Shoplifters union

The bomb had dropped . . .
A cloud of smoke and flames mushroomed over the buildings adding a new addition to the ever changing sky-line of the ever expanding waistline of the City. An edge of silence . . . then - the blast rippled across the perimeter of the City’s limits and beyond. Everything: the tower blocks the town hall the art gallery the shopping centres the war memorials, those over-priced pantry’s they call apartments and most importantly; all the Pubs and knocking shops were annihilated. Knocked flat in a ball of flames. In a matter of seconds eight hundred years of civic history was gone. I stood at the window on the fourth floor, looking over the City. Watching the ripple of flames spread like a wave, engulfing everything in its path. The window in front of me shattered into a million pieces as the flames invaded the building swarming over everything and everyone; I felt no pain. I just closed my eyes and opened my arms wide accepting my fate, embracing the warmth and the absolution.
In the reflection of my monitor a ghostly figure appeared behind me her fingers tapping the back of my chair. "My office . . . " she said, sharply. " now!"

Her office is a goldfish bowl in a long line of offices running up the back wall of the main floor. Hundreds of desks and computers People line up to to squeeze a lube from the tube and brace themselves for another late shaft. I don't mind working the late shaft I hate having to wake up early.
She's just sat here staring at me trying to read my soul I stare back into that shiny face of hers as my thumb slowly turns the cylinder making a click as each chamber links in line with the hammer. I examine the distorted reflection of my face on the glimmering steel as it stretches along the length of the barrel. I don’t recognise him.
I thumb the cylinder.
Click . . .
From the Revolver resting on my lap I gaze over the desk, over the open manila folder displaying my personnel file, over the blue biro pen beside it, until I reach the half glass of water. With Gumbo’s fingers behind the glass, they look twice their normal size. The distortion of the water makes them look stretched and fat. I watch her three middle fingers slowly tap, tap, tap one after the other. Her hand starts to slowly crawl out from behind the glass. One finger at a time suddenly becoming long and thin.
I thumb cylinder.
Click . . .
Crawling slowly down the middle of the desk like some hairless spider suffering from alopecia. Slowly It creeps over the blue pen, over the manila folder, getting closer and closer, until finally it stops right in front of me. I know its looking right at me, waiting to pounce! Waiting to lift up those front legs and show those fangs!
It sits and it waits.
Tap . . .
Tap . . .
Gumbo finally breaks her tune of silence.
“So, here we are again, Christopher. Back in the head masters office.”
I curl my lips inward and nod.
“So . . . Chris. Why are we here?"
“What - in general, or in the existential, ooooh Why are we here kinda why are we here? - ”
She gives me a stern look so I have another guess. “My constant streak of bad luck?”
That hairless Spider on the end of her wrist starts moving toward me again. The tips of those legs touching my knee, one leg after the other crawling along my thigh. I thumb the cylinder.
Click . . .
She turns her head slightly to address the pile of smirk and bile sat behind her, that is, Julian Smiley who is taking the minutes for the meeting; Her eternally grateful corporate cuckold.
“How many times this week, Julian?”
“Six so far Heather, sixssss” He answers, dragging along the X like a hissing Snake, smirking at me, I think.
You can never be sure who it is Julian is actually looking at, unless of course you’re the only person in the room with him, but even then the geographical intentions of those oval slits in his face are still questionable. His eyes are, how can I put it – confused! Or to be more precise in a perpetual state of conflict - with each other. Right now though I’m not sure if he’s staring at me or the back of Gumbo’s head. Either way he’s still wearing that smug smile. And it’s starting to seep into every nerve, muscle and bone in my body with all the comfort of a jagged knife.
Click . . .
"Six?” Gumbo asks, raising a questionable eyebrow at me.
"That’s right Heather” Julian adds; smugly “sixssss. Was late coming back off his lunch hour, on Monday and err, Wednesday wasn’t it Chris?”
CLICK!
Gumbo stares at me like she’s waiting for me to clarify his statement. That bold Spider is now crawling up my shirt on my belly.
Click . . .
