Choices

Sweat collected on my brow, threatening to drip into my eyes. I pushed my hair back, wiping my forehead with a handkerchief and exhaling forcefully, the must of nearly rotting accounting books turning stale in the air. A pair of boots clicked cleanly on the marble floor of the bank as a crisply dressed gentleman arrived in front of my desk. Slowly closing the accounting book I had been scratching into with a pen, I looked down from the small elevated desk that was my station.

The man took off a hat, his shoulders hunching slightly as he placed it the hand that held a standard leather briefcase. His neatly trimmed mustachio moved up and down like a caterpillar as a whining strained voice spoke, "I would like to open my account."

I shuffled a few papers, dabbing again at my face with a handkerchief. "Account number?" I looked expectantly down at the man, pen at the ready. Unsettlingly, he smiled, his eyebrows scrunching together oddly, as if they didn't know where to go. "15990A." the man responded, pearly teeth showing underneath his mustachio. I wrote it down and stood up from my desk, brushing off the dust from my suit.

Stepping into the filing room, I rummaged through the cabinet, murmuring to myself "1..5..9...9... -- got it." I opened the file and peered through the identification information. The picture attached in the file was a young woman with a soft, rounded face and a relaxed smile. I kept looking through the file, trying to find any description of the mustachioed man who waited a room away. As the file went on, I grew more concerned. The woman was a young heiress, likely in the possession of highly valuable objects, and close by was a sinister man trying to open her account.

I walked back to my desk, sitting down and again swiping the beads of sweat from my forehead with a cloth. I picked up my pen, made a note in a company ledger of the man's description, and looked back at him. I cleared my throat. "Sir, could you provide any identifying information?"

The man's eyes seemed to bore into my skull. "No, I don't seem to have my papers with me." He gave a perfunctory patting of his pockets, his crooked nose twitching above his mustache. I started, "Sir, I can't give you access to the account if you--"

The man suddenly drew closer to my desk, pushing his face into the partition separating my desk and the line. "You will open the bank account for me. You will not signal for help and you will not give yourself away. You will completely comply with what I am about to do, as if you're my... accomplice."

I blanched. "Sir, no, that won't be happening." I stood up from my desk, discreetly pressing the button underneath the wooden panel that set off a silent alarm for the guards. Uncomfortable, I started for my manager's desk.

The man followed me and smiled again, his eyes hardening. "You will. Because I said so."

Immediately, my shoulder muscles slackened. I felt my feet backtrack to my desk. Frenzied internally, I tried to scream. Only my eyebrow twitched. Watching me closely, the man smirked knowingly. I furiously tried to stop my fingers as they reached for an override key and turned off the alarm. Shrieking, shrieking, yet terribly silent, I felt my mouth break into a smile as I waved the incoming guards away. I was powerless, an auteur of my own reality, the puppet of a man, and it forged a white-hot rage within me.

The man's gaze locked with mine. "The account?" he asked, nearly unable to keep a smile out of his nasal tone. I wanted to pick the pen up and drive it clean through his skull. Instead, I nodded and opened the small gate that separated my desk from the public line. The man cruelly grinned. He was a merciless marioneteer, a fickle Judge, Jury, and Executioner. I hated him.

A smile splayed across my face, I ushered him into the unboxing room, where I took out a set of keys and began to take out the safe corresponding with Account 15990A. "Great day, isn't it?" he commented, his hands innocently in his pockets as he surveyed the velvet-carpeted room. My mouth opened involuntarily and merrily said, "Why, yes! Just this morning I pointed that out over breakfast." He was vile. Absolutely vile. He turned to me, his mustachio quivering with excitement.

"Open the box." he commanded unforgivingly. I moved toward the box, my eyebrow twitching maddeningly. The man let out a little laugh and reached for the inside of the box, grabbing a small pouch and upturning it. A small golden ring dropped onto his palm, and he held it close to his eye, bringing out a small tool to inspect it. My innards burned as I tried to budge, but I was stuck fast, a stupid smile still plastered upon my face.

Suddenly, Bjorn entered, a strapping man who had worked beside me for a number of years. He took one look at the man holding the ring and immediately turned around, intending to signal the guards. I slammed into him and closed the door to the unboxing room, locking it from the inside by putting a pole through the handles. The hatred I had for my actions threatened to tear me apart. I wanted to scream, shriek, tear my hair out -- anything of my own accord. Yet, I propped Bjorn up against the wall and punched him again. And again. And again.

The man leered at Bjorn over my shoulder, snickering. I felt his hot breath on the nape of my neck, knowing I would give nearly anything for him never to breathe again. I could hear people shifting outside the room, a siren coming closer.

I stood up, leaving behind the broken figure on the velvet carpet, blood on my knuckles. Slowly, I pulled the pole out of the doors. The man whispered as he cowered behind me, "Be my shield."

Realizing what he was about to do, I mustered the last sense of my sanity and the desperation of self-preservation. A wild "No!" ripped out of me, bursting from my lungs like a caged bird.

The man could only titter. "You will. Because I said so."

All fell silent. Thoroughly defeated, I walked out of the room, an array of bullets piercing my flesh. I had never welcomed death so heartily.