New day at work!

I woke up at the sound of a knock at my window. With a groan, I sit myself upright and feel every bone in my body crack at once. Sure, the save on cost of being homeless is nice, but the body ache is unbearable. I needed to find an actual place to live. The city is rich, but the bad part means they expect rich people to be the ones renting apartments. I need to look into finding someone needing a roommate, and fast.

The knocking came again, this time louder. Fuck. Bleary-eyed, I shoved my glasses to my face and climbed to the drivers seat to be met with the face of a rotund and angry woman.

“Who the fuck do you think you are? Get the hell out of here before I call the damn cops!”

This wasn’t the first time I’d been yelled at or threatened for sleeping outside someone’s house, but this one ticked me off more than usual. Slept on the wrong side of the van, I suppose.

“Fat bitch!” I called her before starting the van and speeding down the road. Not my best comeback, but I’d just woken up, okay?

I drove the short commute to my work. The lady, albeit annoying, did help a bit by waking me up earlier than anticipated. I had time to go to my job’s gym and **** their showers before work. Usually I only get my chance to bathe during lunch, and that ends with a soggy sandwich.

‘Michael,’ you ask, ‘you work at the gym?’

‘No, you silly reader! What a foolish assumption!’ No, I simply work at a place so bougie that they have a gym, a spa, a handful of restaurants, and I’m sure plenty more things that make no sense in a work environment.

I’ve mentioned the building a handful of times now, and have yet to give any explanation of the place; I work at Vocx, which I don’t think has a phonetic root and is simply a made-up word that sounds smart/ fancy. Vocx is a very famous company, and its origins are shrouded in mystery. The founder was anonymous, and the year the company was founded is up to debate. Did it rise up in the last decade, or century? No one knew for sure. No one questioned them though, because they were the primary reason this city had such a monumental boom over the last ten years. They were rapidly advancing the world’s technology, taking things that looked to be decades away and having models on the shelves within the month. The craziest part is that they’re still going strong; supposedly, the cure from cancer was going to be available for purchase over-the-counter this Friday.

‘Michael,’ you, the reader, interrupt once again, ‘you must be some sort of genius to work there! What are you, some physicist? A modern day Einstein? The next Newton?’

‘No,’ I answer once more, ‘I am not. Not even close!’

I am a lowly intern. Woe is me! It was a menial job, but I was just hoping I could prove how adept I am at bringing an asshole his coffee so I could be promoted to assistant and get a pay jump. Assistants weren’t homeless, just depressed and overworked. That’s a big step up from homeless, depressed, and overworked!

I left the shower looking only a little bit as though I’d slept in the same car I’d lived in for weeks now. Checking the time on my watch, I cursed to myself as I realized I’d spent too long jerking off/ monologuing pretext to the reader. I’d have to sprint to the cafe in order to get Rich’s order.

Rich was the one I’d been assigned to intern under. Pretty boy who likely was given the job because of his family name rather than his skills, he was lead of a small team of computer geeks who were deciphering something to do with DNA extraction (I’m no genius, but what does that mean? Extracting DNA? Isn’t that just what makes you… you? So, if they removed DNA, would you lose your arm or something? Weird shit.) His name was comedic. Like, yeah… he’s Rich. No one has teeth that white unless you wipe your ass with hundred dollar bills.

I panted as I reached the cafe doors. Sara was working today, which was good; she makes the coffee slower than the other worker does, but she’s cute so I can look at her while she works.

“Hey, Michael. Here for Rich’s order, I assume? Anything for yourself?”

“Oh, no, I’m okay, Sara. Just Rich’s order will be fine. Thanks, though; I’m trying to save money for an apartment.”

Sara was a nice girl. She was about 5’6” or so, with deep purple hair (I’m sure it’s hair dye, but it looked natural on her). A little makeup made her blue eyes pop out and stare deep into your soul. She was curvy where you wanted to be. She knew every costumer by name, which is how we ever started talking; I’m no genius (as aforementioned), but I’m smart enough to know when a lady is out of my league.

“You don’t have an apartment? Where do you stay, with your parents?” She talked as she started making the coffee. Rich drank some concoction of 20 different syrups and powders, so it would take a little bit to put together.

My eye twitched at the mention of my parents, though I hoped it wouldn’t show. If it was obvious, Sara didn’t show any sign of noticing, likely too engrossed in the art of her craft.

“No, uh, not with my parents. I’m…” I quickly tried to think of a lie that sounded believable and not absolutely pathetic, “homeless and living in a van I bought from a crackhead.” Shit. I’m not a quick thinker.

Sara immediately looked up at me with an expression as though she’d just watched a box full of puppies get ran over by a truck, and then the truck reversed back over to make sure there were no survivors. “Michael!! You poor thing! You should have said something sooner, I could have had you moved in with me and my friends!”

Ignoring the fact we’d known each other less then a month, I stammered out, “Oh, yeah, it just hadn’t come up yet, you know?”

“Give me your phone number and I can call you after work, you can meet my roomies to see if you guys mesh! You’ll love them, they’re all great. And they’ll love you too, of course! You’re a nice guy.”

Jesus, she was too nice. How could she know anything about me? We talked less than ten minutes a day, and that’s assuming it was a day she worked. I’m not implying I am a bad guy or anything, but I sure as hell wouldn’t trust me.

“Are you sure? I don’t want to impose, or seem like I’m using a sob story to get a place to stay.”

“No, no, it’s perfect! We had another girl staying with us, but she just recently killed herself last weekend, so we were looking for a new roomie anyway!” She said every word with the same bubbly enthusiasm, completely glossing over the gruesome **** she mentioned.

I couldn’t help but ask, “Wait, I’m sorry, a suicide? What happened?”

She shrugged. “We didn’t know her well. She stayed to herself, and I’m pretty sure she was in a cult. Always trying to give us pamphlets for some church. Looked freaky, so we all declined. She spent all day, every day in her room, locked up with the lights out. Last weekend we tried to invite her to come out with us for a girls lunch, and we heard a big boom. We found her with a gun in her hand in the middle of some chalk drawing on the floor.” Once again, she said this all far more cheerfully than one should. “Oh, we cleaned it all up, by the way. No nastiness left! You can move in tonight if you want!”

I just stared for a moment before shaking out of the funk. “Yes, of course that sounds great. Thank you so much.” I grabbed a pen out of my pocket and scribbled my phone number onto a napkin. We traded: I gave her the paper, and she handed me two coffees. One was Rich’s, and one was plain black.

“Roomies get free drinks.” She winked at me with a smile. “I’ll call you with the address tonight, Michael!”

“Thanks again, Sara. Talk to you tonight!” I called as I ran out the door. It felt rude to bounce after being given a place to stay, but I was already late. Rich was always a dick, but he was an even bigger dick when he didn’t get his diabetes-filled coffee.