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Souls of the Night Vol 3
30.
Even after more than a week, I was still positively irritated by the accounting department at LeXa ltd.
At my old company I was the only accountant, doomed to work in a tiny room full of filing cabinets and shelves at a small worn desk overlooking the brick wall of the building next door. I hadn't been put in the basement but that was mainly because Jussuf had wanted me close to him. The most pleasant thing about this office was the foam seat ring in my chair, which I had bought myself to cushion my backside, which was regularly torn open by my boss. I was Jussuf's accountant but had felt like a dirty secret in more ways than one because this room had somehow been part of his mentally draining psycho-torture of me that had nothing to do with his sexual assaults or physically violent tendencies. I was a bookkeeper, an outlet for frustration release, a pathetic submissive sex toy and let's not forget that he had been forcing me to manipulate the books for a decade so that he could always squeeze out a little bonus for himself.
I had already noticed in the first three days of my training that nobody at LeXa ltd falsified the books of account. Not only because this large company was much more in the eye of the auditors, but also because such dirty behavior should not be associated with a company owned by a gargoyle and an ex-con. Yes - people sometimes forgot that Xanatos had been in prison for theft and corporate espionage, it was almost thirty years ago and many bigwigs were dragging much more recent charges in their brackish water but Xanatos made no secret of it - it was not only on his Wikipedia entry but also on his company page as if this station in his life was something the billionaire was proud of in a strange way that no normal person could understand.
Anyway, my new office was wonderful and I was impressed with myself that I didn't mind the omnipresent buzz of my new colleagues (there were six of us on the evening shift - seven including the department head). Some tables and seats were free because they belonged to the employees on the normal morning shift from eight to three-thirty. There were no individual offices but one big one. Did they call it an open-plan office when there weren't even a dozen employees? But although it was a large room, everyone had their own area, there was plenty of space between the desks, there were lots of sound-absorbing partitions and separators, some movable, some on the ceilings, many partitions were made of these new-fangled life dividers and you could regularly hear the drip of water from the irrigation systems installed there on the plants more than the ringing of telephones or the conversations of colleagues.
When I closed my eyes I could sometimes imagine I was in a tropical jungle and these rainforest sounds were so calming - which was probably the intention of the planners because accounting could be really stressful at times. Comfortable couches also separated the areas of the individual employees, the staff kitchen was so big that we didn't even need a cafeteria, but many still went there, especially in the evenings, because the food was better than what most people would have brought with them. You were even allowed to bring plastic containers from home and fill them with food for later. In my neurotic and anxiety-driven fantasy, I had imagined that all accountants' offices - similar to mine - were generally housed in less attractive parts of a building. In basements with artificial light or crammed together like in a battery farm. At the same time, I suspected that Lex wouldn't put me in a place like that.
My desk, big and curvy as a kidney with a state-of-the-art computer (like all the others here, which reassured me because I had been afraid that my munificent boyfriend would somehow have goodies in store for me) was by one of the windows with insulated glass that didn't heat up in the sun and had the same gimmick as the horror apartment in Manhattan, namely that they could be dimmed with the swipe of a finger. The other employees who sit by the windows often use this feature, especially in the afternoons when the sun shines directly in. But I haven't yet. Not really because I would enjoy the May sun, not yet strong but clear and basically energizing. But because I kept drifting off and wondering whether I liked it when it shone on my skin. Shouldn't something like that feel familiar, warm and cozy? What was wrong with me that I didn't perceive the sun as pleasant but simply as being there? I knew that a lot of things were wrong with me - that was the case as a human, as a gargoyle and now as a human again, but what specifically was wrong with me these days?
Sometimes I stared at the data on my screen for ages without doing anything. Or I found myself looking out of the window for minutes on end, totally lost in my thoughts and ignoring the murmur in my brain that I should be sleeping in stone next to Lexington right now. Maybe I would have stared idly and unproductively out of the window if my old office at Jussuf's would have had a view - who could say. Maybe I wasn't being diligent at all - maybe it was just fear and a lack of other stimulation that had kept me from digressing. But could I be blamed? Calling the view from the second floor of the area between Building B and A a courtyard was kind of shabby because the wide space was beautifully planted with flowers in raised beds, there was a meadow and several trees or plants with beautiful bark or beautiful fall color like an amber tree, a cinnamon maple, a redwood and yellowwood dogwood and the others I had forgotten about because Lavonne had clutched my arm so tightly during this semi-romantic insede-scoop company tour (semi-romantic because it was romantic in her mind but extremely uncomfortable in mine).
I flinched as my department supervisor poked his head with his thinning gray center parting past the vertical botany into my area and smiled at me as he approached. I smiled back automatically, of course, because I did that with anyone whose smile was not malicious and I liked my direct supervisor, who had also trained me in the computer system and who kept emphasizing in his almost soporific calm way that I could always come to him if I had any questions.
"Nathaniel," he said (we're all here on a first-name basis) and he had an open catalog in his fingers. "You haven't filled out the list of personalized equipment you want. Or do you want to keep the standard models? But I think there are better ones in here."
