Down Right Writer

“25 Job offers and not one that I would ever take,” Mat muttered under his breath reading through the papers again before looking up from his desk. He was trying to get a new job to get out of the stinky, dingy little office where all he did was sign paperwork and reread the same exact magazines over and over again as though it would get the office more sales. He brushed aside his long black hair and looked out the foggy window to the port below. No wonder they didn’t get many sales, they were right next to a fishing dock that was hardly ever used because of how foggy it was. You could hardly see to drive to work. He had never expected he would end up working in such a dirty place, but he needed the money, and he was still pretty busy even though he hated doing the same things over and over again.

“Mat!” Lora, Mat’s boss, shouted from the room next door, before walking into his office with her hair pulled back as it was when she was there to offer business, “You know how to write, correct? You were trying to get a job as an editor, and you might just have a chance at that. Daren just quit and we need a new editor, I’ll take over the rest of your duties and if you want you can still keep your office, we’ll pay you over time.”

Mat sat staring at Lora, his eyes nearly popping out of his head and his mouth wide open. He had not expected to take Daren’s position if he ever quit and so it was just what he needed to get started doing what he enjoyed. Mat stood, spread his arms in a way that said, ‘sit down I’m giving a speech’ and launched into a long and complicating line of reasons he just had to say yes, “Lora, I know you know how much this means to me and I know that you probably need someone for this job. I have about a dozen reasons to accept this job. For one, I need the extra money, I probably should not have said that because you may end up taking away the extra pay. Two I love to write and, no offence Daren sucked at writing. Every single magazine was the same old thing, cars this, dogs that, sports this, people that, a story that never ever changed throughout my three years working here. Cinderella, seriously! I don’t even know how people are still buying these magazines.

“You obviously needed someone else to write for you. Your pay rates dropped, the number of employees dropped, the amount of money you spent on printing dropped, the number of magazines you brought out dropped. Publishing dropped; time spent on them dropped. Workers quit. Gosh I don’t know how many other reasons I need to accept this job. All I know is that you need someone to get this company back up and running and as your accountant in ‘supposed training’ I must say I accept and until I get a better job offer, I’m keeping this one.” Mat knew he had said too much but he stood there breathing heavily and glaring at his boss daring her, just daring her to fire him. But she stood there her papers everywhere, her mouth wide open with inspiration. She had not expected such a person to go and accept like that, especially not Mat who always kept quiet and did his job without being asked unlike most people (like Daren).

Lora took a deep breath and took a moment to gather herself, blinking back tears of what looked like happiness. “You start right away,” Lora squeaked before racing out of the office, not bothering to pick up the unedited pages on the ground of which she had meant to hand to Mat but had been to inspired to do so.

Mat had not wasted a moment on getting things ready. He picked up the pages, sat down at his computer and began to type. He retyped every page and retyped and reedited things over and over again, changing the Cinderella story to one of his own about a young girl preparing to meet her fencing tutor, who fell off her guard rail and fell down two flights right into her young handsome tutors’ arms ending with them in love and the girl the best fencer in the world. Mat got so caught up in his writing that for days he went without sleeping and wrote more and more magazine pages making one magazine for each day of the week, month, and year, handing them in to Lora right after they were finished and raising the publishing rates to about 25,000,000 magazines a day throughout the country. Mat had inspired Lora much and she began to take her time doing things, she worked hard but she did it without having to rush. No one in the business had to rush anymore, in fact there were enough people, now, in the business that they had even the most famous writers writing stories for their magazines of which Mat not only edited but added onto when needed. Soon enough he had publishers around the world writing to him, through email, mail and through newsletters. Everyone wanted a piece of Mat’s writing; he was so good. Everyone was reading the magazines now, not just the people in the business but people around the world. They were published in every language with trillions of readers.

When Mat finally took time to rest only a week after starting, he read through a letter that had been handed directly to him by Lora, from the Queen of England. It read:

Dear Mat of Maine,

           I, Elizabeth, am writing you to ask a favor. There are many children here who enjoy your stories and wish to hear more of them. I ask that you begin to write children’s books and move from Maine to England and begin your writing company here. We enjoy hearing and reading your stories and it would be a great honor to have you here.

My best wishes,

Queen Elisabeth

         And so Mat accepted the job offer, a smile on his face and he wrote and wrote and wrote until the day he died at age 96 nearly 50 years later as one of the most famous writers of children’s fantasy books, doing something that he had never expected himself to do, writing children’s books for the Queen of England.