“We’re not looking for anyone at this time.”
The woman behind the desk offered Jenny the fakest of smiles and placed the resume into a drawer, then quickly grabbed a tissue and blew her nose.
“Excuse me,” she mumbled through the tissue, then cleared her throat. “We would love to keep your resume on file though. Was there anything else I could help you with?”
“No, thank you,” Jenny said, offering a fake smile of her own, and walked out the door knowing full well that the woman was just going to toss her resume into the bin. After all, she’d done it herself when she had been a receptionist and someone seeking her job had wandered in.
Once outside, she looked up and down the street and tried to find another business that could possibly consider her resume. It was a small town so there wasn’t that many, but she wasn’t that picky either. Hell, she’d work in a party shop and blow balloons up all damned day if she had to. She could now say that she had professional experience, at least.
The fast food places had no interest in her. One manager even had the gall to raise an eyebrow and tap at a sign rapidly as she had asked. The sign clearly stated that they were looking for juniors. Of course. Once again, her relatively young age was considered ‘too old.’ Steve’s Cakes and Pies was also seeking juniors and only juniors for their ongoing traineeships. She offered to simply wash dishes for various restaurants, but not one of them wanted her. There was a clothing store seeking a sales assistant, but they were adamant that they wanted someone with fashion experience. In this town! Surely they could just accept and train someone who was eager to work. It was utterly ridiculous.
A man coughed and spluttered as he shoved his way past her and she quickly held her breath until he was far behind. She didn’t want his germs… or any of their germs, for that matter. Now that she thought about it, there were a lot of gross people out and about today. The receptionist who had just disposed of her resume was clearly ill, that man who had just shoved past her; they were only two of several sick people she had come across this afternoon.
That was nothing strange, there was always some sickness spreading around town and the people never bothered keeping it to themselves, no. They just had to go out and about and spread it further. At least it didn’t seem to be gastro this time. That had been unpleasant.
All of the sick people suddenly gave her an idea — the doctor’s surgery! Maybe they could use another receptionist.
Pleased with her bright idea, she hurried towards one of two local medical centres. The nearest one was conveniently located right next to the Whistling Fart — the local pub — so if someone drank themselves into oblivion, they could be escorted a mere metre away and into medical care. It was the perfect location.
However, as she rounded the corner and made her way towards the clinic, she was forced to stop. A line of people trailed out the doors and out into the carpark and onto the footpath. Perhaps today wasn’t a good day to inquire about possible employment.
As she stood and stared at the line, wondering at the insane amount of people seeking medical care this day, a single click rang out overhead. Looking up, her eyes widened as a bucket tumbled out of a tree and splattered her with vibrant green paint.
“We got her!” yelled a high-pitched, childish voice.
“Hell yeah, we gonna be so rich!”
Children laughed and footsteps ran every which way as she stood, stunned, unable to move, and covered in paint on the public footpath. She lifted the bottom of her blouse and stared. It was bright green. A glob of paint slid down her forehead, along her nose, and dripped onto the pavement. Bright green. Her hair was bright green. She was bright green. Thankfully, her folder was tucked under her arm and was not bright green.
The world around her moved in a slowed motion. The people lined up ahead all turned around in unison and stared. The laughter of children spun around and around and slowly disappeared as they got further away. She was bright green. She blinked, shook her head, and as though she were on autopilot, she turned away and started walking.
Unaware of her surroundings, she soon found herself in the bathroom of Joey’s house, washing the green paint away. Green water ran along her body and down the drain and ran green for several long minutes before at last turning clear, then she climbed out of the shower, got dressed in fresh, untarnished clothes, and hunted for Joey.
This was his fault.
She soon found him in the basement, labelling glass bottles and placing them neatly upon a shelf.
“Some children just threw paint on me.”
Joey turned away from the shelf and looked at her, eyeing her up and down. “Did they? I don’t see any.” He shrugged then turned back to the bottles. “This bottle here,” he pointed to the one at the top left side of the shelf. “That’s going to be my number one. The test batch will go in this one.”
“That’s nice. I was job hunting today. Did you pay children to throw paint on me?”
Joey didn’t answer. Instead, he grabbed the number one bottle and took it over to a bubbling container. Releasing the valve, he slowly, carefully, filled the bottle to the brim, and tightly screwed a lid on top.
“Joey! If I’m going to get my life back together, to get a place of my own and start over, I need a job. I can’t get a job if you keep ruining things for me.”
“Maybe I don’t want you to move out,” he said, refusing to take his eyes off the bottle he had just filled.
“If you stopped being an arse, maybe I’d want to stay!”
She whipped away without waiting for any further discussion and stalked back inside to grab her shoes and wallet. It was Friday afternoon, the Whistling Fart had dollar specials on every Friday and she had twelve whole dollars to her name. Maybe if she downed all twelve drinks in quick succession, she’d awaken in a new reality. Or at least get to spend some time in isolation at the medical centre next door, away from Joey.
Helloooo! It's Day Six of a sudden onset of Writing Madness -- a NaNoWriMo-inspired challenge that uses the daily #freewrite prompt to help create a full story within the confines of a mere month.
@mariannewest's prompt for today is ~ residue. And this actually gave me a couple of ideas! Starting with residue from the paint spatter.
While I had good ideas today, I struggled to write much. We had a very busy day today and there wasn't much time to do much of anything. I'm surprised I even got this much done. xD I was also having trouble turning imagination into words, but at least I got the basics down.
It's almost here! It's almost "all going down" at the Whistling Fart.
This is a very rough first draft of an upcoming book and will be tidied up and polished after this Month of Madness is finished. 😊 It might read like fast-paced-rushed-word-garbage at the moment, but it will be refined! (I over-edit like a madwoman.)
Title is a placeholder and will probably not be the final name of the book. 🤣 This story has nothing much to do with whistling but the local pub is called the Whistling Fart, things will go down there, and there will likely be a terrible amount of fart jokes. Because I'm uncultured and farts are funny. 🤷♀
Today's wordcount is 1,099
Total wordcount is 13,798 / 50,000
📝 A Quick Blurb 📚
Genre: immature adult comedy, reverse coming-of-age, apocalyptic silliness
Warning: irreverent, offensive humour
Jenny is a young lady in her mid-20's who finds herself out of work, out of home, and out of luck. An old friend from school has invited her to stay at his house until she gets back on her feet, but she just can't seem to land on them.
Every job opportunity she finds goes spectacularly wrong. The Great Fungus is spreading across the world and consuming all in its path. Then, to top it off, a solar flare renders electricity a thing of the past.
Faced with the end of the world as she knows it, Jenny has a choice. Will she embrace this apocalyptic madness... or will she, too, be consumed by the fungus?
Thank you for reading! 📚😊
See you tomorrow for Day Seven! 📝🤓