I took the catalog from him and looked at the high-quality ergonomic chairs on the open page. I knew on other sites were organization systems for desks, keyboards from normal to gamer models and computer mice. I can't help but snort in amusement which sounded irritatingly like a noise a gargoyle would have made. This company was incredible. If they only knew what I had been sitting on at my old company. Or no, better that no one ever found out. Humphrey (my boss) had already given me the catalog on the second day, along with a spreadsheet where I was supposed to write down my wishes for office and work material that better suited my needs, but to be honest I had forgotten about it because it had all been so much. I wasn't used to so many new impressions.
"I'll fill out the list right away and put it in your inbox before closing time. Would that be okay?" I asked because, man, these office chairs all looked extremely good for long periods of sitting and I would have to google-fu them all.
Humphrey smiled at me, confirmed of course and was about to turn around but I called him back and he came over to me again as if he was expecting a question about the system or my current task.
But that wasn't my direct concern.
I rubbed my left ear facing away from him, running my fingers along the destroyed cartilage as I had often done in the last few days to unconsciously reassure myself that everything here was real, that everything had been real in my time as a gargoyle.
"Humphrey - I wanted to ask, so, you check my work regularly. I - I wanted to know what you are thinking?
"About what?" he inquired softly either because he didn't remotely share my former boss's penchant for finding pleasure in watching his coworkers (this particular coworker) squirm under psychological pressure or because Lex had told him it was okay to walk on glass around me.
"About ... my integration in the department. About my speed of work, my adaptation to the system. So ... am I doing ... okay?" I asked, hating myself a little for sounding like a schoolchild seeking reassurance from my father.
Humphrey puts a warm hand on my shoulder (nothing that shook me like it did with Jussuf, who had always applied so much pressure that he left me with bruises and whose hands had never made me forget that I was his and nothing else).
"Nathaniel. You're doing well. Very well, in fact. You're much more independent after a few days than most of the others were."
"Well, I was the only accountant at my old firm. But it was much smaller," I tried to minimize his praise, which I wanted but was uncomfortable with.
He patted me on the back a little awkwardly but not roughly. "You're doing well, Nathaniel. We all think so here. You're a pleasant and hard-working employee."
"Hardworking? Is my work-flow okay?" I inquire because I found it hard to believe that the current me who was constantly sidetracked should be such an acceptable coworker.
Humphrey's gaze became a little more awake, his voice a little more determined but far from admonishing. "Nathaniel, we're glad you're with us. You're accurate and your numbers are correct. The employees here are allowed to muse to themselves - even us. You don't have to justify yourself for anything as long as the work you've been given is done - whether that's today or tomorrow, it doesn't matter. What's more, your personality is pleasant and you fit in well with us. I say you stop worrying about it and join your teammates for dinner?"
I looked at the clock on my computer.
"I still have 15 minutes," I said quietly, trying to ignore the fact that his praise had probably made me blush like a tomato.
"Go early. That's okay. You can take a trip to the washroom first to wash the paint off a bit."
"Paint?" I followed his good-natured gaze and saw that my cream-colored button-down shirt (I'm still not comfortable enough to come to work in just jeans and a T-shirt) was soaked through with blue paint on the sleeve. "Oh maaaaan," I grumbled and raised my arm. It had been lying on a ballpoint pen that had probably leaked - I hadn't even noticed it because of all the mindless daydreaming.
Humphrey grunted an old man's laugh and left me alone with my quiet frustration.
I undid the cufflink, rolled back my sleeve and turned my arm. The ink had left an almost fist-sized stain on the delicate skin of my inner arm and in this light the color looked almost like the color of my gargoyle skin. Only the scattered hairs that covered me, like pretty much every human, sometimes lighter and fairer, sometimes darker and almost furry, were extremely annoying. They just didn't look right with this shade of blue. I made a chirping gargoyle noise of helplessness because my feelings were completely overwhelming me, completely involuntarily, but I didn't question it because I couldn't stop staring at my arm.
I didn't know if a minute or five passed but I managed to stand up, secured my program before logging out and walked across the room. I nodded or smiled at my colleagues but as soon as there was no one else in the corridor my mechanical smile disappeared. I couldn't get to the washrooms fast enough. Luckily I was the only one there and the cold water I splashed on my face shocked me and did me good at the same time. When I lifted my head and looked in the mirror, I screamed because my gargoyle face, complete with jaw and forehead horns, blue skin and fangs, screamed back at me. I fell backwards and painfully onto my butt and my tail that wasn't there anymore hurt and my back muscles twitched agitatedly because wings wanted to move that weren't there anymore either.
I held a hand to my chest to make sure my heart wasn't jumping out of my chest and my frustrated grumpy whimper was pure gargoyle - not human. The sobs immediately afterwards were very human though. I wasn't crying - I was just sobbing. Everything was so surreal, crazy, scary and I wondered if I was making a bigger deal out of these echoes than they were. Whether someone who was more mentally stable would just put up with them and stay cool when he suddenly saw himself and not himself in the mirror and - damn it I started to giggle even though I wanted to cry because I was afraid that the inability to cope with this thing would rub off on my new, old life and I would with burgeoning madness ruin everything that I was trying to build.
