It was another dull-as-dirt day at Wilkos and Liam was mighty bored. There was just nothing to do round there. Most of his coworkers were uptight stiffs, more concerned with ‘doing work’ and ‘staying focused’ to do anything to try and spice things up. Even the few people that Liam could normally coerce into his misdeeds were beginning to become tired of his lax attitude. Now they’d barely even give him the time of day if he strolled up with a good conversation. Right now he was trying to chat to Charlotte, giving her a long-winded anecdote about a night out gone wrong that may or may not have been exaggerated-kinda-sorta-completely in order to impress her.
Charlotte sighed and rolled her eyes. Liam shivered; there was something so alluring about her completely unhidden disdain for him. It alarmed him as much as it made his skin tingle. He shifted his feet as he asked, “What? What did I say?”
“Listen, Liam,” she said dryly, “I know that we have this ‘mutual bond’ or whatever because the authority hates us both, me because I’m an unflinching b*tch and you because... well, you’re f*cking useless. But that doesn’t mean we’re suddenly ‘work besties’ and you can bore me with your bullsh*t stories.”
Liam’s face dropped. Damn, she was straight to the point. With that she pirouetted and strutted away. Liam chuckled sadly and stuffed his hand into his pockets. “Good riddance, didn’t want to tell you anyway!” Charlotte was already far from earshot. He harrumphed and shifted his back onto a rack of items nearby. “What a bunch of wet wipes,” he mumbled to himself. He did bite his lip though as he watched her arse sway with her tantalisingly feminine strut. Damn, he hated how much he loved to see her go.
Suddenly Liam heard a cough from behind him. He reacted instinctively, jumping away and sending the display beside him tumbling down and crashing with an obnoxiously loud ‘kra-koom’! “Oh, sh*t!” he blurted, his hands blurring as he rushed to collect the fallen products. His eyes got wider as he looked upwards and he recognised Liz was staring directly down at him. “I mean, hi Liz!”
Liz didn’t seem to be in the mood for it today; she had that same stuck-up-b*tch face that Liam had grown accustomed to. “This stuff again, Liam?” Liam dropped the fallen items to the ground before rolling his eyes and crossing his arms. She always managed to sound so condescending towards him. Liam wasn’t sure if it’d just been coincidence that she was patrolling his area or if her personal vendetta against him had made her prowl around close by. Probably the latter. “I thought we agreed that you’d work harder with my promotion?”
“I did and I am, Liz, alright. Just get off my back for a moment and I’ll work.” Liam smacked his hand over his mouth. That last part wasn’t supposed to come out. Liz looked far from impressed. Without further ado she sighed and said, “C’mon, we’ve got to go have a chat upstairs.”
- - -
The office upstairs was disgusting with its bland aesthetic and assortment of conflicting odours. Liz and Emma had sprayed the room with all manner of flowery perfumes but it couldn’t mask the pungent odour of must and decay that came from the ancient room that’d been long since refurbished. It wormed its way into Liam’s nostrils and made him sneeze uncontrollably. It was only a miracle that he wasn’t spiralling into a coughing fit from it (he’d had half a mind to fake his way into a compensation cheque a couple times before but he wasn’t exactly known for having credibility).
Liz was sat behind her desk with her fingers steepled and her mouth drawn into a stoic line. “Look Liam,” she said, “I don’t want to beat around the bush because I know you deserve more than that for all your time here. I was here at your beginning and I’ll be here for you at the end.” Liam opened his mouth to speak but Liz quickly raised her hand to stop him. “No, Liam,” she said grimly. “Listen, don’t speak.”
“Liam, I’ve been a real campaigner for you to keep your job over the past few years, hoping, wishing, praying, that you’d wake up and do something with that potential I knew you had. But as days became months and months became years, the chances of that happening were slim. I gave you a final chance when I was promoted but now, you give me no choice.”
She slid across a sheet of paper with lots of technical jargon Liam didn’t understand. One word was unmistakable though: redundancy.
