Cronkri: I won't let you down

Chapter 29: Kankri

The next few weeks were hell. Cronus refused to answer my calls to hear reason or apology, and there was a new employee at work who was utter shit at his job. Guess who got put in charge of helping him? Me.

The kid was probably about 15 years old, just old enough to legally work outside of a family business. He started out the way everyone starts out, as the cleaning boy. I was at the station not too far from him flipping hamburgers. I was mostly minding my own business, looking over at him occasionally, but he was doing so horribly I couldn't help but say something about it. I walked over to him as he was walking away from a window that looked to be dirtier than when he started.

"Excuse me?"

He turned around, an annoyed look on his face. "What do you want."

"You barely cleaned the window. It's supposed to look better than when you started, not worse."

"So you can tell me how to do my job now?" He had a slight lisp.

"No, but I can tell you how not to get fired." I walked closer to him and took the Windex bottle and paper towels. "You have to wipe across the window in rows, and be sure and get the edges, like this." I demonstrated for him, leaving the window cleaner than ever. I handed the bottle and towels back to him. "Now you try on this next one."

"Okay," he said with a sigh, rolling his eyes at me. I held my tongue about it and watched him unsuccessfully clean the window.

"There. I did it. Now can you leave me alone?"

I shook my head. "You know what? Why don't you head over to the burger-flipping station and take over my job there. You'd have to be better at anything than you are at cleaning windows."

"Alright, fiiine." He left the rest of his cleaning supplies and walked around the corner to my station. I sighed and continued cleaning the windows.

By the time the windows were done, I picked up his job list and made my way over to him. He was just standing there on his phone next to the grill. The burgers were exactly as I left them, except now they were practically charcoal. I growled quietly and stomped over to him, shoving the list in his face. He looked at me with that same annoyed look.

I tried not to lose my temper on him. "Get out. Go back to whatever you were doing and sweep the goddamn floors. The broom's in the closet."

He left, wordlessly snatching the list out of my hand.

I groaned and started scraping the charred burgers from the grill right as my boss came over. She was a big woman with dark curly hair.

"Kankri Vantas!"

I flinched at her voice, backing up as close to the grill as I dared. "Yes, Ms. Marabell?"

"What do you think you're doing? I have three orders of Big Macs waiting and you haven't finished a single patty!" She rolled up a magazine and smacked me on the head with it. "Get to work, you lazy ass!"

"Yes ma'am."

She walked away as I started on the next batch of patties, careful not to burn any this time.

After work that day, I went home and sat at my computer, opening a Word document and typing away furiously in hopes of letting off some steam. I wrote about politics, social justice, treating people with fairness-- just about anything that came to mind. By the time I had calmed down, I had typed over 2,000 words. I smiled in satisfaction with my work and decided to save it. I closed the laptop and went to the kitchen, not realizing at the time that I had been using Aranea's computer instead of mine.

I reeeeeally didn't want to go to work the next day. I was feeling particularly homesick. I was stressed out over Cronus and I wanted to go home but I couldn't because my dad was there and I knew he would punish me for being with a man and for running away.
I went to work nonetheless and, lo and behold, the new kid was still there. I ignored him and he ignored me as we went about our respective jobs. I was working the cash register that day. When you're working the cash register, you're supposed to smile cheerfully at each person and be super nice. I was most definitely not in the mood.