Mad Maggie II

Little Shop of Death

Chris' POV

"Grab that board over there for me, will you? I need to cut that up." I shout at Avery. Avery grunts loudly as he lifts up a large wooden board leaning against a bunch of others on a wall in the warehouse. He carries it over to me, being careful not to bump into any tables and machines. I'm cutting up a large board into pieces and I'm nearly done with it. I work for The Woodman, a furniture woodshop and I have night duty among with Avery, one of my coworkers and a good friend. I stop the cutting machine I use for cutting up boards and remove my earplugs and safety googles.

"Jesus, how is it fucking heavy?" Avery pants as he settles it onto the floor besides my feet. He wipes a small bead of sweat off his forehead as I response, "You tell me, man." 

Avery scoffs as he rolls his silvery blue eyes, a small smirk on his freckled face. I ask him, "I hear you're planning to switch jobs. Is that true?"

"Well, you could say that." Avery leans his hand onto the table, puffing a strand of his curly, chestnut-brown hair out of his forehead. "I'm going to a place in Miami to work as a manager."

"Oh? What kind of manager would you be?" I raise my eyebrow as I scratch the back of my neck. Avery reveals a small chuckle before responding, "Supervising manager of Ruler Furniture Factory." 

"Damn, man." I breathe. Avery chuckles loudly as he smiles widely, "Tell me about it, dude! I'm gonna make enough money out of that so I can finally move to Canada to live in with my girl."

"Let's hope that works out all well, man." I smile, feeling excited for him. Then I frown a little and ask him, "What's wrong with this place? Don't get me wrong, dude, The Woodman is not that bad."

Avery explains, "I'm not leaving this job because I hate it - I mean, it pays well and I get to have a lunch hour, anyway. Who the hell complains about that? No no, here's the reason why: I got an interview with the factory a few days ago and they wanted to hire me because they said I have a lot of qualities a supervising manager would have. And besides, I can be closer to my mom again since she moved to Miami as her retiring home." 

"Oh, good point. When are you leaving?" I ask him. Avery smirks, "At the end of this month. I already told Mr. Hugo and he's excited for me."

"Excited that you're finally leaving so he can jump in joy and click his heels together?" I joke and Avery roughly punches my right shoulder, but a smile remains on his face as he laughs.

"Very funny, Chris. Yo, I'm gonna go check on the stock. Be right back." Avery runs his fingers through his hair. I nod, "Alrighty, go on. I'll be working on this anyway."

Avery enters into the store, leaving me entirely alone in the warehouse. I take a sip of water from my bottle and then focus on the board once again.

After cutting up the board and stacking up the pieces on a table next of me, I take a breather. I check my phone and I notice that I haven't heard anything from Chloe since I got here for work. Usually she'd text me once in a while to keep herself sane without getting stressed out on the project. I really hope she's working on her project right now - she better not be online or anything. 

I check through Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram - any social media apps that she has on her phone. Huh, she's not online anywhere, so I guess she's finally working on her project. I sigh as I tuck my phone into my back pocket and pick up the board from the floor. I grunt a little as I bring it up to the machine. I put my safety googles on and plug in my ears before I fire up the machine. I focus on cutting the board into neat pieces, being careful not to make mistakes. 

Then all of sudden, the machine screeches loudly before it stops dead in its tracks, the wooden board still halfway through the blade. I cuss as I turn it off and carefully tug the board out of the way. When that's out of the way, I settle the board down on the floor, leaning against a table next of me and check the machine.