TOC MetaStories: Ineen Aldrop's 'He Stood taller Than Most'

Part 1 -A Walk in the Park-

“I don't want these ones!”  The horrible little gremlin of a woman shouted in apparent anger.  Her small withered features screwed up in a mask of disgust at the insult that had been thrust upon her.

Across from her was a very tall man with thick black hair and pale brown eyes wearing a blue button shirt and slacks, a nametag upon his chest introduced him as ‘Paulie Marmook, Sales and Retail’  He put up his arms in a semi-apologetic manner as he tried to cool the temper of the angry old woman who barely even reached his chest while he was hunched over.

“I am sorry Miss Nakima, but that is the only color I have them in at the moment.  As I mentioned yesterday when you came in to look at them we are getting a new delivery of that style in on Friday.  It should come with the..”  But he never got to finish his statement as the terrible woman once more shrieked at him.

She beat her frail trembling fist on the stack of carefully organised boxes next to her and shouted, “I don't want to wait till Friday.  You just can't do your job very well can you, boy?”  The neatly stacked boxes were upset by the motion, several of them falling to the floor from the display.

Paulie felt a streamer of red hot anger worming its way up from his core where he had been suppressing it for the last ten minutes.  The store was almost closed, he only had to last another fifteen minutes and he would be home free.  He glanced towards the plain white tiled ceiling, willing the night to be over.

Once more he tried the diplomatic approach.  “Not at all ma’am.  But if you would be willing to accept a discount, we could possibly..”  It didn't work.

The woman’s eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets as she screeched, “A discount!?  With all the abuse I have been forced to suffer here you had better give me the damn things for free!  I want to talk to your manager!”

Paulie died internally.  There it was, he had been expecting it for the last five minutes.  But now it was time, he sighed audibly and ignored the livid daggers she was staring at him as he spoke over his small radio.  “Store manager to the shoe department.. please.”  He added as she shot him another poisonous look.

He took a deep breath as she turned away for an instant and tried to keep from losing his job.  She was going to say horrible things about him anyways why not at least deserve some of it, a little part of his brain said and he quashed it down again.  Instead he gave her his best and hopefully most infuriating smile as he saw the store manager making his way over to them from the small office at the end of the store.  The man maneuvered around one of the kayak displays and then arrowed straight for them.

Mr. Kellek was not exactly known for his charismatic demeanour, especially when it came to dealing with otherwise unruly customers, but for whatever reason his face still brightened into a smile as he saw the horrible hag.

“Ah, miss Nakima.  So good to see you, I trust that all is well?”  The short balding man asked her in a voice far too cheerful for the situation.

Miss Nakima seemed a little put off by it and spoke in a much calmer tone.  “Well, if I may say so, this young man has acted in quite the unprofessional manner towards me.  I would very much like to lodge a formal complaint.”  Paulie’s fists clenched of their own accord, but he retained his cool.  Barely.

His boss just nodded to her and gestured towards his office.  “Not a problem ma’am.  If you would accompany me.”  he turned to look at Paulie, his face changing immediately to one of annoyance.  “See if you can clean up this mess, thanks Paulie.  And then come see me in my office before you clock out tonight?  That's a good man.”  It wasn’t said too unkindly, but Paulie’s heart sank as he got the sudden and distinct feeling he was going to be getting a dressing-down regardless of his performance.

He gave the receding pair a final glance before sighing once more tiredly, he shouldn't have ignored that stray dog the other night in the park.  He couldn't think of another reason why the universe would hate him so.  It had looked hungry and cold and he had been holding food, instead of feeding the wretched creature he had instead shooed it away.

“Bad karma.”  he whispered under his breath.

“Funny enough, that was the name of my first punk rock garage band as a kid.”  A voice said from his immediate left.

Paulie stood and looked to his right, it was his co-worker Dana.  She was about average height, so much shorter than him.  Her red hair was cropped close and she wore a dark eye earring in her left ear only, her stormy grey eyes meeting his and he felt a little flutter in his middle.  She always seemed to pop up right when he was feeling down, he had recently found himself dreading the days where he didnt work the same shift as her.

She sauntered over and started to straighten the boxes that the horrible miss Nakima had disturbed in her rage.  “So, you were visited by the wonderful and ever soft spoken miss Nakima again I see.”

She smiled as he said it and he just nodded, not exactly sure how to respond.  He had always had a difficult time speaking to girls, they always seemed to be so..

He never finished his thought as she spoke suddenly and with a modicum of hesitancy.  “So.. me and a couple friends were thinking of going to Stacy’s Bar after work tonight, around ten.  I know you don’t work tomorrow, you want to come?”

Paulie stood so fast he nearly lost hold of the shoebox he was clinging to.  That sounded like the most dangerous kind of situation to be in, a social situation.  He felt his heart beating faster in his chest as his beleaguered mind attempted to formulate a response.

He felt his lips move of their own accord as his brain went into damage control mode, his head nodding and his body moving almost as if he was no longer in control.  But then he slammed back to total awareness just as he finished sealing his doom.

“Uh.. yea, sounds fun.”

She smiled, seemingly unaware of the trainwreck that was barreling towards her.  He nodded again as she walked away, seemingly satisfied by the answer.  He groaned internally, ‘No..nonono.’  She was going to see what kind of a socially inept awkward lanky asshole he really was.  ‘No, I can do this.’  another part of his mind seemed to say with much more confidence than he was really feeling.

