[Write the Story] Fired From a Long-Term Job

Prompt: Fired From a Long-Term Job

Words: guitar, military, aversion, mouse, vertical, crumple, runaway, creation, alphabetize, tablet

Story

Patrick slid the mouse across the screen and clicked through fields, inputting numbers and codes and manipulating information. “Can I alphabetize the reports? Dude, what do they think I’ve been doing for the last five years?”

As he hit the command to run the report, a message popped up on the tablet lying next to his keyboard. One glance at the sender, he bolted nearly vertical from his chair. They found him once more. He read the message with a slight aversion shudder.

“Yo, Pat. Where are we on the new project creation?”

The languid voice sound more likely to be playing guitar in some seedy bar rather than running a multi-billion-dollar company with runaway profits.

“Running a report now, boss.” Patrick moved his right hand slowly unseen from behind. “Are you sure this is what you want to do? I mean it seems like we’re scamming a lot of people out of a lot of money.”

“And?”

“Come on, Dennis, this isn’t cool.”

“I don’t care about cool. I care about money. If you aren’t on board…”

Patrick made a twisting move with an “oops” and his screen went blue, then black, then beeped wildly.

“What? Did you… You are so fired!”
“I wish I could care, this was just a job. Always just a job.”

A puff of air, Dennis’s eyes went wide then went empty. Patrick helped Dennis crumple to the floor, stepped over him and left the building.

Word Count: 242

Written: 1/25/18

Tags: fiction, flash fiction, murder mystery, Piccadilly, Write the Story