"Work" - Faosiyat Kolapo

I’ve been told most of my life that I am an indecisive person. I can’t make a decision without having to think about it over and over again. Due to this, most people end up leaving me, and I’m always too afraid to ask them to stay. To put it simply, I’m a coward. Afraid of the unknown world that I have inhabited for almost 30 years. 30 years old; soon I’ll reach that ripe old age that tells me that it is over. My twenties will be gone, leaving behind nothing but disappointment. The disappointment that I achieved nothing, and continued doing the things that I hate. Even today is the same. I’m sitting in the same cubicle, looking at the same names as I type mindlessly on the same computer with the same people. Some have gotten out, but not me; For some reason, I just can’t make myself leave. I don’t know if it’s because I’ll have nothing left or I know I’ll just stay home rotting without anyone or anything until the day I die in a pool of my own shame.

“Hey, Hey, Hey,” says an annoying co-worker. I look at him.

“What?”

“What do you mean ‘What?’ The boss is calling you.” I turn around to look at the see-through office where my boss does what he likes to call ‘Work,’ but what is actually him trying not to fall asleep as he tries to look at files. I notice someone else is there, but I can’t seem to make out who it is. I sigh as I stand up.

“Good luck,” says the annoying co-worker. I make my way to the room and enter.

Now that I stood in front of the mysterious person, I noticed that the mysterious man was not so mysterious. In fact, he was someone that I disliked greatly; a nemesis if you will. Trying to not sound annoyed, I asked, “Sir, you called me?”

“Indeed, I did. Will you both take a seat?” Begrudgingly, I took a seat.

“You both are to attend the company’s annual shareholder’s party.” I gasp.

“Excuse me sir, but what are you saying?”

“I’m saying that I need my best employees to make nice with the higher-ups and show them that just like the other departments, we’re doing fine; Even better.” I stare at the crazy man.

“Yes, we’ll attend.” says my enemy.

“Wait, don’t you dare–”

“We’ll take our leave now sir.” He grabs me by the elbow and pulls me out of the office and outside. “What the hell–” I try to say, but yet again, I am cut off.

“Unlike you, Mr. Lee, I’d like to get a promotion. Let’s not ruin this for both of us.” I stayed silent until I could word my anger Into something I could work with.

“I don’t care about what you want, Mr. Johnston,” I say, trying to infuse as much hostility as possible.

“I also want a promotion, but what place do we have at a party for shareholders?” Despite the partial lie, I don’t back down. He stays silent for a few seconds before continuing.

“You can choose whether or not you want to go, but Mr. Lee, if you don’t, I’ll make your life a living hell.” he then leaves. I stand there confused and angry.

Despite trying to convince myself not to go, out of fear of what the nemesis spoke, and the fear of being fired, I attended the damned party. It was what I expected to the tee. It was in a large bar that I’d never visited for two reasons. The fact that I do not drink and the fact that it was people who would have money to burn. Everywhere on the tables was alcohol. Old white men with fake hair stood next to each other drinking their fancy champagne as they talked business. Barely any women and people who looked like me were present. And even if they were, they were either the waiters, servers or ‘entertainment’. I stood in the middle of the room with my water, nervous and entirely out of my depth. I didn’t move; I couldn’t. Then I noticed the nemesis. He was talking to a tall man with short gray hair and pale droopy skin; I could tell from the fake empty smile plastered on his face that the old man was certainly a shareholder or someone of high status. He seemed to do that a lot, he did that with the boss and used to do that with me until he realized I didn’t buy it. I didn’t know whether to be annoyed by it or honored that he didn’t feel the need to be fake around me. I knew I couldn’t continue to stand there like an idiot forever, I couldn’t let nemesis win. I looked around and spotted a target. It was also old and white but he looked kind; at least I hoped he was.

“Hello, sir,” I said, walking up to the man, putting on a fake smile of my own; the whitest one I could find, despite being clearly not white myself. The man only stared blankly at me and said tiredly,

“Hello, do you need something?” stuttering, I answered.

“Well, sir. I–I–I just wanted to introduce myself. Uh, my name is Artemis Lee. I work for the finance department of the company. I’ve been told that I’m one of the best employees in the department.” He doesn’t say anything and looks past me at the bar.

“Do you want a drink, sir?” His face brightened.

“Yes, I would. Can you get me a bourbon? Oh, and, thank you…Mr. Kim?” Trying not to let my smile break, I correct him.

“Lee, it’s Artemis Lee.” He nods slightly and goes back to ignoring me. I walk to the bar and get the damned old man his bourbon. While making my way back to the man, I knock into nemesis and spill the drink onto both of us.

“What the hell,” I said, pissed.

“I should be saying that, are you blind?”

“Curse you, ogre,”

“There is something actually wrong with you.” I turn away and make my way back to the bar to get the old man another bourbon. For some reason, the nemesis follows.

“I thought you didn’t drink?”

“I don’t,” I say with finality. But for some reason, he didn’t seem to get the hint.

“You owe me a new shirt,” he said. Something in me snaps then. As soon as I’m given the new glass of bourbon, I turn to nemesis with a big smile on my face; I then throw the bourbon right onto his face. Silence. I turn to see everyone staring at me, but before I can react, something hard hits my forehead; hard. I rub at it and look down and see the culprit to be a shoe. I look at my nemesis in shock.

“You threw a shoe at me?”

“You threw a drink at me,”

“You’re crazy,”

“No, you are.”

I launch at him and tackle him to the ground. He throws the first punch and it goes downhill from then. I try my hardest, even biting him at times.

