Thursday, June 19, 2014

Donut Shoppe


            Selena rubbed her eyes, leaned back in the old, squeaky chair that her boss still hadn’t put in a replacement for, and yawned. “Come on, just one more half hour and I’m out of here. “ She said to herself.  Night-shift shift security at a bank really wasn’t what Selena had wanted to do as a child, but it paid the bills and she didn’t need a fancy degree to get the job.  Still, she wished that she could find something that didn’t include watching 7 screens that only gave her insight into how many raccoons lived in the area.  The dullness of the work was numbing.  Her boss bitched more than she did, and he didn’t even have to worry about his chair being a fragile antiquated thing that had trouble even supporting itself sometimes.
            One of the screens blinked for a split second, calling Serena’s attention to it.   Her head piqued with a mix between curiosity and annoyance, she focused on screen 5 and kept an eye on it for a minute.
            Nothing happened.  She rewound the video 4 minutes, as the books called for, and watched again.  Maybe she was imagining things, she thought.  The screen went blank for less than a second at the same time it had before.  As she inspected it closer, she noticed that the clock had advanced 13 minutes in that split second.  To make sure it wasn’t just a system malfunction, she checked the time stamps on all of the other current feeds.  Screen 5 was the only one with an incorrect time, and it remained 13 minutes ahead of the others.  She leaned back in the chair again.  The chair squealed like a dyeing poodle, and she jumped back up to the edge of the seat.  Not a moment after that, there was a knock on the office door.
            “Who is it?” Selena called. She checked the time again. Still 27 minutes left on her shift. Arlen didn’t usually show up early to his shift, he was too busy drinking most of the time.
            “It’s Arlen. Open up, I’ve got donuts!”
            Selena opened up the door, letting Arlen in.  “What brings you in early this time?”
            “Eh, I was bored. The donut shop was open, and I thought you could use some. You’ve stayed here too long, you know.” He said with a grin.  There was something about it Selena thought was slightly wolfish tonight. She couldn’t really be sure, though. It was only a hint.
            “I’m sorry, what?”
            “You’ve been here too long. Relax, I’ve got it.”  Still, that grin.  Something was different about it.
            “I only have about 20 minutes left in my shift, I can finish i-“ Before Selena could finish her sentence, Arlen exploded, taking the entire office with him. 
            A few seconds later, a raccoon crawled atop the smoking remains of the security office, softly chuckling to itself.  It pressed a button on what remained of screen 5, and beamed the ‘ok’ signal to its brethren in orbit.  Then, it fashioned a chair out of ceiling tiles and muttered to itself, “I told her she had been there too long. Did she listen, noooo.”

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