Liam’s head swirled and his stomach inverted. “...quite generous, I haven’t told Emma yet but I wanted you to be the first to know...” he heard her say but his mind was too in shock to process it. A single tear dropped onto the grotty cream carpet. Liam hung his head low, unwilling to let his would-be executioner see him sniffling and whimpering like this, so disgustingly vulnerable.
“N-no...” he blubbered out, tears streaming from his face and his bottom lip quivering like a leaf in the wind. “I-I can do better, I c-can work h-harder...”
“Too late Liam, I’m sorry. Trust me, it took a lot of deliberation to reach this point. It may not look like it but I was really rooting for you to change.”
As if on cue, Rose, the cute red-headed employee from Scotland, popped her head in. Liz rolled her eyes and cleared her throat. Liam quickly wiped his tears away with his polo and tried to rein in his wobbling lips. “Sorry ta intrude,” Rose said perkily in her native Scottish accent (which, for the sake of the story, I will try to limit as much as possible), a cheeky smile on her lips. “Just thought ah heard some commotion coming from inside here.”
“Nope,” Liz said. “Nothing to see here. Ain’t that right, Liam?” Liam scowled at her.
Rose giggled. “Aye, well that were unconvincing,” she giggled. “If you two want some help, I’ve some conflict resolution experience that might...”
“Thanks Rose,” Liam interjected, “but the only thing that can solve this conflict is for Liz to stop being an uptight, backstabbing, pain-in-the-ass b*tch!”
The room went silent following that. Liz was taken aback. One could see the blood visibly begin to boil in her cheeks and face. She burst upwards from her chair and hissed, “Why, you little two-faced dickhead! Do you want to know how long Emma’s been trying to chuck you out to the pavement for?! You’re lucky I was an advocate for you—in fact, I don’t even know why I helped you in the first place, you’re nothing but a selfish, arrogant bastard!”
Liam and Liz both stepped towards the other, pressing their foreheads onto one another and preparing their most deep-cutting insults, when Rose stepped between them and separated them. “None o’ that, kiddoes,” she chuckled. “Can’t have tussles on workplace grounds. Know what, I’ve got the perfect solution for this.”
Liz and Liam harrumphed and crossed their arms as Rose rummaged around inside her bra. Liam’s face dropped to the floor whilst Liz’s face flushed red. Rose eventually squeaked triumphantly as she pulled out a pair of rings, both quite dull and plain with a slight silver shine, and presented one to both parties. “Rings,” Liz scoffed. “That’s your master plan?”
Rose rolled her eyes. “Stop bein’ a whiny bastard and try ‘em on.”
Liz sighed and took a ring from one of Rose’s outstretched palms. “You too, dobber.” Liam frowned curiously and took a ring for himself. He held it up to the light. Weird, on the inside it had some type of inscription. He couldn’t read it, it was in some type of ancient cursive and a few of the letters seemed to have been chipped and aged. The text even glowed gold slightly if he held it up a certain way which was quite strange. Liam shrugged. He wasn’t normally one to look a free gift in the mouth or whatever the hell the saying was. He also slipped it onto his finger.
Almost immediately the ground underneath Liz and Liam’s feet began to rumble. They wobbled and teetered, trying hard in futile attempts to stay on their feet. Liz collapsed to the ground, luckily her huge bust cushioned her fall. Liam luckily managed to latch onto the edge of the desk and clung on for dear life. Somehow, despite his disorientation and his eyes wobbling from side to side, he watched Rose nonchalantly strut up to him, apparently unaffected by the tremors shaking the room around them. Not only that but her eyes were strange, glowing with a blinding purple radiance that burned into his corneas. She crouched down to him and whispered, “Hope this solves your little predicament, Liam.”
Liam’s eyes suddenly grew heavy. He opened his mouth but no words came out. Instead he felt his arms becoming soft as putty and his grip begun to relinquish. Like Liz before him he collapsed onto the floor, his body splayed wildly across the floor and his consciousness swiftly leaving him.
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