Small Town Desperation

Ep1: We Built an ARC

Melancholia hated dealing with hangovers. No - less of a hangover and more of a construction company in her head.

To make matters worse, the new receptionist left the TV on full blast.

Fuck Wendy and her seven cats. I hope they all drown.

"Notorious Hollywood director, Andrew Lawson III, goes M.I.A. during the production of his blockbuster trilogy, 'The Repo Man', " said the decently attractive news presenter.

"I don't care," She said as she turned it off.

Wendy walked into the office with a cat sweater and an overly bright smile.

Placing an administrator's book on the desk, she said, "Morning, Miss King. I hope that your morning is as beautiful as love." She, then, started opening the blinds to the dark room. Melancholia half expected Wendy to combust like the demon she was.

Melancholia gave Wendy a fake smile and replied with a higher-pitched voice, "Oh, it was wonderful. I saw a cat get run over by an ice-cream truck. It was gruesome and reminded me about how fleeting life can be. Imagine if that was one of your cats."

Aghast, Wendy stood still for a moment, and then paced out of her office in a blubbering mess. She, of course, tripped on, literally, nothing, picked herself up and continued to power-walk away.

God, they're always unstable.

"Wait!" Melancholia yelled. Wendy stopped pacing and turned towards the hung-over woman. "Bring me some coffee. My headache is killing me."

Wendy nodded and continued to power walk out of the office.

As Melancholia sat down on her comfortable desk chair and silently started to regret all the bad decision she had made the previous night, Voltaire walked into the office.

"Morning, I hope you slept well!" he shouted like the idiot he was.

"Shut up," she muttered though her jacket for her head was on her arms. "I hate the fact that you hardly get hangover."

Voltaire shot her a grin as he sat down, "Are you excited?"

"The only time I will be excited today is when you leave my office."

He ignored her remark and answered his own question, "I'm very excited, but scared. What if they don't like me? What if they don't respect me?"

"They're ghosts," she pointed out.

"Exactly, they can haunt me for life if they don't like me!"

"Voltaire, you are a therapist for ghosts and other supernatural beings," she said. "A therapist. You aren't even getting paid. You're doing this by choice. So stop whining and get over it."

He rolled his eyes, "You do get bitchy when you are hung-over."

She raised her head from her arms and stared at him with all the intensity she could muster.

"'If getting drunk was how people forgot they were mortal, then hangovers were how they remembered.' Matt Haig," he continued for he was immune to her death stares.

"If that was a subtle way of saying I am old, I must remind you that we are round about the same age," She retorted.

With an exasperated sigh, Voltaire threw up his hands and exclaimed, "No one can win with you!"

"Stop screaming," she pleaded. "It's bad enough that your voice resembles those annoying talking chipmunks."

Abruptly, Voltaire stood up and marched out of her office. He, even, intentionally slammed the door to illustrate his exasperation.