Mr. Naalson
He
walked through the office with an air of command. It wasn't
conscious. As a deity in a human body, somethings just happened.
Loptr Naalson was the man's name and he was here for a job interview.
The plate glass window of the distorted his reflection and he seemed
much taller. His red hair was cut short, almost short enough to
resemble a military man's cut a few weeks out of boot camp. A
tastefully trimmed beard and mustache hid a scar on his lip that
never fully faded. His suit was black, his dress shirt was black, and
his tie was black. The tie tack was an elaborate knot that he didn't
expect anyone to recognize anymore. He chose it because it amused
him to wear a rendition of his bindings for this expedition to
Midgard. On his left wrist was a steel watch that seemed to have a
dead battery. On his right was a medical id bracelet, also of steel.
It was symbolic of what he couldn't escape on one level. At the same
time, it was subtle enough that no one would recognize what they
truly were. The irony of the id bracelet stating he was deathly
allergic to mistletoe was as dark as the cause of his binding. But
that was a tale for another day.
The
secretary happened to be a handsome young man just out of his
twenties. As they walked to the office where the interview was going
to take place, Naalson thought that he'd be a pleasant tumble. The
boredom of walking into the building and to the interview was enough
that his attention was beginning to wander. The red haired man shook
his head slightly and blinked his peridot green eyes as though waking
out of a brief doze. They came to a door that was unlabled and
standing partly open. He walked into the room and sat down across
from the desk. He crossed his long legs and watched as the
generically handsome secretary left the office. Naalson knew that the
entire experience for the secretary was so mundane that it was goign
to be forgotten. It was part of the entire plan and what he had put
together. A little bit of forgetfulness because the phone system at
the entrance was about to go down would definintely be enough to make
him forget about Naalson.
A
small spider was crawling on the wall above the desk. Naalson smiled.
“Go, child, do your work for the good of all,” he said and made a
small gesture of benediction. The spider crawled under the phone. A
knock at the door announced the arrival of the interviewer. As the
short man with balding grey hair walked in, Naalson restrained the
urge to say something pithy about the obviously bad comb over. He was
here with a specific job to do. The man in the cheap brown suit,
scuffed shoes, and ugly tie was clearly annoyed when Naalson didn't
stand up as per typical custom. The interviewer shut the door and
walked around to sit down at the desk. He rifled through a small
stack of papers.
“Mister
Nelson,” he said and Naalson restrained the urge to grind his
teeth, again. They always mispronounced his name. Instead he put on a
blandly pleasantly smile. “Your credentials are excellent. Hires
are only for a temporary basis at this time, however.” Naalson,
steepeled his fingers before himself. “Your references include an
employee in my department,” the interviewer continued in a dry
tone, “Is it her that informed you of this position?”
“I
learned of the position through a job placement agency that had the
listing.” Naalson answered and the interviewer looked up from the
paperwork. “Grimnir Temporary Solutions was the company,” he
continued. The interviewer looked down at the paperwork before him in
confusion. The position that Naalson had applied for was one that was
only on the internal network within the company. His phone interview
was so excellent that the pre-interview team pushed for an actual
interview. Jonas was disturbed. He wanted to put his subordinate
into the position, with a few personal conditions. It didn't make him
feel any better about the situation that this subordinate was the
first of a list of references.The silence drew out as he
absentmindedly shuffled papers in a nervous habit.
“Mister
Blackwell, I am not interested in wasting my time or yours today. The
person I spoke to informed me that this interview was a formality. I
was told that an offer would be included in the package you recieved
prior to the interview. I was additionally informed that I would be
working directly with you on the transitional management team,”
Naalson said in a tone that was brisk and chill, “The time frame of
my position is six months to a year, as was arranged by GTS. I expect
that everything in your paperwork confirms this. So, my question for
you is why are you not conducting the interview?”
Jonas
Blackwell swallowed uncomfortably and looked down at the papers. To
him they seemed gibberish. The font was unreadable, looking like
incomplete stick figures in rows and collumns with a few numbers in
with them. He began to sweat. “I see, Mr. Nelson,” he said, “that
the time period is as you mentioned. Are you aware of the six week
probationary period?” He lied. It wasn't a good lie. But it sounded
good to him. Suddenly, he wanted to go back to his cubicle office. It
was a snug hideyhole that let him obliquely spy on Margaret Smith all
day. Today, she was wearing a very conservative black suit. As hard
as she tried to hide her femininity behind that mannish suit, Jonas
couldn't ignore it.
Briefly
thinking of the object of his inter-office obsession calmed him and
he looked through the papers again. Naalson stared at him with out
moving. “There appears to be an error in the starting offer on this
page,” Jonas said, trying to regain control over the situation,
“The listing starts at fifty thousand dollars per term. This rate
would start after the probationary period, where you begin at a
standard twelve dollars and fifty cents per hour.” Thinking of the
idea of Margaret forced to work close to him on a daily basis made
him bold. He was sure he could make the position unappealing through
enough lies. Jonas looked up from the paper before him, blinking a
few times as the words in english began to take on the strange
incomplete stick figures image again.
The
slender, tall man sitting in the chair across from him leaned
forward. “Margaret's one hell of a woman, isn't she?” Naalson
said. Jonas blinked in surprise, coloring slightly. “Great legs and
a real looker, if you know what I mean,” he continued, “I don't
blame you for thinking those thoughts about her. I have from time to
time.” Jonas set the papers down on the desk. Naalson reached up
and pulled a cigarette out of his jacket pocket with his right hand.
Jonas could nearly swear there wasn't one there earlier but yet now
he had it in hand.
