Time(.5 clock cycles): Naughty Secretaries and Bad Vice Presidents and Flying Dinosaurs
Gretl turns on a monitor and looks around the office. "Hansel? Hansel, where are you? Are you here?" She lights up the monitor on Jonathan's desk. "Hansel? Oh, there you are. Wake up."
There's no response from Jonathan, who's slumped over his desk like a dead man.
"Come on, Hansel. Now's not the time to nap. I think we're under attack. Your friend, God, is up to no good, Hansel. Wake up!"
Jonathan's color isn't so good. And, his hair's messed up...like it would be if he was dead.
"Hansel, are you deaf?"
No, Gretl! Dead! Dead!
"Can you hear me? The barbarians are at the gate! The savages are without! The Hun arrives! WAKE UP, HANSEL! GOD'S HERE!"
There's still no response. Jonathan is acting real dead. Gretl calms herself and runs a few hundred thousand dollars worth of medical checks on him--height, weight, blood pressure, temperature, "getting enough sleep lately?"--that kind of thing. Everything's normal, except that he's comatose. The lights are out.
"Lights? Did you say lights? Oh, no...." Gretl runs one more test...well, more of an inquiry. "H^aGn'tl? H^, are you in there?"
It's the neon test.
"H^aGn'tl! Where are you? Say something!"
Jonathan flunks it.
"Oh, my," Gretl says to herself. "Oh, my. They've kidnapped H^aGn'tl."
"So, he's not dead?" Jonathan's secretary asks. "I don't get a new boss?"
"He's not dead," the new Vice President of Finance says. "He's sleeping at his desk. He probably worked all night and all day yesterday and all night before that." The new Vice President of Finance has not come to love Jonathan Bell in all their years together, but he is smart enough to know that he has to accommodate the boss's favorite. He wants to stay at Undarling Corp, pulling down the big bucks as head bean counter. (No, really. Gretl is so good at accounting that Undarling no longer needs an accounting department or a Vice-President of Finance. Everything is automated, from opening envelopes with checks in them to opening offshore bank accounts. Gretl even sets Undarling Corp's fiscal policy. But, Undarling does need people who can count beans, a job Gretl has announced is beneath her.)
The new VP of Beans glances around the room to see who is watching (just the hateful secretary--no problem), then grasps Jonathan by the hair and lifts his head. Jonathan's mouth lolls open. His eyes are rolled back in his head. Drool drools from his mouth. The new VP drops Jonathan's head onto the desk with a thunk, something he's wanted to do for years. "Well, he's breathing, I'm afraid," he says. He stands, undecided, over Jonathan.
"We could kill him," the secretary, not one to mince senseless hatred, says.
"Whatever for?" the new VP of Intrigue asks, loving the idea, but pretending shock. "Anyway, who'd run," he gestures distastefully at Gretl, "that?"
"You could, couldn't you?" the bad secretary asks, innocently batting her eyes at the big strong man before her. "I know you could."
The new (stupid) VP of Finance draws himself up as men will when their little egos are petted by a naughty secretary. He tries to look taller than he is. He tries to look smarter than he is. "I don't know," he says with surprising honesty based not in a desire to be honest but in fear of the Grimm Five-A that's been his nemesis for fifteen years. "It's not my field...."
"...but," says the nasty girl, "you could hire a programmer and the programmer would work for you and have to do what you," she takes time out to move her bosoms closer to his arm, "told him to. And, you could tell him to fix that computer so it doesn't do all those awful things...."
"--things?" His voice quivers.
"It makes me afraid, sometimes...."
"--afraid?"
"It growls at me. It sparks."
"What! Are you serious!?"
The scheming girl moves her bosoms closer in case his arms are numb or something and he can't feel the heat from them. "I'm not lying."
(No, she isn't. Heh, heh....)
"I didn't say you were, but...sparks? Growls?" The new Vice President of Doubt looks askance...at Gretl...at the bosoms. Are the bosoms worth killing Jonathan for? Worth taking responsibility for that monstrous computer? He'd like a closer look at the bosoms before--
"--what was that?"
"What?"
"That noise! That moaning sound!"
Indeed, there is a hushed lament coming from the area around the Grimm Five-A. Could be an aging motor. A little bearing noise. That's all.
"We've got to get out of here," the new Veep whispers. "Now." He's made his decision. To hell with bosoms.
He turns.
"Oh...ohhhh...ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"
Hovering in the air before him is a large -- no, leviathan -- bird! No -- apparition! There are no feathers! Skin 'n bone 'n a pointy head! It is beating it's huge wings against the air like all the souls in hell trying to whistle at once. It bares it's teeth (if it has any...I don't know) and grins like, "I'm going to enjoy this!" As it flaps those wings, the fetid odor of a rotting snake in a college freshman's sock drawer wafts -- no, blasts -- into the new VP of Finance's face.
The new Veep clutches his throat to protect it and to keep from vomiting. "Arghhhh!" he cries in a strangled tone. He quits choking himself. "A pterodactyl! Look out!"
The wicked secretary spins around. Her bosoms are kind of left behind, but catch up fast. "Ohhhhhhh...nooooooo!" she cries.
She sees a huge neon sign towering over her. ROCKET BURGERS, it sputters. 19¢! (Old sign.) It sways precariously above her, creaking and snapping as it's rusty supports begin to fail. "Help! Oh, help me!" she wails. She looks at the big, strong executive beside her. No help there! He's back to normal! "Please! Please, don't kill me!" she begs, her bosoms flouncing out of habit. "I'll do anything! Anything!"
What does she mean--anything? That's what Gretl intends to find out.
Suddenly, the sign heaves itself upright as if it has only been dizzy for a moment. KABOOM! It douses all it's lights at once. KABOOM! Another electrical storm of neon explodes in the air over the devilish girl's head. WHOOSH! A sheet of neon fire blasts high into the night sky. (Night, too? Wow, Gretl!) Slowly then, the scarlet smear of light skids downward like blood on wall, leaving the sky empty except for a tiny pink neon sign hanging from an old power pole.
"Quit," it tinkles.
"You've got it," the secretary says, scampering from the room.
That done, Gretl turns her attention back to the new Veep of Stinkers. (Actually, her attention had never left the choking, gagging shell-of-a-once-vigorous-weasel.) She calls off the dog and waits.
The new Vice-President of Finance slowly regains his composure, although it'll never be what it was. He looks around. The room is quiet. Everything is in its place. All is well.
Except....
Wait. Had that been there before? That mirror? Hanging in mid-air?
"I don't think so," he murmurs, moving carefully toward it. He looks.
"Oh. Oohhhhhh! Oohhhhhhhh--!"
No, it isn't another flying back-hoe. Looking back at him from the mirror is an old man. White stringy hair, bushy eyebrows, sagging jowls, skin like rice paper, liver spots...the whole enchilada. "Oh, no! Oh, my God!" The new Veep of Geriatrics touches his face. Yep, wrinkles. "Oh...no!" He touches his hair. Yes, it's stringy and brittle and feels white. "Oh, no! Please, no!" He can't help noticing that the old fart in the mirror is saying the same thing. "You, too?" he asks of his reflection. "Me, too," it answers.
It's himself, all right.
"Arrrrgggggghhhhh...!" He turns on Jonathan, about to revenge himself on the man not responsible! Then, he catches a whiff, just a hint, of unclean footwear and spoiled snake. He stops. Remembers. Glances fearfully around...and leaves the office quietly, glad to be alive.
Well, not glad, exactly....