Dying to Live

Chapter 8 - There is a U in Success

London

Before Thailand

I opened my eyes. There was no uninvited sunlight invading my bedroom. It turned out that Hazel had remembered to pull the curtains. It also turned out to be Saturday, so sleeping-in was okay. No work to go to today, or any other day, for that matter. Damn.

The weekend passed quickly. The pair of us didn't do much but it gave us a chance to find out even more about each other. I liked what I discovered about my new 'girlfriend' and I think she liked what she found out about me, at least she told me she did. I was looking forward to another night with her when she announced she was going back to her own place that evening.

"I need to get a proper night's sleep so I'll be fit for work in the morning."

"You're lucky you've got a job to go to," I said.

I still hadn't quite got used to the fact that I'd been fired. Actually, technically that wasn't true, I hadn't been fired yet because I hadn't been back to work since Richard made the decision to sack me. Maybe if I never went back, then I'd never be fired. That sounded like an idea.

"I think you should go in and face the music," said Hazel, breaking into my meandering thoughts. "You never know, you might be able to talk Richard out of sacking you, I mean, you are a bit of a silver-tongued devil, aren't you?"

"I suspect I'd need to be a diamond-encrusted, golden-tongued angel to be in with a chance."

On that happy note, she kissed me, checking for diamonds, and left.

"See you in the office tomorrow" was the last thing I heard before the front door slammed.

The rest of the evening disappeared in bouts of snoozing, snacking, loafing and watching TV. By the time it was time for bed, I'd decided I would go in to work and face the music, as Hazel had put it. My expectation was that there was going to be a lot of percussion and not much harmony. It had to be done though, to be fair to Hazel, after all I wasn't supposed to know that the sack was on the horizon. With the alarm set and the curtains pulled, I closed my eyes and waited for Mr Sandman to arrive.

☼☼☼

Even though I'd roused myself twenty minutes before the alarm clock had even thought about wakening up, I arrived in work about fifteen minutes late, which wasn't at all bad given my lack of motivation. Beth greeted me from behind her reception desk with the best fake-sympathy smile I'd seen in a long time.

"Good morning, David, I'm glad you're feeling well enough to join us today."

"Thanks, Beth, I appreciate your genuine and sincere good wishes."

"That must have been a nasty bit of food poisoning you had, it's really messed up your face."

My hand went instinctively to the black-eye. Owww, that hurt. The injury had healed up pretty well but it was still tender and prominent enough to cast doubts on the food poisoning ailment which had been my sick-days excuse last week. I threw her my best sarcastic smile and she threw one right back at me. It was like looking in a mirror... except she was young, and pretty, and she didn't have a grotesque yellow and purple blotch on her face.

"See you later," I said waving over my shoulder as I walked away.

I arrived at my desk without really engaging with anyone. I didn't want awkward questions about my eye; questions I couldn't answer. I buried my head in my computer screen and started dealing with the backlog of emails. A good feast of Internet jokes always started the day off on the right foot.