Paper Flyers

Chapter 1- Quinn

 Quinn B. Carroll. My named stared up at me from my file folder, which now had “Dismissed” stamped on the front in brilliantly red block letters. My stomach flipped. I’m now unemployed, I thought. I have no job, no source of income, no way to buy food or pay rent. My mind was racing and I was going to be sick. I’m going to end up starving on the streets. I’ll have to beg for food, and I’ll grow a nasty beard… At least I don’t have anyone else to support-

 “Carroll?” Mr. Bell asked, his thick Scottish accent chopping right through my thoughts and the cloud of panic surrounding me. “Yes, sir?” I asked. Whatever came next wasn’t going to be good. I already knew I was fired. Now I just needed to get out of here, before I completely broke down and embarrassed myself in front of everyone.

  “You’re fired, Carroll.” Mr. Bell was probably the bluntest person I’d ever met. He never had time for small talk, but today I didn’t mind. I don’t think I could’ve handled it anyway.

   “Any particular reason why, sir?” I asked, and I was painfully aware of how much my voice squeaked on the last word. I couldn’t think of anything I’d done that would be any reason to fire me. I was a pretty quiet person. I minded my own business and did whatever was asked of me. Ok, I might have printed a few of my poems at work with the company printer, but I didn’t see how anyone could know about that. Or why it would be a valid reason to fire me...

   “You’re boring” Mr. Bell said. “You do everything right, you get your work in on time, you do good work but nothing spectacular, and you never make mistakes.” He shrugged, like this was something people were fired for all the time.

  I sat in the chair across from Mr. Bell and stared at him as he listed his reasons for firing me. He sounded like he was reading off a list of “Ideal worker qualities”. He called me boring.

  “In an industry like this, we need-“ but I never got to hear what Mr. Bell thought this industry needed. At that moment I stood up, took my file, and walked out. Then I started running down the hall towards my office as fast as I could, singing some awful bubble-gum-stuck-on-the-bottom-of-your-shoe type pop song I had heard on the radio this morning at the top of my lungs. People stuck their heads out of their cubicles as I ran. It was fantastic.

  When I reached my office, I threw all my things in an old cardboard box, then started marching like a soldier towards the exit. When I passed Mr. Bell’s office, he was standing outside staring at me, his eyebrows higher than the Empire State Building.

  “Was that interesting enough for you?” I asked, and without waiting to hear his answer or even looking back, I soldier-marched out of the building and onto the drizzly Seattle streets.

 Of course it was raining. The water soaked through my suit and my shoes, and my office supplies was drenched. Not that It mattered at this point. I wouldn’t be in an office again for a while. I started the long walk home. Normally I rode the bus to and from work, but I was high on adrenaline and couldn’t fathom sitting and waiting for something.

  As I walked on, it started to rain harder and harder and I replayed the last hour in my head. I couldn’t exactly believe I’d done it. I wasn’t boring, but I’ll admit I’m a pretty shy and quiet person if you don’t know me. And I’d just run down the hallway of an office building screaming Kelly Clarkson lyrics. Oy.

  My socks were soaked through and lightning streaked the sky every few seconds. There was no way I was going to make it the whole way home.

  I started examining the shop windows as I walked past, looking for a place to wait out the storm, but they were all filled with the latest trends and the “healthy eating” menus, makeup and beauty product and seemed to be full of the same corporate bullshit I’d just walked away from. And I didn’t need any more of that today. I kept walking.

 Block after block of consumer traps laid themselves out before me, and I’d almost decided to suffer and walk the whole way when I saw a yellowy light seeping out of the windows of some corner shop. As I came closer I was able to make out the shape of the rows and rows of books that filled the front windows from floor to ceiling.

  I stood outside and stared at the shape of the place, and as my brain processed the familiar building I couldn’t help but smile. It was my mother’s favorite restaurant, Reed's Eats, the one we always visited when we drove up to Seattle from our house in Portland. She would always order a slice of lasagna, and always eat it with a spoon. She said it tasted better that way. Maybe it's just me, but I completely agree with her.

  I’d forgotten it was here. It’d been a decade since I visited it.  When I got close enough to see the sign, I saw that "Reed's Eats" had been altered. Someone had taken a thick black paint brush and painted an "R" in front of the "Eats" part, and craftily changed the "T" into a "D", so that the sign now read "Reed's Reads", and underneath in small print "used book shop."

  I climbed the creaky front stairs, and it was like I was eleven again, following my mother inside. As I opened the front door, I could see everything was exactly as it had been, tables and booths in the same places. Reed must've left all his things here when he moved. Now every available surface was covered with more books than I thought could fit in one place. As I crossed the threshold, my worries were replaced with a breath of warm air and the smell of old books. 

This chapter was written by JustAnonymousForNow