Lavender's Evening Shift

Part 3 - The Clock-in

Finally! Lavender had reached the office. Deep within the heart of Hell's murky city, was Lucifer's tower. The tower seemingly went forever into the clouds, where other buildings seemed to sprout upside down from it, without any logical reason or cause. It was all very dreamlike, but to Lavender, it was just business as usual. He entered through the two front doors beyond the parking lot, entering what looked like a reception area. There was a thin wasp woman sitting behind the desk in an office suit and skirt, which Lavender just ignored and walked towards the elevator. He straightened his midnight tie and pressed one of the many, many elevator buttons. The buttons were arranged on the left elevator wall, and formed a mosaic-like image of Lucifer himself. Lavender always groaned looking at it, wondering how much someone can dedicate to their own ego, and how much it inconvenienced him to remember which one out of the many many buttons would take him to where he needed to go. He remembered back to last week, how he accidentally pressed one button to the left and ended up on a floor made completely out of pillows. While it was quite fun to walk around in, it wasn't where his office was! Lavender was once again reminded of how slow everything felt, the elevator seemingly taking forever to reach its destination, even though it had accelerated to at least Mach 4 by now. 

Eventually, the elevator found itself on the right floor. He stepped out into the bland, red-walled corridor, at the end of which was his office. He walked towards the end, but found that the corridor was stretching and stretching. He noticed this and groaned, before beginning to jog, then sprint towards his destination. He ran through the strange, warping corridor, even working up a sweat. Lavender wiped his forehead, continuing to run as fast as he could through the Alice-in-Wonderland like nightmare. He ran and ran, just wanting to get to his office. Suddenly, it stopped stretching and went back to normal, shortly after, Lavender got caught off guard and ran straight into the door. A light bruise was forming on his eye, and he was knocked back to the floor. The demon groaned and rubbed his face, before standing up and opening the door.

Upon opening the door, Lavender saw Lucifer! His boss was calmly eating an apple and leaning on the purple devil's desk. Lucifer chomped down on the deep red apple and looked at his employee disapprovingly. "You're 4 minutes late." Lucifer stood up and walked over, before flicking Lavender on the nose and leaving. The demon sighed and walked over to his desk and sat down in front of his work computer. Behind him was a plain glass panel which was overseeing a massive hangar, with a giant hot-dog shaped mecha being maintained by engineering teams. It would almost make one wonder how the hangar fit in the building. Oh well. Lavender turned on his computer and allowed the system to boot, before swiveling his work chair around to face the glass window. He leaned back and took in what was honestly an astonishing view. Maybe work wasn't all bad. Some stuff he had a passion for, and enjoyed working on it to the best of his ability. He grabbed a can of lemon soda from the mini fridge he kept under his desk and opened it, causing a loud hiss. Lavender drank from the can and relaxed. Sometimes, work could be quite a soothing environment. A nice office, a nice view. An entire sector which was his to direct. He had to appreciate the better things work had to offer. His computer made an ominous start-up jingle, which sounded more like a satanic chorus, and he got to work!

Back to the daily grind.