Chapter 1
Author’s Note:
This isn’t what I normally do, but it’s fun. I am still active on Soul Rejected at the time of writing and this is VERY different from that story. I made this story with my wife in mind. I hope she likes it. I hope you do too. Enjoy.
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Work.
Everyday.
Every. Single. Day.
I took my normal steel elevator, to the usual seventh floor and took the same third door on the left as I always do.
Hallinger’s Title Management and Equity. Life as a pencil pushing Component Manager isn’t without its monotony. Every day is the same with the same walls of texts, spreadsheets, databases and smiling team leaders.
I have been doing this for two years, 4 months and 13 days. But who is counting? You know, it’s not even a real role. It’s some made up role, for a part of a step of the real estate titling process. It started with nine of us in the Components Office, partitioned in our grey honeycombs sections we call cubicles in the off-white office space. All at once, they hired a crack-shot team to handle prep and analytics and ensure an unrivalled, smooth closing process for our commercial customers.
Nine new hires. Six cubicles and seven computers. IT didn’t have enough computers for the new team. That should’ve been my sign. Then, Caleb left. He was the first and if I’m honest, I wouldn’t even know this job if it were for him. I think we all knew he would move on to bigger and better things.
Apparently, so did the cubicles when staff from upstairs came in to take a whole desk and cubicle out of our office.
Then it was Aggie. Theo. Jillian. Desta. Nine became four and suddenly things were getting busy. I would update formulas and update workbooks all day and I still couldn’t tell you what I really did.
And one more, albeit empty cubicle left with them.
“Hey, Jordan.” Kylie’s bright smiling eyes peaked over the top of my cubical wall. The grey fabric contrasted her rich blonde hair and green eyes. She was always afraid to interrupt me or something. Do I give off ‘I’m too busy to talk?’
“Yes, Kylie?” I said with a little more impatience than I meant to in my tone. Maybe I come off a little unapproachable.
“Um, do you mind looking at the semi-quarter?” I was sure now that her voice became more timid after my response. “I uh, looked at it a bunch and think I got it right this time. I even ran it through the example you gave me and I checked it with Google and I even ran it through the TitlerAI site. But you know how when I send it to you there is always one thing that needs to be ‘shifted’ or ‘changed’ or tweaked. I don’t know I just wanted to make sure that, I don’t know maybe I can just like, make sure that, um-”
“Kylie,” I saved her from herself.
“Yes, Jordan?”
“Just send it to me.”
“Yes, Jordan,” And Kylie disappeared back into her cubicle.
I returned to the pivot table’s source dataset to ensure the new numbers were updated correctly. I wasn’t anyone’s boss. It’s not like I even exude any leadership qualities. I don’t even know who our boss is.
No, I was just a product of corporate natural selection. There is power in a name. I hate it. But it’s true. I am 96% certain that the Department head at Closing has no clue that I’m not a man. Everyone else in our Department had clearly feminine names. Kylie, Jess and Monique.
I’m not saying that Mark from Closing is sexist, but Jordan from Components, well “he has been doing a great job leading the department” for ten months now.
I’m just a pencil pusher. A boring nobody. We don’t even have a girls’ night at the end of the week. If we did, the invite never found its way to me.
“Night, Jordan,” Monique was usually the last one to leave. Before me, of course. “So you Monday, girl. Don’t stay too late.”
I must’ve grunted something that sounded like affirmation because she gave a half wave and left. I adjusted my little Frida Kahlo bobble head and returned to my executive summary.
And honestly, that was okay. I got a man at home, patiently waiting for me. He only eats what I make him.
Body: 10.
Face: 10.
I would be worried if he ever really came out of his shell.
Hermes. The name of a God.
Claws: 10.
Hermit crabs don’t judge. And if they do… well they don’t tell me.
The weekend was full of exciting moments.
I scaled a mountain, chased a jewel thief and solved a few murders that would likely be helpless without me. All this without having to leave my couch. Books, movies and TV shows. And it was safer that way. Am I alone here? I can’t be the only one obsessed with Daniel Craig in the Glass Onion series.
Alas, Monday came again. Another relentlessly repetitive reunion with running reports and revising records. I took my normal steel elevator, to the usual seventh floor and took the same third door on the left as I always do. Office 705.
I crossed the threshold to the temporal space where we are coming up on the anniversary of nothing happening at all. But when I hooked the first right to my desk, I stopped dead in my tracks. Someone was at my cube.
He wasn’t sitting normally. He was just waiting. Only waiting. Not on his phone. Not playing with a pen or twirling a loose string in his pristinely ironed button up shirt. He was just waiting, looking down at the 90’s patterned carpet.
When I rounded the corner, his head rose just enough to meet my eyes.
“Oh good, you are here.” It wasn’t bug eyed, but it really should have been, the way he stared into my eyes. “I am Aangu.”
He said it like it was the most mundane thing in the world.
“Are you from Preparation?” I asked, but no other part of my body seemed prepared for this. It was just frozen. I don’t even know where the question came from.
He never broke eye contact.
He just stared. He blinked but honestly, it shouldn’t even count with how hard he stared.
The silence was so long that I began to wonder if he maybe didn’t hear me. It was unnerving. Maybe I needed to break the silence. Maybe I wanted to get to my next questions. But I spoke up again.
“Are you fro-”
“I’m from Ohio.” Aangu finally spoke up.
I blinked. I froze again. For no reason. It was dumb! I broke the cycle, shaking free and set down my bag on my desk. “Okay, Ongo. Why are you at my desk?”
Another long pause. What was with this guy? Is he lagging or something?
“Hello? Are yo-”
“It’s Aangu.” He said matter-of-factually. Staring through my very soul.
