Dreams of the Quill

Something about pretty little homes.

“Hi, Joe.”

“Hello,” said Joe, not looking away from his monitor. He deftly struck the right arrow key twice and the down arrow key once and was ready to arrange the next falling block.

“Could you please pause that, at least, when I’m talking to you?” asked Ms. Harris, sighing. She had long since given up on reprimanding Joe for playing games on the job, and could only hope for an ounce of attention when talking to him.

“Not… yet!” answered Joe as he slid a 4×1 block across the screen and let it drop into place, clearing the entire screen. He did a little victory dance with one arm as he paused the game. “Alright.” He turned his chair around and faced his boss. “What is it?”

Joe was in a good mood; he was on track to beat his previous high score in Tetris.

“How would you like to work a real job?”

“What do you mean?” asked Joe, frowning. He could sense his good mood drifting away, and with it, his potential new high score.

“Upper management is eliminating your position, is what I mean,” replied Ms. Harris. “We can’t drop you along with your job for obvious reasons, so we’ve made sure that there’s an opening for you in the day shift.”

Joe couldn’t help but smile at the thought. A normal day job! A normal life under the sun! The anger and frustration his boss caused him quickly overpowered the joy, however, and he asked:

“What if I don’t want to be switched?”

“You’re free to quit whenever you want.”

“What if I don’t want to quit or be switched?”

“Your union rep might be able to give you some advice.”

“Hah,” he chortled, “you want a strike, after all.”

“Why would I want a strike?” asked Ms. Harris, confused. “We want to keep these trains running smoothly.”

“Trains?” Oh, that’s right, remembered Joe. I work at a government corporation that runs trains. Guess it slipped my mind, what with not doing anything at work. Somewhere between training and Rapunzel’s Escape, I forgot. “Right.”

“You already have the necessary training to do real work here, Joe. Do you want the position?”

A day job would mean colleagues. It would mean real work. It would mean no more games or e-mails or fun websites. No more Meow Meow Anim or Blue Sky. Well, whatever, figured Joe. It’s not like those games were becoming more exciting the more he played them alone at night. And his favorite website was unavailable.

Real work sounded like a pain, but Joe needed to keep a job.

In case dorito ever found his girlfriend.

He needed a career, so that he could live an honest life, marry, and raise a family to love God.

“I’ll do it.”