Excerpt: Forty Two

Introduction-
In a Universe which is infinitely huge, with an infinite number of Galaxies and Planets, this story could take place some far-off exotic world full of mysterious creatures, and wonderful scenery which is- to put it bluntly- much better looking than the dismally bland and completely uninteresting world where this story happens to take place. A small insignificant, unimportant, ball of matter out in the middle of nowhere on the arm of a galaxy. The generally idiotic, primitive, ape-descended inhabitants of this planet call it Earth. In particular, this story is about a specific ape-descendant which all begins on a particularly unfriendly Monday.

The alarm clock went off for several minutes before its owner, John Stone woke up. John was an average human: short, brown hair, digital watch on the right arm, and an odd fascination for small electronic gizmos and gadgets which tend to break after falling no less than 3 feet. He stared at the ceiling with his eyes half open for a few moments before finally dragging himself out of bed. He walked over to his computer, shuffled the mouse, nothing happened.
”Oh well.” He thought. He left his bedroom and walked down the hall to the bathroom and took a shower. Several minutes later he stepped out, dried off and put on some, possibly, clean clothes.
“Hungry.” He thought as he went down the stairs to the first floor of his house and into his kitchen. He held open the door of the fridge and stared around for a few seconds “No light” he thought, and then closed the fridge. He walked over to the pantry and looked around for a few seconds, and then went back to the fridge. ”Still no light.” He thought as he pulled out a loaf of bread, followed by a tub of butter and a jar of jelly. As he went to shut the door he stopped half way, stared at what he had just taken out and thought, “Leftovers.” He promptly placed the bread, butter, and jelly back in the fridge and reached into a box of leftover pizza and took a couple of slices and carried them to the microwave. He stood in front of the microwave and stared at it, “It is fine cold.” He thought and walked away, taking a bite out of one of the slices. He finished off one slice as he sat on the couch in the living room. He sat back, stared at his flat-screen television, and took a bite out of the second one. He reached for his remote and hit the power button, nothing happened. “Stupid dead batteries.” He mumbled as he finished his pizza and put on his shoes. He stood up and headed out the door towards his car. He opened the door, plopped down in the chair, turned the key, buckled up, and drove off to work.

He pulled up in the parking lot only to discover that all the spots were taken, so John had to park in the ally behind the building, again. He walked around to the front of the building and walked into the building. John took the elevator to the 2nd floor and slowly walked over to his circular cubical. He sat down in his computer chair and spun around for a bit before actually doing anything worth speaking about. Then, it happened. His work day had begun. Memo after memo arrived on his desk, waiting to be delivered to their true recipient.

It is important to point out that delivering the memos is not Johns job. John is the computer technician. He sits at his desk and, supposedly, helps co-workers with their computer problems. The real problem is that the computers never have any sort of malfunction, and he really gets paid to just sit there and collect dust. His co-workers do not like the idea of someone getting paid to do nothing while they do something and so they have him deliver their memos.

The amount of memos that day was particularly high. He leaned back in his swivel chair and stared at the pile of paper on his desk. He stared for a few minutes, leaning his head slightly to the left or right occasionally. He reached over, turned on his computer, logged in, and surfed the web. After about 10 or so minutes of clicking random links he decided to do something even more fun, confuse his boss. He thought of what to say for a few seconds, reached for the phone, and called for the manager.

Five minutes later a short, fat, man walked up to Johns desk, took a look at the many memos and picked out the ones that had his name on them. His name was Tommy Adams, there was nothing special about his name, Tommy was a common name that year, and nobody famous ever cam from a family with “Adams” as a last name, and that is how Mr. Adams liked it.
”Yes Mr. Stone, what do you want?” asked Tommy as he looked through the memos to see if any more were for him.
”It is about the memos sir.” replied John as he watched his boss knock over a potted plant in an attempt to get a memo.
”Yes, I see they have yet to be delivered Mr. Stone, why is that?” inquired Mr. Adams as he replaced the plant.
”Because, sir, that is not my job.” replied John.
”Then what is your job?”
”My job is to fix the computers”
”The computers are broken?” replied Mr. Adams with a shocked look on his face.
”No, they are not broken.”
”So why are you here?”
“Because you pay me to be here weather I am needed or not.”
“Oh, but what about the memos?”
“That is what I want to talk to you about Mr. Adams.” replied John.
“And that is what I asked you about Mr. Stone.” said Tommy.
“But I called you here to ask you about them so should you not”let me talk first?” stated John.
“Yes, but-“ began Mr. Adams, he stopped himself to think about what to say next, soon realizing he had lost this time.
“The memos are for certain people, correct?” inquired John.
”Er… yes.” answered Mr. Adams.
”And everybody knows where to find the memos correct?”
”Yes, that is correct.” replied Mr. Adams with a slightly confused look on his face.
”And these people who the memos are addressed to can walk here correct?”
”Y-yeah.” replied Mr. Adams, wondering why he even left his cozy corner office in the first place.
”Then the people can stand up, walk to my cubicle, and retrieve the memos themselves correct?”
”Yes.” said Mr. Adams with a firm tone showing that he had no idea what he was talking about.
”Which means that, because they can retrieve the memos themselves I do not have to be here?”
”But what about the computers?” asked Mr. Adams.
”The computers are fine.” answered John with a satisfied look on his face knowing that he was winning, and winning good.
“Oh, well if that is the case then yes you do not have to be here.” replied Mr. Adams in hope of getting out of this mess.
”Now, just to restate where we are at the moment: The people can get their own memos off my desk, as if I had called them to get the memo, the computers are working perfectly as if I have fixed them from some slight malfunction, and I do not do anything here at work. Therefore, I could, in effect, do my job better by staying home correct?”
”Uh…” began Mr. Adams, thoroughly confused by that last statement, “yeah, I think?”
“Great!” Said John as he stood up to shake his bosses hand. His boss simply smiled nervously and shook his hand.
”Ok, what now?” asked Mr. Adams still confused by the whole experience.
”Well, I guess I can go home and do my job the easy way.” said John as he walked away from a totally confused man.
John went home and returned to work the following Monday when his floor became flooded by post-it notes. Unfortunately, for those who are interested in Mr. Stone's story, this story is not about him, but about a completely different man entirely. And now, the real story.