The Day Everything Changes- a Matthias Ficlet

The Day

Sam, hurry up! We're late!"

I rushed up the stairs, purple blazer flapping behind me as I followed the CEO of our company, Matthias (although most called him Matt) to the shiny new Dope or Nope set. This was going to be my first appearance on the channel! I was still relatively new to the company and extremely nervous, but also excited. Dope or Nope, as long as I had known of it, had been a one-person channel of Matthias'. Now he was opening it up and I was one of the first guests! I caught a glimpse of a short-cropped brown head of hair disappearing behind a corner to my left and hurried after him, glancing at my watch. Crud. It was fun being the goofy man's apprentice, but it certainly held its challenges.

One was that neither of us were ever on time.

He threw open the plain white door in front of us and I shielded my eyes, temporarily blinded by the flash of pink that surrounded us as I followed him into the room.

It felt like I'd stepped into a vacuum of noise and chaos.

I didn't know how else to describe it! Every sense was lit up- there seemed to be a hundred indistinguishable noises filling my ears, and boxes scattered all over the floor along with discarded products. And my poor eyeballs-

The whole room was pink.

Well, not the whole room. I caught a glimpse of gray carpet and couches, but I didn't have much time to take in the sights before something white came whizzing past my head. I ducked, narrowly missing the wad of tissue paper as it sank into the beat up blue trash can behind me. I turned again to see Matt easily threading his way through the chaos- here stepping over a vacuum cord, there hopping on one foot to avoid Tanner picking up boxes, moving aside a large stuffed animal that was on top of a black and pink table for no apparent reason. He finally stood between the gray couch and the table, grinning madly. "So, what do you think?"

As if on cue, CJ's vacuum hit a puff of packing peanuts, sending a cloud of white dust showering over both of us.

I was at a loss for words. I made my way over to his side, trying to think over the whirring sound of the vacuum and the muffled argument occurring to my left. I glanced that way to see Shenelle and Patrick standing by a large set of monitors set just above a small floating desk and office chair. All of the monitors held a different camera angle, except for one which was blank. That must've been their problem.

Turning back to Matt, I yelled: "What is this place?"

"The Dope or Nope set!" He yelled back, still glowing. "Isn't it cool?"

I glanced around yet again at the bright pink walls, resisting the urge to cover my eyes and spare my eyes sockets the torture. "Uhh..." Matt's smile dampened only slightly. "Yeah, the color isn't the best. But we're fixing that! Izzy's coming in tomorrow to start repainting. For now we're just gonna work with what we've got." The excited, proud look returned. "Now! Shenelle!" He roared over the din.

"Yeah?"

I muttered "Woah", shocked. Since when does Shenelle yell? I'd never heard the woman speak above her typical low tone. Matt, however, seemed to be entirely used to the prospect. "Sam's here for the first time!" Matt continued. "Can you explain everything that goes on behind the scenes?" Shenelle nodded and motioned me back toward the door and the relief of quiet and neutral colors. I followed quickly.

"So-" Shenelle began as soon as the door to the set was closed and I could hear again. "What can I help you with?"
I shrugged, completely lost. "I don't even know where to start. Heck, I don't even know why I'm here! Matt mentioned something about being on set, but I fully have no idea what's going on." The woman, who was slightly shorter than me, smiled. "I did hear about someone coming in to sub for Michael Mantez, I guess that's you." She glanced at her phone and started. "Only big secret is that we don't actually buy the products before we review them, so we're going to 'buy' them and then review them immediately."