When 45-year-old Theodore Narrator gets fired from his job as Employee 528 at a large company, he is at a loss for words. His life is already going down the gutter, and this feels like it will be the straw to break the camel's back. But one fateful...
At 4:30, Theo checked his watch. He was standing near the coffee shop that Lovebug had suggested. He looked around, wondering where he could be. Fifteen whole minutes later, Lovebug ran up to him, panting.
"Sorry about that," he said, apologetically. "I stopped at my apartment and got a bit distracted, putting a poster up... time really flew by." He laughed awkwardly. Theo looked at him, suddenly realizing how wildly different they were. Theo was 45, introverted, pessimistic, and British. Lovebug was in his 20s, extroverted, optimistic and... American?
"Your accent..." Theo remarked, trailing off.
"Oh! Yeah, that's right. I was born in London, and when I was just two months old, my family moved to America because of a job offer."
"But when you talked to me before, you--"
"Yeah, my curse makes me do that... for some reason, I can't do a good fake accent normally, but when i'm cursed, I'm all 'Pip, pip, cheerio! Fancy a cup of tea?'" Lovebug pushed up his obnoxious purple-rimmed glasses, and mimed grabbing a teacup, complete with a stereotypical pinky-raise. His incredibly horrible imitation of a British accent almost caused Theo physical pain.
"Well, we should probably order, shouldn't we?", Theo remarked, noting the time, again.
"Of course, of course." lovebug said, both of them walking towards the shop.
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Theo held his cup of earl grey tea, and Lovebug took a sip of his coffee as they looked around for an empty table. Theo observed all of his parallel selves, some of which looked very similar to him, some of which probably weren't even human, and one of which was so strange and crazy that he couldn't even believe actually existed in the multiverse, and this one, of course, was the unruly twenty year old child right next to him.
Of course, he recognized another one of them instantly. The secretary to the CEO was sitting at a table with her laptop in front of her, pencil in her hair, typing really fast. Theo walked over to her, and lovebug trailed behind him.
"Now you wouldn't know her, but that's Curator, the CEO's secretary. I've heard she's really mean so I wouldn't--"
"Hello, Office Drone. Did you read the email?" she asked, calmly. Lovebug just stood there, frozen in fear.
"Actually, I never got it. I was just about to ask you, did the CEO run into any problems while writing it? Or did he just forget?" Theo asked, curiously. Curator looked up from her laptop.
"He was in his office with no meetings at all... he should have had time to send it. Maybe check your email again?"
"I don't have a laptop on me, so maybe next time I'm in my office.", Theo commented. Lovebug looked at him.
"Wait, so you're telling me today was your FIRST DAY of work and... and you know the CEO!? I've worked here for seven months and I haven't even seen a glimpse of him, and here you are, butting in here like, 'oh, hey, I'm new and getting emails from the CEO! Oh. My. God. Earl grey is the best kind of tea, Lovebug! Coffee is for the sleep deprived, Lovebug!' Well, hey, I AM sleep deprived! You and your perfect sleep schedule, i just can't--" lovebug stopped talking, suddenly realizing that both Curator and Office Drone were staring at him, as his impression of a British accent got better and better. he took a deep breath and a sip of his coffee. "go on," he said, casually and boredly, as if he hadn't started monologuing.
"Well... I could tell you what he would have sent you. have a seat.", the curator turned to Theo. Theo and lovebug sat down on the other side of the table. "He was going to send you a layout of the area of the story, which I will send you as soon as possible, plus additional details about the personality of the main character, and he was probably going to tell you how insanely important you are, et cetera, and 'Always remember! YOU matter!' He also might have sent you some other things as well, such as a notice not to question anything and not to get worried if something crazy happens out of the blue-- ugh, sometimes I just don't like him. he's a good boss, but he can be so egotistical. Especially with his height, which he uses to make all of us feel inferior... and his abilit-- I mean, his outfit as well..." her eyes widened. "but don't tell him i said that, he would fire me on the spot."
"he seems like such a nice guy, though...", lovebug remarked. "He's always telling us that we all matter."
"It's just a stupid slogan that's supposed to be inspiring. Trillions of companies around the multiverse use it. And in the grand scheme of things, it's just a nice way of saying that nobody really matters, since everyone already does." The Curator said. Lovebug started to look slightly sadder than he was before.
"By the way," Theo started, realizing a humongous thing he had failed to ask about, "what do we even do here? Like, this company, I get that I have to write a story, so I originally thought it was some kind of publishing company. but now... the story is so oddly specific, and what about these things? In what kind of dystopian future does a publishing company need to pierce your ear with a cybernetic implant?" he fiddled with his ear clip.
"I've thought about that before a bit," lovebug started, "but now I realize I should have thought about it more... what DO we do here?" Curator looked down at her laptop suspiciously. "That's it! You would know, wouldn't you? You manage files for the CEO! Please tell us. PLEASE, curator."
"That..." she said, looking up from her laptop, nervously, "you will find out in due time. In the meantime, let's focus on the present, hm?" Lovebug and Theo exchanged curious glances, and then decided that they should get back to their original plans. The three sat at the table, talking, for another hour, and went their separate ways.
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When Theo returned to his apartment in his respective dimension, he fell down backwards onto his bed first thing. What had he gotten himself into? he got up and walked towards his bookshelf, eager to find a nice book to read to take the stress away.
But as he was walking over, he tripped on a stray sheet of paper on the floor, and fell, ear-first onto the floor. He heard a crackling sound, like crushing metal, and then realized that his ear clip had broken slightly. The damage was only minimal, but as he stood up, he felt a weird rush of something, from his head to the tips of his fingers.
"Must just be a head rush from the fall," he said, grabbed a book, and then settled down.