Over my belly, up the chest until finally the tip of its leg is wresting inside that piece of soft flesh at the base of my neck. It stares at me with my reflection staring back at me eight times from those black marble eyes. A single bead of sweat hangs poised on the tip of my nose . . .
My thumb presses hard against cold steel as I turn the cylinder, once more.
Click . . .
That single silvery bead drops and the thing beneath me suddenly recoils, startled, shakes a little and then scurries off reattaching itself back on gumbo's wrist
Silence . . .
Julian, the pedantic Twat that he is, jots down the silence. I give out a long purposeful sigh just to see if . . . Oh and there he goes, his little Ginger head drops down and he jots away. 13:25 pm Greenwich Mean Time, Christopher sighed . . .
“Any reason for such poor punctuality, Christopher? How exactly did you manage to be two hours late this morning? Please, Christopher” Caressing the syllables with enough sardonic pleasure to cause even Julian the most celibate (not by choice) of kiss-asses to rupture his Y-Fronts, she says, “en – lighten me.”
Her fingers speak in that silent language again. Tap, tap . . .
“Slept in”
“You slept in?”
“Out on the Town last night was you, Chris?” Julian adds as smug as a politician.
Click . . .
“No I was just . . .”

1:45 am in the Big Brother hoos: While, the rest of the hoos mates were busy sleepin’ Christopher was sat at the edge of his bed furiously masturbating to some top quality porn that he downloaded off the internet . . .
“You were just what?” Gumbo asks
1:56 am: Christopher shot his load and fell asleep.
"I was just watching news”
Fingers, tap, tap . . .
“I remember when you first joined the Company Chris” I know what’s coming next, “You were on your way up”, the big retrospective speech, “then you just – well, it’s all been down hill since, really . . . hasn’t it?”
“Way down Hill” Julian adds while scratching Pencil to Paper. Staring at the back of Gumbo’s head and stretching out the syllables, he says, “ Waaay, waaay, down Hill” Then he looks at me (I think) with his one sided smile like a slap across my face.
"You used to have focus and pride in your work” looking me up and down Gumbo says, “And in your appearance. Such a promising career then - then - two hours late . . .”
My mind trails of somewhere through the vastness of space, over the Moon and past all of the Planets and on and on and on . . .
“You rose quickly. Faster than anyone I’ve ever seen . . .”
Gumbo’s rhetoric became so boring to young Christopher that all the planets stopped rotating. The Moons magnetic pull diminished and the Oceans of the Earth no longer roared they whimpered and the waves no longer rolled they trickled! To a dead flat - nothing.
“How does that happen - How do go from that – to you? I just find it all so -”
Gumbo’s voice began to slow into a long monotonous drone. Like a slowed down tape-recording. Until, finally young Christopher heard nothing. He just looked upon Gumbo with a vacant stare as her lips moved around in accordance to the words she was saying that Christopher was clearly not paying any attention to.
My eyes zero in on those lips those Gums and those teeth. Gummy bear! That’s what we used to call her, Gummy bear. But now it's just plain gumbo. Do you remember those little tiny sweets that you could buy from the shops in the shape of bears? Well - It isn’t because she eats lots of those. And It’s not on the account of those big yellow sabre tooth teeth she has its on the account of her big lip stretching chunky gums.
When her mouth closes her two front teeth clamp over her bottom lip like a rabbit and those two Elephant tusks reach all the way down into the small crevice that curves to form her chin; bunched together in a huddle she has these little thick black coarse man-hairs and as she bores me to death I sit here and I watch those big tusks slide down into that hairy ridge under her lip and every so often after a few nibs from those giant ivories one of those face pubes breaks free! I follow one of those little hairy guys on its long descent as it falls and lands on the table. Sometimes those little guys land on her knuckles. And sometimes they fall in-between her fingers and end up getting trapped in those fleshy cob-webs. Sadly from which there can be no escape. “Are you listening to me Chris?”
Lately though, the most popular insult being passed around the work place is Camel-Toe!
Yes, you've guessed it. She has the infamous man bulge. There has been speculation as to whether or not the double bulge parallel parked between her legs is that of the female genitalia. It is possible, (some believe) that there is actually something tucked away in that valley between those two up-turned hills.
