Silva

Did you expect this question?

Hm...advice for seniors... 1. Breathe in, breathe out. Everything will be okay. 2. Try to enjoy it. Most people only get one senior year. 3. Numbers only define you if you let them. 4. If you are applying, I'll warn you now: college applications can be a storming terrible experience. It won't all be sunshine and rainbows, but please refer to point 1.

Actually, it was just a hat pretending to be his lucky hat.

Temporarily.

Does it matter?

The spooks, Spoooks, and Spocks were unharmed, though.

So he tried to become happier than he used to be instead.

Then tripped and unintentionally set off cannon.

The Krakatrice got a stomach ache.

Members of the Krakitrice race, however, just wanted to stay home and read books

Forever passed quickly and soon came to an end.

חג שמח! Maybe I’ll finally make some reading progress…

Eiran stifled a yawn as he turned to page 5194 of the 5207 page report on TUBA’s decline in profits. At least, that’s what he was beginning to think it’s contents danced around, using needlessly verbose language and extremely vague statistics. Someone was trying to avoid accountability. Accountability came with an amount of paperwork likely comparable to the length of the report and a demotion. Eiran stifled another yawn, his eyelids drooping. He shook himself awake just when his abilities saved him from needing to imagine the danger of what would have happened otherwise. “You didn’t finish reading through it, Sullivan?” his supervisor said accusatorially. “One might almost think you were avoiding telling us something.” His supervisor opened a drawer of the dreaded file cabinet and sifted through the papers contained, pulling one out every once in a while. “Yes, I think we’ll need an A32, an A33b, a GJ986, SFVs 237 through 305, two different TD43s, an H6549, and hm…” his supervisor trailed off while continuing to grow the pile of forms. “The whole suite of TGIFs. You’ll have until Friday to complete these or we may have no choice but to terminate your employment. Would be a shame, wouldn’t it?” His supervisor plopped the 6.25 inch thick stack of papers—the majority comprised of TGIF forms -269 through 5821.3d—on the desk before Eiran. “But you don’t understand, I d—“ Eiran cut himself off as the vision ended and he realized his coworkers were looking at him curiously. He gave them a perky smile, as though to say: “All’s well! No need to fill out an HR4 form to report strange actions of a colleague!” He shuddered as he felt his exhaustion threatening to overtake him again. He did not want to end up filling out a whole suite of TGIF forms. His pig-Latin was too rusty to be able to finish them by Friday. Only one solution would ensure he made it through the whole report on time: caffeine. Carefully placing a bookmark by his spot in the report, he put it on his desk and stood up, ready to begin his noble quest for a cup of coffee. —— Like everything at his workplace, the process to retrieve a cup of coffee was anything but simple. Correction: Eiran’s lengthy “Basic Tasks” manual clearly outlined it; the instructions just happened to go on for twenty-nine pages, ending where the text turned illegible due to an inopportunely placed coffee stain. Following protocol exactly wasn’t an option unless he wanted to trudge through the bureaucracy to borrow a different copy, but he knew he couldn’t make it through that without succumbing to his exhaustion, returning him to his present situation It was time to be brave, to act. Eiran took a deep breath and began his trek down to the lobby, the only place coffee could be found in the building for average TUBAist office workers. Unauthorized abandonment of work station! his brain screamed. You didn’t ask your supervisor for permission! You're such a slontze! The paperwork to fill out as a result will take you until the deadline for you to read that report! Then you’ll have to fill out paperwork to explain that! You’re consigning yourself to a spiral of never ending paperwork! Pity the trees! The trees! He hardened his resolve, knowing that wasn’t any more dangerous than what he currently faced. He’d end up in a spiral if he stayed and fell asleep. This way, he at least had a chance. Eiran made it to the elevators without incident, relying on his visions to warn him of anything that might cause him problems. He pressed the down button and shifted his weight from one foot to another as he waited. It felt so weird to be doing something unauthorized. Not a bad weird…almost like he enjoyed the dangerous situation. Unwanted, a memory of a vision of himself falling off of a building and a fiery bird in the sky surfaced in his mind. But it wasn’t his memory, more akin to the feeling he’d had when he’d looked at his watch the day he moved to Alleycity. He intentionally kept his eyes from drifting to his watch. He couldn’t afford to go crazy—he wasn’t familiar