Cursed... by Fairies
(pre-titled by Amber)
When Tina came into work wearing her uniform inside out, I didn’t think anything of it. Tina and her teeny-bopper cohorts were always showing up with some sort of rules-mocking version of what they were supposed to wear. And Management had never called them on it. Now she pushed the limit and I thought it was tacky.
I said, “Well, I hope that doesn’t catch on or I’m going to start wearing denim coveralls in protest.”
Tina looked at me in horror. “Denim is so last spring. I wouldn’t be caught dead in it.”
But I didn’t believe her. About the denim, I mean. And unfortunately for me, the reversed uniform did catch on. So one day I came into work and everyone had their uniforms on backwards except me. And they were looking at me strangely. “Um… has the company changed hands?” I asked.
Tina’s teeny-boppers giggled but Tina didn’t. Tina intercepted me in the bathroom later in the day, pulled me into a stall and whispered a tale so terrible I wouldn’t come out for days. When I did, I found I couldn’t make eye contact with anyone. This was a problem for me because my job involved a lot of customer service. But to work for King Sleepshade and the Winkshine Woman was not what I considered reasonable employment. What was the benefits, the dress code, etc.? Tina had said the inside out clothes thing was to protect you from them. She made me carry an iron and a water bottle. “They can’t cross running water, so if you see one, just start jogging and they won’t bother you.”
Well, I didn’t see one. Not in time, anyway. I was working late one night after everyone else had gone home, and suddenly I felt a hug from behind, and gossamer wings folded around me.
“Work inspection,” a silvery voice said.
I started jogging in place but it didn’t seem to work.
“It might even be time for a … raise,” the dulcet tones tickled my ear as slender arms caught my waist and lifted me up off the linoleum.
I tried waving the iron in its face, but my arms were too exhausted from lugging it around the store.
“And now–“
“I’m filing an HR report against you,” I interrupted. “Lifting people by the waist is a precursor to sexual harassment.”
“You were saying?” the thing said, as we slipped out the window and rose 100 ft. in the air. I could see my workplace, my car, my purse where I guess I’d dropped it on my way in to work. In dismay at seeing my purse I dropped the iron, in dismay at seeing where the iron fell I pinched the creature hard on the arm. In dismay at being let go of I yelled as I fell. Enraptured at being a flattened, boneless me on the sidewalk outside the store, I laughed and got up and taunted the creature overhead.
Seeing it couldn’t harm me, the winged creature grew very angry and seeing I would just keeping laughing at it, it swore at me and left.
The End.
