The Office

The Office
By:
Jaclyn L. Sutherland


My boss is a real witch! No really, she a witch! I’m talking pointy nose, warts, flying broomstick, black cat, cauldron, the whole bit. Of course, everyone in my office is a little…different.
Let me introduce myself, I’m Bill. I’m a customer service associate here at Fairy Tale Emporium. I’m also an ogre. I know, I know, ogre. Everyone thinks “Shrek” now-a-days when you say that. Or they think I must be a bad guy. I’m really not. Sure I go on the occasional outing to ravage a village and eat their children, but that doesn’t make me “evil”.
My fellow employees and I are just like you. We have families, homes, obviously jobs; we pay taxes, vote and are generally upstanding members of society.
Except Charlie.
Charlie is what you would call an “outsider”. He just doesn’t quite fit in with the rest of us here. Usually it isn’t a big problem, but last Tuesday was the Feast of Greblak, and boy did Charlie put his foot in it that day!
Let me set the scene for you:
There I was, standing by the punch bowl, having a drink with Griselda (our resident seer and Employee Resources manager) when Charlie walks up looking all “human” (eek!) and says loudly ‘Who’s this Greblak dude?’
I swear to you for a minute there I thought the witches were playing some sort of joke on everybody because the whole room just stopped. Everyone stood there, half of them with their mouths hanging wide open, just staring at us. The silence punctuated by the sound of breaking cups and fairies hitting the ground (I guess they forgot how to use their wings for a second).
I gulped for air, trying to ignore the strange odor coming from Charlie (something he calls ‘cologne’), and tried to understand why this human, standing there in his black suit and red tie, with a cup (holding something he called ‘coffee’, but looked more like liquidized mud to me) permanently stuck to his hand, was asking me what the Feast of Greblak is! How could he not know?!
Griselda looked back and forth, from me to Charlie, with wide eyes. Estelle (the boss) seemed to have forgotten the charm she was using, and sparks were beginning to fizzle at the end of her wand. Tim (he works in legal, he’s a bloodsucker, but that’s alright) looked like the blood had all drained from his body, which was quite a feat considering he’d been chugging down O positive like it was going out of style for the last half hour. And there, in the midst of it all, was Charlie completely oblivious to the stares and glares, and tapping his foot impatiently, waiting for an answer.
“Greblak.” I managed to squeak, before I cleared my throat hoping my voice would come out normal and continued on. “The Feast of Greblak is our biggest holiday, besides Halloween. It’s one of the few days of the year we’re really free to be ourselves and let our hair down. We’re able to come to work and be with our fellow creatures and not have to worry about what you humans….”
“Wait, wait, wait.” Charlie cut me off. “What do you mean ‘creatures’? And ‘you humans’? Aren’t you all just like….me?”
I could hear him gulp nervously as he really took a good look around at us, his co-workers, people (I use the term loosely of course) that he sees every day, as though he were seeing us all for the first time. The blood drained (visibly) from his face and I saw his hands begin to shake, spilling coffee over the floor and his suit, as he realized that we weren’t exactly what he thought we were.
His legs quivered and for a moment I thought he might actually faint. So I took a step toward him and bravely put my arm over his shoulders and said “Let’s take a walk.” I smiled as encouragingly as I could and led him out of the conference room and into one of the offices.
“Why don’t you go ahead and sit down.” I said.
“Are y..y..you g..gonna eat m…me?” he stammered as his legs realized they really couldn’t support him any longer and his body flopped into the chair.
“No.” I laughed. “I don’t eat adults.”
A look of horror went over Charlie’s face.
“I’m joking Charlie. We don’t eat people here.” I sat down on the edge of the desk and looked at my wonderfully clueless co-worker. “What did you think was going on in this office? You’ve been working here a while now, can you really tell me that you didn’t realize what we are?”
“I honestly thought you were all just really into Halloween. It is coming up, and I’ve only worked here a few weeks and….” He gulped. “Am I gonna be allowed to go home?”
“Of course you are.” I was confused by that question, and I know it could be heard in my voice. “Why wouldn’t you be?”
“Well, isn’t this place kind of a secret? I mean, most humans don’t believe creatures like you actually exist, let alone that you have real jobs and….stuff. I just thought maybe you guys would kill me, or keep me here forever so that I couldn’t tell anyone what I saw.”
I laughed out loud at that one. “Charlie, this isn’t Fight Club. You can talk about it. Like you said, no one’s going to really believe you anyway so what’s the harm?”
I slapped him on the back, probably a little harder than was necessary. “Come on, let’s go back to the party.”
Needless to say that was one of the more interesting days the office had seen in a while. I’m not saying it was the funniest, or craziest, not by a long shot. It was just different, and it just goes to show how stupid human beings can really be.
We were all standing there, in Charlie’s face, not even pretending to be something other than the creatures we are, and he was too blind to see it. Just because he didn’t want to.
I guess what I’m trying to say is, look past it all. You might not see what people truly are like until it’s too late. And next time, we might be hungry…

The End