enough with the protocols for that. DING! The doors of the elevator in front of him slid open and he barely jumped out of the way of an intern blindly pushing a cart stacked high with packs of paper, likely off to restock this floor's many printers. Eiran sidled past him, entering the elevator just before the doors slid back shut. Eiran pressed the button for the ground floor. Chipper elevator music filled the silence, slower in rhythm than his pitter-pattering heart. —-- The doors slid open and Eiran quickly stepped out. Here the trouble might arise. He removed his ID badge and casually tucked it into his back pocket. This mission would be easier accomplished pretending to be an average visitor. Walking calmly into the general lobby area, Eiran looked around, trying to appear as though he were taking in the ostentatious lobby of the building for one of the first times. Gold trim edged a mosaic of diamond shaped windows, sloping upwards towards the high ceilings, vaguely resembling a chocolate chip cookie. His shoes clacked satisfyingly on the marble flooring. None of the visitors seated at the round mahogany tables glanced up, and Eiran thought he might be able to make it safely to the coffee machine when a vision surfaced, soon followed by a voice over his shoulder. “What were you doing over thataway?” they said and Eiran turned around, calm expression not betraying his fear, to see the face of the security guard he’d known would be behind him. “I…got lost. Trying to…um…find the restrooms,” he said slowly, mind quickly running through the copy of the “Being a TUBA Security Guard for People Meant to be TUBA Security Guards” guide he’d accidentally memorized, trying to find the best answer. “I was called here because of a…uh…plumbing emergency. I’m a plumber!” Eiran finished cheerfully. The security guard looked him over from head to toe, eyes lingering on his sky blue button down dress shirt. “They said it was an emergency. I didn’t waste time changing, obviously. Should I have?” The security guard seemed to mull that over. “No?” “Exactly!” Eiran said. “May I get back to work unimpeded?” “Yes.” The security guard wandered off. Eiran smiled and breathed a sigh of relief internally. “Being a TUBA Security Guard for People Meant to be TUBA Security Guards” taught the security guards to let plumbers and electricians work their dark magic in peace. He stepped up to the coffee machine, put his cup under the spout, and entered his order. The screen blinked, then revealed a screen to pay. Would you like to pay with credit or credit? Eiran tucked his hand into his pocket to grab his credit card, then cursed as a vision briefly filled his sight. Credit would end up traced back to him and there’s no way anyone would miss the fact that he should have been at his desk during that span of time. His exasperated sigh turned into a yawn, reminding him of the seriousness of his situation. It was at that moment that the lobby doors slammed open and a bandit strode in. —-- Bandit was the best word he could think of for them. They wore a black leather boots that, paired with the cowboy hat and red bandana tied to conceal their face, made Eiran feel like he was seeing someone out of a very different time and place. The words that came out of their mouth also furthered the bandit notion. "Hands up, everyone! I want your pockets emptied and the contents on the floor!" They waved around a gun to gesture as they spoke. "And, you there, by the cash register, I want that emptied!" The salesperson quivered. "B-but it's just for sh—" "No 'but's; the next person to protest will get a taste of my wrath!" It was so cliche and vague that Eiran couldn't stop himself from laughing internally. At least, he'd thought it was internally. Next thing he knew, the bandit turned to face him, visions of danger flooding his head. "Something funny, eh?" They asked, voice chill. Eiran flipped through the visions, determining the least dangerous seeming option. He settled on honesty. "Well, the cash register is just for show. TUBA only accepts credit cards," he said. He gestured to the screen on the coffee machine. "Even the coffee machine is restricted!" "Storming coffee machine," the bandit cursed. He had only a moment’s warning in advance of them raising their gun and firing at him. He ducked before the vision dissipated from his sight. A bullet zipped through the air of where he'd been seconds before, intersecting with the coffee machine. The bandit's eyes rested on Eiran a little too long for comfort. They knew he shouldn't have known to move out of the way. As his mind began to wander through dark possibilities of what would happen, the bandit shrugged. "All right, fine. Go about your business. Guess I won't be making a profit today," they said and walked back out of the building. "Have a nice day!" said a chipper voice from the coffee machine above him. “And stay away!” said