“There's
not smoking permitted in the building,” Jonas spluttered in his
shocked surprise as Naalson snapped his fingers on his left hand and
lit the cigarette. Naalson nodded and put the cigarette to his lips
and took a long drag off of it. “Mister Nelson, you must extinguish
that immediately or leave the building.” Jonas said in his most
authoratative voice. Naalson smiled around the cigarette.
He
took it out of his mouth and exhaled. The sweet scent of clove smoke
was in the air. “That's the first truth you have said to me all
day,” Naalson said with a chuckle. He took another drag off of the
cigarette. “We're going to have an honest conversation, man to man.
About my friend Margaret.” Jonas pushed a button on the phone.
Static sounded over the intercomm. He did it again. “My friend
fixed your phone so that we wouldn't be interrupted. Margaret was
most distressed last week when she mentioned what you had done.”
Jonas paled.
“A
man does not back a woman into a corner and try to force his hand
under her skirt,” Naalson continued, his tone almost
conversational, “Nor does a man try to isolate a woman and expose
himself to her against her wishes. We can agree that this is not the
behavior of a man, can we not, Jonas Blackwell?”
“Mister
Nelson, I have no idea what incident you are talking about regarding
Miss Smith but we can agree that this is not correct.”
“The
name is Naalson, Jonas, Lopt Naalson,” the red haired man said
leaning forward. Jonas couldn't figure out why the name Lopt Naalson
made him so uncomfortable. He made a mental note to ask the guys at
the occult club why the name seemed so ominious. The red haired man
took a deep drag off of the cigarette, impossibly so. Enough so that
what was originally a full cigarette was left as an ember at the end
of the filter. He exhaled and the sickly sweet scent of clove washed
over Jonas. “I was asked to come see you by the Hanged God,” he
continued.
Jonas's
stomach roiled. “My brother will be coming to see you soon enough.
But, you and I are going to have a conversation first. No man lays a
hand on a woman with out her consent lest he loses it. I'm sure you
read something about that regarding my people. Wives were well within
their rights to castrate their husbands if they assaulted them. And
what did you do to Margaret?”
Frantically,
Jonas attempted to connect the dots. The only hanged god he knew of
was Odin. Then Jonas went pale. “Loki,” he gasped.
“My
name is not the answer to the question, Jonas,” the god said, “What
did you do to Margaret?” Jonas slapped the button that was supposed
to connect him directly to security but there was only static. He
stood up quickly, knocking over the chair. Jonas looked at the door.
While not an athletic man, he scrambled over the desk and to the
door. He threw it open. Loki stood up and calmly began to walk after
the terrified man.
As
Jonas Blackwell ran for his cubicle, Loki walked after him. Every few
steps or so, Jonas looked behind himself with terror. As he walked,
Loki appeared to grow larger to Jonas until he was at least eight
feet tall, his head just a mere foot below the ceiling. “I didn't
do anything,” Jonas said as he dove into his cubicle. He slapped
the buttons on the phone to call security. As he held the phone to
his hear, he heard static. Loki leaned on the top of the cubicle and
looked over the edge at Jonas as he cowered like a rat in a cage.
“You're
lying again,” he said in his conversational tone, as though talking
about the weather, “You insult me with these pathetic lies to my
face. Really, put some effort into it, Jonas.” Jonas stared up at
him, moving to cower under his desk. “Not such a big man after all,
eh, Jonas?” Loki said, pulling out another cigarette out of thin
air and lighting it in that strange, mysterious way he did. “They
can't see me. They only see you panicked and lying. But don't worry,
I'll be gone soon enough,” Loki said.
Security
came rushing with his supervisor. Margaret Smith could smell the
vague suggestion of clove in the air, as though perhaps one of the
security agents had a clove cigarette while on break. “Get this man
out of here,” Jonas insisted, waving at where he saw Loki, “He's
going to kill me. Keep him away from me.” Loki smiled as the others
looked at each other in confusion.
“I'm
telling you, this is between you and I. Soon, between you and my
brother. They can't interrupt us,” Loki purred, “Confess what you
did. You'll feel better for it. They say confession is good for the
soul. Margaret isn't the only poor woman you've forced yourself on.”
“Lies!
That's a lie! I never did that.” Jonas shrieked. Loki looked over
and watched as the confusion and mild chaos over Jonas's seemingly
irrational behavior spread. “Margaret lied anyways. She wanted it.
She came to me!” Jonas spluttered angrily. A few people looked over
at Margaret. Jonas came out from under his desk and gestured wildly
at Margaret who was staring in horror. “That woman tried to seduce
me, look at what she's wearing. She's been toying with me for
months,” he continued. The supervisor put an arm around Margaret,
who was becoming visibly distressed and lead her away. “All of
them, they wanted it. They wanted me.”
The
sound of a gurney being wheeled down the aisle between the cubicles
with a trio of EMTs caught Loki's ear over the shocked muttering and
attempts to keep people back in their cubicles. As the first of the
EMTs came into space immediately before Jonas's cubicle office, Loki
sent one last puff of cigarette smoke into the air. “Now you're
Odin's, just like you wanted,” Loki said and then vanished. Jonas
looked up at the EMT standing over him. Boarson was the name on the
tag. Jonas shook his head and whimpered.
He
fought the EMT and security as they tried to get him on the gurney.
Eventually, he was strapped down as he screamed that he was going to
die and that they had to save him. Jonas's coworkers stared as he was
wheeled out. Boarson walked after the gurney with a clipboard. As he
took down the pertinent information from important people, he nodded.
He then tipped his blue hat in a gesture of genteel gratitude before
walking for the ambulance. Somewhere a raven called.
Musical inspiration: Classical Malfunction by Pristine Stringz; Requiem - Dies Irea from Karl Jenkins