He stood there with the shoebox still clutched in his hands as the lights flicked off overhead, the store going to half lighting causing him to jerk.  He checked his watch and cursed silently.  The store was closing, he slapped the box down on top of the pile, no longer caring that it was not the right place for it.  That was something the morning crew could deal with.

Paulie hurried over to his locker and grabbed his coat, the night wasn't exactly cold but he liked to be prepared regardless.  As he was walking to the door he heard his name being called and stopped.  It was Mr. Kellek, and he didn't look too pleased.

Paulie gave a short exhale and then slunk over towards the man who ushered him into the small corner office.  After a second of pacing the older man took a seat across from him and tapped his chin.

He spoke, the words hitting Paulie like a punch in the gut.  “I am sorry to have to tell you this, Paulie.. but we have received too many customer service complaints about you in the last few weeks.  I have been informed by corporate to let you go, your final paycheck will be delivered on Wednesday.  I expect to see the return of any store materials, sorry kid.”

Paulie was speechless, to his credit the man really did look sorry.  But it was still outrageous.  He wanted to scream, to curse at the man and tell him to stick it in a hundred places.  But he didn't, instead he took a deep breath and pushed the rage back down deep.  He stood and reached out his hand, seemingly surprising the bald man.

“I understand, and I apologise for the inconvenience I may have caused.  Thanks for letting me know in person, Mr. Kellek.”

Mr. Kellek just nodded and then moved to open the door.  “For what it’s worth, I am sad to see you go, Paulie.  You really got a good head on your shoulders, I did try to put in a good word for you..”  He seemed to hesitate, unusual for him.  “It seems that our dear miss Nakima knows somebody up the ladder as my job was also brought into review.  Tell me where you end up, I will give them a good word for ya kid.”

Paulie felt his eyes water up a little but he held his emotions in check once more.  He nodded one more time, “Thank you sir.  I will see you on Wednesday.”  And with that he rushed his way out of the building.  The emotion threatening to tear a raw hole straight through his veneer of calm as he crossed the darkened empty parking lot.  He would usually have taken the bus home as he didn’t own a vehicle.  But tonight he needed to clear his head with a long walk.

Paulie was walking along the side of the road when Dana’s voice entered his mind unbidden.  Her offer to go drinking sat at the back of his mind still, he generally didn’t drink.  He hated the feeling of losing control of himself, a relic of his youth he reckoned.  He tried to push it down like he was so used to doing with so much else, but he found that the harder he tried to blanket the idea, the stronger it seemed to counter his efforts.  Welling up like water under pressure as it threatened to overwhelm his defenses.

He stumbled over a crack in the sidewalk as his veneer of control fractured and a sob escaped his lips.  He sniffed loudly and straightened to his full two-hundred-and-one centimeter height as he looked around the quiet sidewalk and the dark open park beyond.

He was alone.

He nodded.  It wasn’t unexpected, even at only just after nine at night, this part of town was home to a large grassy dog park and several unsold housing developments.  He liked to walk though the quiet zone at night from time-to-time.  It wasn’t far from his home, in fact it was about right in the middle between his apartment and his job.

He stopped at that.  He didn’t have a job anymore, not according to Mr. Kellek and that horrible troll of a woman who had likely gotten him fired.  And for what?!  He felt the anger boiling up in him again, threatening to lose control.  In his pain he hunched over and found a nearby bench upon which to cower in the crisp night air.

He stayed that way for a time with his head in his hands, but soon had pulled himself back together just in time for his pocket to buzz at him insistently.  He checked it, his eyes widening as he read it.  It was a text from Dana asking him if he was still thinking about going drinking.  He swallowed and then paused.

Was he still thinking about it?  What good would it do, what bad could it do?  Did he really have anything to lose, he wasn’t going to see Dana anymore now that he had been fired.  He stood and walked out into the damp grass, no longer caring about the finish on his shoes or the creases in his slacks.  No, he would do it.  He would do it and prove to himself if nobody else that he mattered, that he was important despite what some crotchety old woman and her stupid corporate connections thought.

Paulie raised the phone, his fingers prepared to type out his reply when the world suddenly changed.  The quiet dark was dispelled by an intense light that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere all at once.  He felt the air start to shudder as if the world itself was vibrating all around him.  The frequency started so deep that it made his bones shiver before it quickly grew in intensity and volume until his ears were ringing and his vision swam.

Paulie looked all around and saw nothing, he tried to take a step back but found to his horror that his feet seemed not to obey his commands.  It was as if he were frozen in place, the phone fell from his limp fingers to land in the grass at his feet with a small thud before he looked up and yelled out loud in shock and fear.  For in the sky far above him was a dark shape.  A large semi-triangular thing covered in what looked like dark metallic plates and harsh white lights that pulsed ominously.  From the craft emanated the beam that had alighted upon him and induced his paralysis.

He felt his feet leave the ground all at once as he seemed to float towards the terrible dark shape and he screamed as he slowly rotated head over heels.  The park dropping away from below as he rose towards that terrible unknown thing above.  He screamed even as his eyes grew heavy and he felt the world wash away into a field of grey colorless oblivion.

The air stilled, the trees falling still as the ghostly wind ceased.  Upon the ground was a perfect circle of flattened grass, the stalks neatly bent as if by a surgeon's precision and in the center of the strange display sat a cellular phone.  The device so innocuous and seemingly out of place as to be stark in its bizarrity.

The screen of the device lit after a few minutes of this new quiet.  A small message bubble appearing at the top of the screen.  It read, ‘Hello?  Paulie?  C’mon, don’t leave me hangin like this.  Are you coming or not?”