“Get off me you lunatic,” He says, pushing me off. He punches my gut and groans in pain. This continues until we are stopped by two bodyguards and coincidentally, our boss.

I sit silently on a chair, fidgeting outside the boss’s office to judge my mistakes. I already went in and told my side of the ordeal, but now my nemesis is inside and is going to twist my words or rather my actions, so I can get fired. My leg shakes rapidly, as fear and regret fills my mind; at least I wish that was it. I can’t regret it though. There was something quite exhilarating about the fight. I feel like a weight has been released from my back, but at the same time, another, even heavier has landed. I don’t know if I’m scared or not, But I do know I’m screwed. I hear a loud booming voice.

“Come inside, Lee.” I stand up quickly and shuffle my way inside. I make sure to stand very far away from my nemesis.

“Despite asking both of you separately, what started this idiotic fight of a lifetime, I still do not have a suitable answer.’’ We stayed silent.

“Do you know what you two idiots have caused? You have caused years of damage to this company, our department’s reputation, and in turn, my reputation. I picked you both because I thought you could be trusted. And then you start a fight? In the middle of an important party. Like two little kids.”

“I’m sorry–” “Shut up. I don’t want to hear it. Pack your things and go.” About to protest at the unfairness of me being the only one getting fired, he continues. “Both of you.”

Silence envelopes the room. We both do not say anything as we leave. I make my way to my cubicle and start shoving things into a box; throwing things I’ll never need again. I’m done before I know it. Weirdly enough, that’s funny. I dedicated almost 10 years of my life to this job and I barely had enough things to fit a small box. I head down and out of the building that I hope I’ll never come back to again. I run into my nemesis and stop. He looks at me blankly and then asks, “Do you wanna get ice cream?”

We somehow ended up at a playground eating ice cream; me with my favorite flavor, cookies and cream and him with plain vanilla. I made sure to harass him for it.

“You’re such a plain Jane,” I said while eating my ice cream.

“I love vanilla, it’s simple and sweet,”

“You’re weird,”

“So are you Artemis. Who the hell names their child Artemis.” I groan.

“My mom was a mythologist. She especially loved Greek mythology and her favorite goddess was Artemis.” he laughed.

“That’s weird,”

“Shut up Michael. Could you get any more basic?”

“Hey, I’ll have you know, I’m named after an angel, I think.” He laughs.

“Anyway Artemis, your name is actually pretty cool. Despite it being the name of a goddess and all,”

“Shut up,”

“No, I mean it, Artemis.” I said nothing and dug more into my ice cream.

“Your parents are probably pretty cool, unlike mine,”

“Yeah, they were,”

“Oh, I’m sorry,”

“No, don’t worry about it, they’ve been dead for like 12 years now,”

“Can I ask how?” I laugh a little

“Well you’re pretty straightforward,”

“Oh, sorry I didn’t mean to–”

“Nah, it's good. They died in a car crash, I was there too. It was pretty traumatizing.”

“I’m sorry.” I said nothing for a few seconds and then turned to him and tilted my head.

“What about you, how are your parents?” For a second he didn’t speak, but then he answered with a frown.

“They’re alive. But I hate them. We don’t talk much.”

“Well, shit.” Suddenly, we both burst out laughing. Trying to suppress the laughter, I asked him a question that had been on my mind for a while.

“You hate me right? I got you fired.”

“Not really. I kind of hated that job.” I laugh.

“Me too. I really wanted to quit, like really badly, but for some reason, I couldn’t,”

“Well, mine’s a little different. I didn’t know that I hated it until we got fired. I felt nothing. In fact, it felt satisfying.”

“Really?” he smiled and then turned his head to look at him.

“You wanna know something. My father made me get that job. He threatened me that if I didn’t take it, he’d make me pay back all the money he’d spent on my education. I laughed and thought he was joking; he wasn’t.”

“Wait. really? What a bastard; no offense.” He chuckled.

“I don’t care,”

“Wait! What’s he gonna do when he finds out you’ve been fired?”

“I don’t know, and I truly don’t give a damn.” We burst out laughing once more. We continued like that, sharing little stories until midnight and sleep knocked on my door.

“Well, I should go,” I said, yawning and standing up.

“Me too. Good luck at life and stuff.” I laughed.

“Okay nemesis, you’ve got jokes,”

“What?”

“Oh nothing, bye Michael.”

As I walked away, something felt wrong. Like an itch that I couldn’t reach. I was doing it again. I was being a coward. I was just trying to make an excuse. I didn’t want to stop talking to him and didn’t want our conversation to end. He was weirdly a fun person. But I bet he didn’t.

Right?

I mean, he’ll probably forget about me in a few months, only remembering me as that weird guy named after a goddess. Maybe he’ll think that today was a mistake. That he shouldn’t have talked about his life to a person that he hated. Maybe–

“Stop.”

I turn around and see nobody.

“What?”

I then realized that was me.

“Stop,” I said again. And before I could talk myself out of it, I turned around and ran.

“Wait for me,” I said, yelling, hoping that he was still there.

Then I saw him, nemesis–

No, Michael.

He turned around and gave me a confused expression.

“What up?”

“Let's keep in contact, like I mean, give me your number.” He smiled 

“Hmmm, I wonder, should I give my number to the person that got me fired.” My heart sank, but then he smiled. 

“Give me your phone.” I handed it to him and he added his number to my phone. I checked and saw that it was labeled Michael. 

“Wanna grab a drink?” I asked.

“At midnight. And you don’t drink,”

“I don’t, I mean, like a Slushy.” He laughed again.

“You’re so weird,”

“Well?”

“Sure, let’s go.”