Curious Writing Garden

I take a second to catch my breath. The memory of the clay lizards whispering, “mould our faces,” creeps back into my mind. I shake my head to get rid of the weird thoughts and notice my hair is sticking out at weird angles. Great, just great, nothing says late like lopsided bedhead, I think as a try to smooth down my frizzy hair.

The elevator dings at my floor. I poke my head out of the sliding doors. The reception area is empty. The time clock gently ticks on the wall behind the welcome desk. A smug smile spreads across my face. No witnesses, perfect! I can’t believe the welcome room is empty. I speed tiptoe toward the time clock.

“You’re late.”

I jump and muffle a shriek. Slowly, I turn to face my boss, Mr. Borgman, with the most professional smile I can muster. Mr. Borgman is a tall, stern man infamously known for firing tardy employees in the office. He walks up behind me and adjusts his dark blue neck tie with the patience of a priest.

“Twenty-five minutes and thirty seconds late, Ms. Rubin,” he says as his eyes flicker to the clock and back to me. “I hope the extra sleep prepared you to welcome the clients scheduled this afternoon. You’re lucky none of them had the decency to come in early.” He regards me with a disapproving look as he passes judgement on my wicked bedhead. “Even though you are the, I assume, proud receptionist of Sleepy Time Pillows Inc., the company does not endorse sleeping in on work days.”

“There’s no reason why you deserve more sleep than the rest of our employees. Many of our workers perform outstandingly with the standard seven to eight hours of sleep every night.”

He leans down toward me, “Why should I make an exception for you?”

I crane my neck upwards as he looms over me. My smile dissolves into a sheepish smirk.

Why did my boss eat a mountain of calcium as a kid?

Taking a deep breath in, I squeeze out my words in a whisper, “I can explain sir, if you just give me a few minutes of your time.”

“You have taken more than enough time from me and the company already,” he says curtly. Then, with the grace of a confessor, his gaze shifts from judging to challenging. “But I would love to hear you try and talk your way out of this rather, sticky situation.”

He nods, in a merciful way, and eyes the time clock again, “I’ll even give you one minute to gather your thoughts.”

“Thank you sir,” I say meekly. A minute, huh? How am I going to come up with an excuse in a minute? Mr. Borgman is notorious for following the paper trails of his employees. If any employee was truly sick, he wanted them to show symptoms, have paperwork, and even a call from the doctor that treated them. He showed the same ruthless efficiency when family emergencies came up too.

How Jerry wasn’t fired after he faked his father’s own funeral is beyond me. Wait..That’s it! Jerry wasn’t fired, even after impersonating his allegedly dead father in an open casket funeral! It was proof there was a funny bone in my bosses’ thin skeleton figure. I just need to come up with a story wild enough to make him laugh, or at least crack a less sinister smile. I glance at him. His smile is relaxed yet all his teeth are showing. “Thirty more seconds, Ms. Rubin,” he says.

I rack my brain for any idea. Mould our faces, a slithery voice whispers. The dream, of course! I straighten my stance and channel all of my customer service calmness into my voice.

“There is a perfectly logical explanation of why I am late today Mr. Borgman. You see, yesterday I visited the Wynken, Blynken, and Nod Sleep Center in the hopes of convincing them to test if our Sleepy Time Pillows could improve sleep. They told me the lab would be interested, but first I would need to register with the center. As a requirement I had to volunteer in a sleep study.”

He raises an eyebrow in curiosity.

“They told me the study would monitor sleep patterns of the average adult. Not wanting to waste any time, I volunteered for the sleep study last night. Unfortunately, my volunteer papers got mixed up and I was mistaken for a participant in a different study. At least, that’s what they told me, afterward.”

Pausing, I sigh and shake my head slowly, “What I’m about to say is going to sound crazy, but it’s all true. So please, do not interrupt me.”

He nods, “Alright, you may continue.”

“Last night during the, supposed, sleep study I was taken to a monitoring room. They gave me a glass of water and told me I had to drink it as part of the study. So I drank it and fell asleep mid-yawn. The next thing I knew I woke up in a room designed to look like a flower meadow.”

My boss scowls in confusion. He tries to interrupt me, but I cut in.

“Yes, I know it sounds insane, but that is what happened. I woke up in a room made to look like a flower meadow. The walls were painted sky blue and there was green shag carpeting with silk daisies stapled in place. I should know, I yanked a bunch of the fake flowers out of the carpet and cut my foot on the staple. I was confused and stumbled back into a painted wall. Then the wall spun around and I was in a night club. There were loads of people wearing glow-in-the-dark shirts in that crowded room. All of them were dancing to rave music with a heavy base. I was disoriented and kept bumping into dancers. I felt like I was in a human pinball machine and I was the pinball. Suddenly, someone pushed me out the door of the night club and into a different room. The new room looked like a kindergarten classroom…”

As I continue on my long tale, I describe myself walking in and out of dozens of strange rooms. Some with balloons in them, others filled with hedgehogs, but all of the rooms were wacky and left me feeling more befuddled than ever. I glance at my boss and see that my story has the same bewildering effect on him. His eyes are scrunched up in confusion, his mouth is open in a lopsided scowl, and his head is cocked to the side. I decide to wrap it up when it looks like his face is going to flip to a 180 degree angle.

“…And it was just when I was running out of the trampoline bug room that I was face to face with a pair of giant claymation Komodo dragons. They were hissing at me, ‘Mould our faces,’ when I lost the last shred of my sanity and ripped the lizard’s head off. I was screaming, ‘Ok, I’ll shape your faces!!’ when a buzzer sounded and over-head lights came on. People in lab coats walked into the room. They told me to calm down, which is hard to do when you are confused beyond belief and clutching a dislocated clay lizard head. They explained that all the rooms were part of an experiment. The scientists were testing to see how people would react to dreamscapes when they were fully awake. They placed me and other test subjects in a maze filled with bizarre things to simulate a dream landscape. I was shocked and yelled at them. I had only volunteered to do a regular sleep study, not be a guinea pig for a bunch of quacks. I collected my personal effects, went back home to change, and then raced over here to start my work day.”

Mr. Borgman stands very still in the waiting room. It takes him half a minute for him to blink. He reaches slowly into his pocket; perhaps to hand me a pink slip. Instead of termination papers, he takes out a moleskin notebook and writes for over 5 minutes. Then he closes the notebook and says, “Well, your excuse is going right at the top, along with Jerry Barton faking his father’s death, as the craziest late excuse I’ve ever heard.”

I gulp, “Does this mean I’m not fired, sir?”

He gives me a satisfied smile. “I should hope not Ms. Rubin, we need you on our ad campaign team. Someone with your creativity is needed to help us sell our pillows. I believe your excuse would make an excellent advertisement for our company.”

My sigh of relief is cut off as he talks to me again.

“However Ms. Rubin, do not come in late again or I will truly fire you.”

“Yes, sir.”

As he walks into the office, he laughs softly to himself. “Mould our faces, indeed,” he chuckles.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Hey there! So this short story is based off a writing prompt from Writer’s Digest’s Year of Writing Prompts.   Specifically, March 4th’s prompt: You’re late for work because you overslept, but your boss hates over-sleepers. He does love entertaining stories, though, so create the most outlandish excuse as to why you were late.  Writing this was a lot of fun! The most difficult part was creating the actual excuse. I needed a scenario that sounded crazy, but real enough so that it would sound believable. The idea finally came to me when I thought of the company my main character worked for, Sleepy Time Pillows. After figuring out the name, everything else in the story fell into place.