“Good morning, Gerry brought photos!” Lili told Mel as she arrived on Monday morning of another week in hell.
“Of what?” Mel asked, her mouth watering at the sight of Lili’s coffee.
Lili took a slow sip of her coffee, savouring the taste with her eyes closed, before she swallowed and said, “Pictures his wife took of the mankini. He loved it – you’re officially his favourite person in the office!” She smiled at Mel.
Mel was ready to jump Lili for the coffee, she was panting for one. “Great.” She forced herself to walk past Lili’s cubicle to her own.
Mel’s budget didn’t run to the expensive barista coffee from the award-winning coffee shop downstairs, so she took her plain mug to the kitchen for some of the free instant stuff.
She grimaced as she took her first mouthful of instant coffee, but the caffeine began to take effect, however crappy it tasted. She started opening her emails.
Gerry’s big “THANK YOU!” email came with a PowerPoint slideshow, so she clicked it open as she took another sip of her cup of almost-coffee. She almost spat it out on the monitor screen. By the time she was done with the PowerPoint slideshow, she knew that Gerry loved his mankini, it fitted him perfectly, he didn’t have huge tufts of black hair poking out of it and his wife really liked Gerry’s reverse view, bisected by green lycra.
Mel decided that she sincerely hoped Gerry won the lottery that night, so that she wouldn’t have flashbacks of his green mankini whenever she looked at him.
Fighting to keep her coffee in her mouth, she clicked on the next email at random, certain that it couldn’t shock her more than the first. It was from a man she didn’t know named Dan. It sounded like a nice, safe name, Mel thought as she started reading.
She had to read it twice, then stood up to ask Lili for clarification. This wasn’t possible, was it? This sounded like the story she’d been reading on the train.The fiction story she'd been reading on the train.
Lili was riveted to something on her computer screen. Mel hoped it wasn’t a disturbing PowerPoint presentation. “Mmm?” she asked, not lifting her eyes.
Mel cleared her throat. “Am I supposed to get conspiracy hoax emails?”
Lili looked up, her annoyance clearly written across her face. “What?”
“Is there really an alien invasion?” Mel asked slowly, feeling silly.
“Aliens?” Lili looked blank for a moment. “Oh, yes, probably. You mean Dan’s assessment that ‘alien invaders don’t hold back and if we’re serious neither should we,’ something about Yanks and ‘collateral damage’?”
Mutely, Mel nodded.
“Well, depending on what they’ll affect, we’ll probably have to handle it in some capacity. Health, environment, life, lands…justice for whoever let them in…it all comes down to us.” Lili dismissed the unimportant alien invasion.
Mel found her voice. “But, seriously…space aliens?”
Lili laughed. “If there are space aliens, we’d be the ones dealing with them. Dan’s probably just talking about cane toads again.”
“Oh.” Mel sighed in relief, before it hit her. “We have to deal with toads and aliens?”
“We’ll have the Department of Defence to help with space aliens,” Lili said kindly. “For the terrestrial kind, we’re on our own. Defence isn’t any use against cane toads.”
YOU ARE READING
Mel Goes To Hell
Humor“Great, see you in hell at 9 on Monday morning!" Even working in hell has a funny side. Mel accepted a job in the Hell Corporation. The push for cost-cutting, consolidation and privatisation meant most government services were contracted out to one...
