The Incredibly Consequential Life of Charlie Zappala

Chapter Eight: We Don't Talk About Yesterday-o

Charlie woke up lying face down on their couch. They scrambled until they were sitting upright as their faculties came back to them. Out of the corner of their eye, they spotted Anna in the kitchen.

"Get up, Chal. You're going to be late for work again."

They rubbed their eyes. Dull sunlight from a nearby window filtered through the cracks in their fingers. "What?"

"It's already seven." Anna walked back into the living room, buttoning up the top buttons on her blouse. "You have like fifteen minutes to get ready. And you might want to take a shower."

"What—what happened?"

She went back to the kitchen table. "You don't remember?"

They shook their head. "I don't remember anything after I got home from work." That was technically a lie. Charlie had some memories from when they returned to their apartment after work yesterday, but they had yet to confirm the validity of such outrageous claims.

"Bert said he saw you when he came home from work, but you were gone when he came out of the bathroom. You went MIA for about, what, four or five hours? Like, you didn't answer your phone or anything. Calls were going straight to voicemail so we assumed your phone died. At about midnight I came out to get a drink of water and you were shit faced on the couch."

"Shit faced?"

She nodded. "You were practically passed out, but you were mumbling some nonsense."

Charlie rubbed the sleep out of their eyes. "What was I saying?"

"Something along the lines of 'goddamn Harold motherfucking pun cliché bullshit magic is a fucking joke I swear to god'. All one long, run-on sentence."

Their stomach twisted. "Yeah, that really is some nonsense."

Anna leaned against the wall to put on her shoes. "Were you having a dream?"

They shook their head. "I don't know. Maybe." A dull headache began to overtake their senses. They groaned, covering their eyes.

She paused to scan them. "You're probably going to miss the bus at this rate. Come on, get ready. I'll take you to work."

Charlie reluctantly stood up and hobbled to the bathroom. They squinted as they flicked the lights on and looked in the mirror. They didn't look terrible. At least, Charlie didn't look as bad as they usually did after a night of absolute fuckery. They sure felt like it, though.

Charlie showered, dressed, and followed Anna out the door. The ride to work in a car was so much less annoying than it was on the bus. It even made them consider getting a car for a second. Then they remembered the cost of a car, gas, auto insurance, and the sheer anxiety they got from driving.

They thanked Anna profusely as they exited the vehicle. Thanks to her ride, they were able to get to work early, so no firing today. The doctor's office was located in a large building filled with a vast array of other offices. The boxy, brutalist structure camouflaged well amongst the city landscape, thin rows of windows the only thing breaking up thick cement walls. Only a small sign outside the door labeled "Citywide Gastroenterology Associates" gave any indication of what was inside.

The interior office was humble, far smaller than the blockish exterior would suggest. The quaint seating area garnished its beige walls and inoffensive speckled carpet with wiry waiting room chairs and a couple plastic ferns. It served as an amicable front for all the probing, prodding, and intimidatingly expensive medical equipment that lay in the back.

Most of Charlie's day was spent sitting at the front desk. Their responsibilities included greeting patients with varying degrees of fake customer service voice and navigating the internal portal designed by someone with questionable knowledge of computers. The best part of the job was occasionally swiping office supplies that no one ever asked about.