Another one of those face pubes breaks free from the fleshy roots of corporate tyranny and evil and the hairy little guy drops down onto the desk. Hallelujah, free at last!
As Gumbo continues with her tirade I float out of the office watching the two hundred or so Cadavers, my fellow prisoners – I mean colleagues sleeping square eyed into those monitors, head sets chained to their skulls.
Sleeping!
Time is what we don’t have!
Sleeping.
This is the Capital Call-Centre City of the country. Half the City works here and the other half calls and gives us shit. And we take it with full company perks and a daily rectal exam. I’ve been here Four years.
Four years.
Gone!
Wasted!
“This Company has been very good to you Chris. All the extra privileges you were given, the pay rises over the years, the places you’ve been – I even put you forward for numerous auditions. Giving you the chance to star on Tele in one of our very own commercials. I thought that might’ve pulled you out of the daze that you seemed to have fallen into - you could’ve been famous, you could’ve been just like . . .” Holding out her arms and taking a long pause, she stares up at the ceiling and then, “HOWARD!” You could have been our very own HOWARD!”
I thumb the fucking barrel.
Click!
“From the Halifax adverts – don’t you understand Chris. You Our very own HALIFAX, HOWARD!” It was no use now fate had been set in motion. As all the Planets in the solar system stopped rotating, just as they all gasped for one last breath; like a domino effect they all fell and tilted to one side. The stars watched as the Earth and the other Planets fell asleep and died a dull death. But – not even the stars were safe. One by one they all began to die; an ocean of stars caving in on themselves; a billion Event Horizons bending space-time with their gravitational pull, creating a billion black-holes across space.
“Just think of it,” Gumbo continues in her Oscar winning role – “just – ponder! – Just – imagine! What it would have felt like to have been Howard!” Oscar! Golden globe! Bafta the lot! . . . “He met Ricky Gervais, y’ know!”
When nearing the Event Horizon “the point of no return” everything that slips into the Abyss everything that is pulled and caught in its grip has no chance of escape. Christopher found himself slowly but surely slipping through space and disappearing into the darkness.
Gone forever!
Her fingers start tapping, again. Julian starts scratching with that Pencil, again. That bald spider starts to move, again. My thumb strikes the cylinder hard causing it to spin. No longer a single click, just the sound of a rattle snake as it spins!
Spinning Spinning Spinning
“It’s not good enough really is it Chris?”
Julian glares at me through the tops of his eyes, smirking. Gumbo tapping away.
“Your performance – It’s not up to standard.”
Under the table my thumb is growing sore as I spin the barrel faster, harder with more repetition. The Rattle Snake grows louder. Gumbo carries on with her big speech about how promising I was and how I’ve not only let her down, but I’ve let myself down as-well.
Spin!
Spin!
The Rattle Snake becomes her voice. Another face pube breaks free. Julians mouth gapes open his tongue slithers out and splits at the end. He hisses at me. That spider crawls up my chest Julian slithers beside me covering my cheek in bile as that serpentine tongue slides up my face. I grab the spinning cylinder and - silence . . .
Like a newly throned King I rise and take aim at gumbo's face. Her jaw drops exposing all those jagged nuts and bolts, I cock the hammer and squeeze. Her face vacates the premises as she flips back in her chair, feet dangling in the air. A spiders web splits across the glass as I throw Julian against it. I have a special treat for him the full force of my shotgun and an open ribcage as he shoots through the glass. I step out onto the floor my fellow cadavers rise whipping of their headsets and the entire floor erupts into an almighty applaud, balloons fall from the ceiling, a hundred party poppers go off and corks fly across the room as Champagne sprays through the air.
Like a Soldier returning from the trenches I stand proud.
My work here is done.
"Are you listening to me?"
"Huh?"
The office door swings open a young girl nervously pokes her head in.
"Yes, Samantha?"
I have a strong feeling that she is going to say something along the lines of there is a bomb!
"We'll, spit it out!"
"Someone's just called through and told us that we have five minutes to vacate before a bomb explodes."
Should at least get the rest of the afternoon off now I think.