the security guard who’d stopped Eiran earlier and then cowered on the floor when the bandit entered. Conversation erupted immediately, and Eiran stood up to look at the ruined coffee machine. Some deity must have been looking out for him that day because coffee streamed from the spout, filling his cup, fried circuits ignoring the fact that he hadn't paid. When the stream halted, he took the cup and downed it quickly. His mission wasn't over yet. Tossing his cup in the coffee-cup-disposal bin—the bins stood in a neat line, each labeled with the name of the one type of garbage it collected—he made his way back to the elevators and fastened back on his badge. He pressed the up button and waited. —-- The ride up to his floor was uneventful, excepting the guy who hopped on for floors 3 through 7 and tried to give Eiran a cookie. It had taken his full control to stay in the moment and not get lost in the visions triggered by the danger that could supposedly be caused by the man. He soon reached his floor and stepped off only to find himself facing a crying intern. It was the same one he'd seen earlier, cart still piled high. His heart went out to him, and, despite the caffeine energizing him, he knew he couldn't go back to his report just yet. "Is something the matter?" Eiran asked the intern. The intern jolted, as though just noticing him, and hastily rubbed his eyes. "Y-yes, but really no…my supervisor said I need to drop these papers off at a bunch of different offices, but I don't know where they are and the map is so unclear, but I'm scared of failure's paperwork because I need this on my resume so I'll be able to get a job and pay taxes like the law abiding citizen I want to be and not disappoint my fam—" "Hush. You're not going to disappoint anyone," Eiran said. "Where's the list of these offices? I can try and help." The intern looked at him disbelievingly. "Don’t you have paperwork to fill out?" The intern was right—beyond his reading material, he should probably file a report about the failed heist—but Eiran just shrugged. Human decency above self-preservation. "My paperwork, my business." My sacrifice. And so it was that Eiran spent the rest of that day aiding the poor intern and not reading the last thirteen pages of the report on TUBA’s decline in sales. —-- The following morning, Eiran arrived at his desk to see his supervisor standing there menacingly, bookmarked copy of the report in hand. He set down his messenger bag, filled to the brim with papers, and his supervisor gestured for him to sit. Eiran swallowed and did so, the memory of the previous day's vision fresh in his mind. “You didn’t finish reading through it, Sullivan?” his supervisor said accusatorially. “One might almost think you were avoiding telling us something.” His supervisor opened a drawer of the dreaded file cabinet—there was one by every cluster of desks for situations like this—and sifted through the papers contained, pulling one out every once in a while. “Yes, I think we’ll need an A32, an A33b, a GJ986, SFVs 237 through 305, two different TD43s, an H6549, and hm…” his supervisor trailed off while continuing to grow the pile of forms. “The whole suite of TGIFs. You’ll have until Friday to complete these or we may have no choice but to terminate your employment. Would be a shame, wouldn’t it?” His supervisor plopped the 6.25 inch thick stack of papers—the majority was comprised of TGIF forms -269 through 5821.3d–on the desk before Eiran. He saw visions of the future before him, filled with never ending paperwork if he accepted the pile now, argued, or begged on his knees. Except, he realized, there was no vision before him that started on a different path. Eiran made his choice. He lied. “But you don’t understand, I did finish it!" he said before he could doubt his decision. His supervisor glanced skeptically at the bookmark. "I was rereading it," Eiran said quickly. "You only asked me to read it once, but I like to go over things at least twice to make sure I fully understand. It's what "Advice for the New TUBAist" suggests." "Oh," his supervisor said. "In that case, just leave a summary of it on my desk by lunch. Okay?" Eiran nodded amicably, and his supervisor replaced the report on his desk. As his supervisor walked away, pile of forms in hand, he let out a relieved sigh. After finishing his first read through of the report, Eiran wrote his summary, keeping it short. The author regrets to inform the organization as a whole that profits have seen a decline. This is a result of too large of a percentage of our income from sales being spent on paper for all of the forms and paperwork in need of filling out. Inside, the man whose dreams, long ago crushed, had begun to be fulfilled rejoiced. Maybe he would be able to save this place from drowning in paperwork. Maybe. But first he needed to fill out a TC67 form to log that he'd completed an assignment.