight from Sarah's office door.

"What's the matter with you Sarah?" asked Kate.

"Shhhh" Sarah said as she slowly walked to the side of her office to peek her face through the door window. Jareth who now rubbed his face with his gloved hand looked up at Sarah's peeping-head making Sarah gasp and quickly move away. She turned to look at Kate.

"Sarah are you drunk?" asked Kate.

"Go and look in my office" Sarah whispered.

"Fine" said Kate confidently who strutted into Sarah's office. Sarah waited to see what Kate's response would be. A few seconds later Kate ran out screaming.

"Sarah, Sarah!" she said. "Why is there a strange looking man in your office. Who is he? Is he an actor."

"What? No…" said Sarah.

"He looks kinda like that cat, you know, from that musical…the Rum Tum Tugger or something. Why is he here? Did you finally get a part in a play? Why did he come here dressed up? What…"

"Kate! Stop talking! I'm trying to think" stressed Sarah.

"Well I'll go over and apologise anyway" Kate said walking up to Sarah's office.

"What?" Sarah said grabbing her arm.

"Well I just screamed in his face, I think he would have been pretty offended" said Kate.

"No" Sarah snapped, "look if the boss sees him here he'll throw a fit! I'll go and apologise for you while I try and sneak him out of the main doors. Could you distract the boss for me while I do that?"

"Sure!" Kate said excitedly, she always loved a challenge.

Sarah quickly walked over to her office where she saw Jareth swirling around in her swivel chair. She frowned at him.

"I don't appreciated being struck by your mortal hands Sarah" said Jareth in his usual sardonic tone.

Sarah put her hands on her hips.

"And I don't appreciate being snuck up on in my office! What do you want?"

"I need a favour from you" he said frankly. "Can we talk."

Sarah sighed. She knew she didn't want to talk to him but if it was the only way to get rid of him…

"Okay, but not here, we'll have to go outside, I'm due for a break now anyway. Just hurry!"

Jareth stood up sharply. He strode up to Sarah and looked abruptly into her eyes.

"Do not order me around" he said in a quiet but evil tone which mad Sarah's confidence shatter into a million pieces.

Sarah followed Jareth out of her office and into the main hallway, his cape concealing her nervous face. She gasped when she saw her boss walking her way. Her heart was pounding so fast she thought it was going to explode, that was until Kate stepped in and tried to distracting.

"Hey that's a nice tie you're wearing" Kate said to the boss. "Did you get that from that stall downtown, or was it from Ralph Lauren? It looks expansive. Do you usually wear a tie? I've never…"

Sarah chuckled. Kate could talk for the entire United States. Without thinking she quickly grabbed Jareth's gloved hand and dragged him to the main doors until they were outside. When they reached the outdoors Jareth quickly pulled his hand away from Sarah's grasp and shot her an evil look.

"I don't care if you're mad at me" Sarah said angrily. "All I want to know is why you're here and when you're leaving!…How dare you turn up in my office like that! You could have got me fired! I told you five years ago that I never wanted to see you again!…Can you just tell me what you want so we can get this st over with!"

Jareth looked at her for a second. Sarah was nervous. Maybe she had been a bit too harsh towards him. She had forgotten how much power the man had. Then he looked around. He noticed that people on the street were beginning to stare.

"You ought to be thankful that we're in a public place Sarah. If you had spoken to me that in the Labyrinth I don't know quite what I would have done to you" he said calmly. Sarah took a deep breath. She never usually got this angry, but when her career was concerned she became very protective over her job. It was the only thing in her life that she had going for her. "When do you finish work?" continued Jareth.

"Five o'clock"

"Very well I'll meet you at five in the park."

"I thought you wanted to talk now!"

"Yes well I will not talk to you when you're in this sort of mood…Besides we wouldn't want to get you fired would we?"

Jareth walked off down the street until Sarah could no longer see him in the distance. She stood there confused and worried. What could he possible want?