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9/4/08 Night Switch 06.07

By Flak | Comments: 7

This is this week’s second bonus chapter, lovingly nicknamed ‘Shut up and Explode.’
I’ll be releasing one more chapter (Friday’s normal installment) before my trip to Greece on Monday. I might get someone to fill in with guest content during that time; I might not. We shall see.

Joe yawned as he stepped into the office the next morning. He had ended up overshooting his stop in order to make sure that his inebriated boss got off the train at the right time, and as a result he had lost a whole hour of his evening. Upon arriving home, he had heated a microwave dinner, eaten it without the slightest twinge of enjoyment, and promptly attempted to fall asleep at his table.

When that had failed, he had moved to his bed. He had no success sleeping there, either, until about six in the morning.

Joe had understood that it would take some time to get used to his recently flip-turned upside-down sleep schedule, but he was annoyed that he had slept so little. He was sure that he had been tired, too. Dealing with Ms. Harris had worn him out more than anything he’d ever experienced, and his first day of so-called “real work” had hit him hard as well.

As he stealthily crept into his cubicle and sat down at his desk, he wondered if he would be able to stay awake and responsive until five.

Yawning once more, he loaded his IRC client and joined #amturd.

+king_j: Good morning, team.
@japes_11: morning noob
@japes_11: you’re pretty bold huh
@japes_11: and tricky =)
+king_j: What do you mean?
+dan_s: hehehehe
+dan_s: boss-lady’s not here yet…
+dan_s: rare to see her late
+dan_s: even before, when she was staying here till midnight
+dan_s: right, jp?
@japes_11: that’s right
+dan_s: sooooo joe
+dan_s: where did you take her last night? ;)

Joe gaped at his monitor. Take her? He’d taken her to the metro. He’d put her on a train. He’d saved her life from her own poor judgment. And he hadn’t planned on telling anyone. He began typing a response that would shut Dan up without hurting Ms. Harris’s rep. Before he could finish, however, JP interrupted him.

@japes_11: come on dan, you’re making the noob blush
+king_j: She had a problem with her car after work, so I—
+king_j: Excuse me?

“YOU’RE RIGHT!” exclaimed Dan and Joe spun around to find the redhead just outside his cubicle once more. Joe flushed angrily. “He’s blushing, he’s blushing.”

“Would you—” he caught himself before he went too far. He took a deep breath. He didn’t want to yell at his new colleague. All he wanted was for the guy to shut up and disappear.

Dan, as if sensing this wish, silently retreated without a word.

Joe turned back to his monitor. Why was Harris late to work? Had she slept even more poorly than he? And how did his colleagues know he’d escorted her from work?

+sam_b: gentlpemen, you are bpeing royal pfaggots

Joe breathed a sigh of relief. In spite of his obnoxiously broken keyboard, it seemed that this Sam fellow had an ounce of decency in him.

+sam_b: ignopre thepm and get pto work, joep!!p
+king_j: Alright.
+dan_s: sam’s quite the taskmaster XD

Joe sighed and launched his e-mail client.

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NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and addresses are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and have no relation to any actual persons, organizations, or locales.

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Post a Text Comment Text Comments (7)

  1. Oooooh burn! Joe’s gettin’ in even deeper now than before!

    ReplyReply

    Alar — 9/4/08 @ 1:58 pm | #Link |

  2. Wow, even when you’re not logged into AIM, you’re just lurking in the shadows waiting to snipe those bonus points, huh. SUGOIIIIII!

    ReplyReply

    Flak — 9/4/08 @ 2:00 pm | #Link |

  3. pfaggots =D

    The words with the extra ‘p’s in them are so funny looking. I sure hope Sam doesn’t give up on typing.

    My prediction for what would happen next was wrong, but may yet come true!
    Though I now have a new prediction also and the two are mutually exclusive. Very devious of you, Flak, very devious.

    ReplyReply

    spambot — 9/4/08 @ 2:37 pm | #Link |

  4. Devious me and devious you. What are your predictions? I’d love to hear them and then laugh about how your ideas are inferior to mine.

    ReplyReply

    Flak — 9/4/08 @ 3:27 pm | #Link |

  5. fine then, at the risk of polluting your superior mind (and by extension night shift) with a befouling tarnishing of inferior thought:
    earlier prediction was that they would go back for the purse, everyone else would be gone of course but something like a strange light would lure them inside, and then with joe for the first time at work at night when he wasn’t supposed to be working at night, something would happen.

    new prediction is that the man has swooped in and disappeared harris to interrogate/etc her because of her association with joe, exactly as joe feared when he fatefully canceled the phone call to marin during the protest. probable outcomes of the interrogation include that joe is framed for the murder of harris. this may occur whether law kills harris or she survives. in the former case she becomes a ghost which haunts joe/assists him in a navi-esque fashion. in the later case she attempts to return to her environment – work etc, – but because the world’s truth is that joe killed her, no one acknowledges her, and she becomes like a ghost (though still alive), and haunts joe/assists him in a navi-esque fashion.
    possible that joe himself also believes she is dead though she is not, and actually believes he is being haunted by a ghost, contributing to his perception that the world is going crazy around him/he is going crazy.
    suffering/hilarity ensue.

    ReplyReply

    spambot — 9/4/08 @ 11:58 pm | #Link |

  6. in the extreme, joe himself comes to believe the lie that he killed harris. driven to madness, haunted by the ghost of his former boss whom he murdered – though she is in fact still alive, and ‘haunting’ him only insofar as she follows him and speaks to him because he is the only person who still evinces any response to her presence – joe finally attempts to kill the ghost. in so doing he manages to actually kill harris for real.

    ReplyReply

    spambot — 9/5/08 @ 12:03 am | #Link |

  7. Interesting predictions but all far from the mark. Until now? Pollution commencing.

    ReplyReply

    Flak — 9/6/08 @ 12:05 pm | #Link |

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