Suddenly angry with no one but myself, I jumped up and saw only the human being in the mirror. And a soft, boyish, whispering voice in my head crooned to me that this face was wrong. The color, the shape, everything about me was wrong and fake and with a low rumble in my throat I lashed out and slammed my fist against the mirror so hard it cracked and I almost collapsed on the sink because pain was rippling from my knuckles up my arm and it was a good pain because it was real and I didn't know what was real anymore.
Shaking, I rose up, seeing blood slowly running from my top knuckles down my fingers, the thin skin over the bones burst open from the impact. When I looked up, the mirror was shattered and my face was human but broken into a dozen pieces and it was fascinating and scary and kind of funny at the same time because that's as apt and vivid a metaphor as only life (or the Matrix I might have been living in) could write. I turned my head to the side and my rosy skin turned a rich blue in the corner of my eye. Then I looked again and was completely human again. I laughed softly and put my hand to the mirror, feeling the broken pieces without cutting myself even more.
"Are you real?"
My voice echoes in the fully tiled room despite the cubicles. But of course I got no answer. I was so ridiculous, so pathetic. Of course I was real - what else was I supposed to be. I was human. 100 percent human - otherwise I would hardly feel so helpless. I sighed and reached for the paper towels in the holder on the wall to stop my blood from dripping further onto the ceramic. I didn't reach far enough, my fingers didn't touch the gray cellulose of the sheet hanging out, but it still moved. I frowned in bewilderment ... and made the same movement again and the pulp moved in sync my hand as if brushed by a tiny breeze. But it was NOT my hand that caused the breeze. I pulled my hand back and wiggled my fingers up and down. The paper followed this movement.
My shrill, incredulous laughter echoes in the room.
I hadn't thought about either of the two entities I had first feared and then got to know in my dreams before my impending petrification - although getting to know them would really be too much. What had their names been again? I couldn't even remember. The entity made of smoke, lava and fire. And the one made of wind and air. It had probably been really cheeky to call them my inner demons in my head. But I just didn't know how else to describe them. Perhaps they had always been figments of my imagination. Splinters of my mind, my soul perhaps, or maybe that's how split personalities started. I had no idea and had never wanted to think about it because they hadn't shown up for months.
In that situation, I hadn't associated it with them at all, but Puck had demanded my fire during the re-transformation. He had called it a small token. I took a deep breath and tried for the first time to willfully conjure up the magical heat again. But I felt nothing. No warmth in my guts, no rising temperature, no glowing veins that made my skin steam - something like that would be extremely unhealthy for a human being. Had Puck really ... pulled it out of me? If so, it had never been a figment of my imagination, it had always been real. He wouldn't have wanted (or needed) it if it hadn't been real. I put my hand to the mirror again.
"Are you there?" I asked into the space of the room. No answer.
"If you are still there ... then you are a part of me and now just as lost as I am. Please, tell me what to do."
Again no answer and the silence in the room began to hurt my ears. I looked out the narrow but floor-to-ceiling frosted glass window, but only to gauge how high or low the sun was and when my chosen family would wake up.
"I should talk to Lexington about this," I mused quietly, but what wasn't quiet at all was that the narrow window was suddenly ripped open. By nothing more than the wind rushing into the room, slamming the cabin doors open and shut and ripping my hair out of its bun. I had to squeeze my eyes shut and felt dozens of cellulose paper towels dancing around me and - had a roll of toilet paper just flown against my head?
"Okay!" I yelled against the howling wind, trying to shield myself from this washroom-sized mini-hurricane.
"Okay! I'm not saying anything! You and I will overcome these echoes together," I exclaimed, just wanting it to stop. And it did stop. The wind died just as quickly as it had come. I opened my eyes and blinked. Gray-brown paper towels sailed to the ground around me, the window hanging only in one hinge. Now it was quiet again - except for the chirping of the birds outside. I waited a few seconds for people to rush into the room who had noticed any of this madness, but that didn't happen. I sniffled and wiped my nose with the back of my uninjured hand and realized that I was bleeding from it.
And it looked like a bomb had gone off in here! I bent down and started to tidy up my mess (the mess of the entity that still inhabited me and which Puck and Alex had probably forgotten about because the fire had always been dominant). Someone behind me came into the room and gasped very melodramatically. I stood up, arms full of toilet paper rolls and cellulose wipes, and me and the man I didn't yet know stared at each other wordlessly for a few seconds before I pulled up part of my upper lip to show a fanged smile that probably looked gaga without fangs. But I felt gaga too, so I guess that was appropriate.
"I had restroom issues," I mumbled, and the guy nodded curtly and backed out the door.
I nodded understandingly, deposited everything in the sink under the broken mirror, then washed the ink and the blood off my body and face without looking at a reflective surface again, taking in the pain as best I could because I knew nothing at the moment - except that the pain grounded me and reminded me that this body and reality were mine.
We've all had some restroom issues at one point or another. -..-
Is Nathaniel just letting himself be manipulated by a disembodied, voiceless breeze? And it only crosses my baby deer's mind to clean up when his sanity is about to crumble - I would compensate differently.
Thanks for reading, Q.T.
