Chapter Text
The rain pattered down onto the windowpanes with a quiet, but violent hammering sound that reverberated throughout the orange-wallpapered living room, where a woman in a brown dress paced, twirling the olive-green telephone line around a pudgy finger. Her steps mimicked the rain outside, but with an indescribable fervour that lay underneath.
“Worrying won’t do you any good, Sharon,” a sweetly honeyed voice came from the telephone. “Save yourself the trouble, and the wrinkles, dear.”
“I can’t help it,” Sharon said, victory-red lips trembling slightly near the receiver. “It’s been radio silence from him.”
“He’s probably alright. It’s difficult to get messages out from the front lines.”
“Oh, but Susanne! I’m so worried!” Sharon cried out, tears streaming down her face and smudging her mascara. “I haven’t heard from him in two weeks! He hasn’t written or anything and I’m-”
Sharon fell silent at the creak of the door. The phone fell from her hand, only dangling by the telephone line caught in her finger.
“…Sharon?”
Her mouth hung open as the front door opened, the sound of rain gradually becoming clearer. In stepped a soaked man, taller and broader and older than she remembered. Carrying a briefcase and dressed in a beige trench coat, he looked down at her with dull blue eyes, duller than she remembered, with a gaunt face, more gaunt than she remembered. Was this the boy she watched play in the yard? No, no, not anymore. This was a man, fully grown, and yet, not truly a man. An overgrown empty shell was a good way to describe the towering sopping figure in her living room.
Both of them said not a word. The rain continued to batter the sides of the house, relentless and heavy.
But suddenly, cutting through the tension, Sharon wordlessly stepped forward and wrapped her arms around the tall man. He did the same, and buried his face in her shoulder, like he had done so many times in his life.
Sharon’s tears continued, falling onto his already-soaked coat; he responded the same.
“Oh, my son,” she sobbed out, grabbing tighter to the back of his tan trench coat.
“Mother…” he responded, his voice muffled.
Sharon pulled away and held tightly to her son’s arms. She smiled. “Last I saw you, it was ‘Mama’. Oh, how you’ve grown, Johannes.”
Johannes smiled, albeit quite sadly. Sharon raised a hand to his face.
“Oh, my son,” she repeated, voice faint from emotion. “My Johannes…” Her thumb traced circles on his cheek, in a gingerly motherly way.
He leaned in and closed his eyes, the tears squeezing out from between his eyelids. They rolled down his cheek. The name repeated somewhere far off.
Johannes…
Johannes…
Johannes…
“Johannes!”
He woke with a start, his head rocketing upwards and backwards at the sound of his name. A pen stuck to his face, but fell in his lap at the sudden motion. Red marks remained on his face from his blissful nap, and papers went flying. Startled, he leaned down from his chair to collect them.
“Sleeping on the job? Really, man?”
Johannes stifled an annoyed grunt, quickly picking up printed copies of… whatever he was meant to be doing. He didn’t look up at his coworker standing outside of his cubicle. “Frances. You don’t have anything better to do?”
“Not really,” Frances replied, shoving his hands into the pockets of his slacks. “I just came to see how those reports were looking.”
Johannes tossed his thick ponytail over his other shoulder with a motion of his head. “Uh, yeah, just let me…” He sifted through the papers, knowing damn well he didn’t write the reports, at least, not all of them.
Unfortunately, Frances knew Johannes, and he had pulled this kind of stunt before. “Don’t even try that, Johannes. This is the third time this week.”
“Three out of five-” Johannes said, straightening the papers on his desk as he leaned back up. “-is not that bad.”
“It’s only Wednesday.”
Johannes waved him off dismissively.
“You know if you don’t get those reports in, Perez is going to have your hide,” Frances quipped.
“She can have it,” Johannes replied, typing something on his computer. “I’m not using it anyways.”
Frances leaned in, watching Johannes type. “Were you this much of a bum before the war, or is this a recent development?”
“I can’t write reports with you breathing down my neck, Frances,” Johannes said, stopping what he was doing. He turned his chair to face the other. “Go slack off somewhere else.”
Frances shrugged and leaned up. “Alright then.” He started to walk away from the cubicle, but looked back. “I just hope Perez doesn’t lay you off come Tuesday.”
Johannes whipped around. “…Tuesday?” “You didn’t hear?” Frances asked, leaning his arm against the doorway of the cubicle. “Company’s gotta cut back on spending. Perez has gotta fire someone by Tuesday.”
Johannes breathed out air through pursed lips.
“I’m not making any bets or anything,” Frances continued. “But you don’t have the best record.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Johannes murmured, shaking his head dismissively. “I have reports to write.”
Frances lingered for a moment before sighing and walking off, leaving Johannes alone with his thoughts.
The clock ticked ominously on the wall behind his computer. He looked at the face. The last time he looked, it was 1:30. Now, it was 3:45.
Damn, he thought, rubbing his temples as he stared at the graphs and charts on his screen. I need to stop doing this. Two hours of work, just gone.
Johannes rolled his chair over to the coffee machine on the other part of his desk, placing a heavily-used mug underneath the dispenser and starting the machine. Hot coffee poured out and into the mug. He picked the mug up when he was finished and took a sip, rolling back over to his computer.
Okay, one hour, fifty-five minutes to get these reports finished… and finalised… damn.
And so, Johannes spent the last hour and fifty-five minutes of his shift typing vigorously, alternating his right hand on the right side of his keyboard and the coffee mug which sat beside him. The clock ticked down, like an executioner’s axe raising, inch by inch, minute by minute.
Five minutes to five. Johannes still typed, his fingers flying furiously. Another sip of coffee. Another graph, another chart, and then… five. The clock slammed its short hand with finality on the number five and Johannes sighed and pulled away from the computer. He slumped down in his chair, folding his hands over his stomach. He reached out and pressed print.
Up yours, Perez, Johannes thought with a self-satisfied smirk. The papers came from the printer and he gathered them, straightening them up and stapling them together.
He gathered his coat, his car keys in the pocket, and started heading out of the cubicle towards his car. He filed, along with perhaps a dozen others to the parking lot. Once outside of the building, he located his car, a beat-up brown AMC Spirit that probably should have been put out of its misery five years ago. It had belonged to a family friend, a notoriously bad driver, as shown by the bent fender and the bumper held on by nothing but duct tape and hope. He opened the driver side door carefully, as not to have it come off of its hinges and slid inside, closing the door behind him. The fall schedule meant that the sun was already nearly setting, bathing the Joja Corp. parking lot in dimming yellow light.
Johannes sighed and shifted in his seat, undoing his green tie and letting it hang around his neck while he unbuttoned the topmost button of his shirt, leaning back in his driver’s seat.
I don’t know how much more of this I can take…
With a breath in, Johannes straightened up and opened his glove compartment, grabbing a cassette and popping it in.
Oh, Thomas Dolby, serenade me, please.
The cassette player began its steady stream of music as Johannes began to pull out of the parking lot.