Overload

Steven looked at the mountain of work piled on his desk with wide, sad eyes. The top of it seemed to grow ever further towards the ceiling. Periodically, that troll of a secretary would bring in another pile and toss it onto the pile. He wished the whole thing would just tumble over and crush him. That would mean an end to this torture.

This was all his bosses fault. That cantankerous old wizard had “volunteered” Steven for some extra work. Steven did not remember ever being consulted about this. He just standing there, trying to get through another terrible morning meeting, and the next thing he knows, he is in charge of converting all old client files over to the new database. This was clearly a punishment. There was no reason to be handling files from 20 years ago unless someone was torturing him. This was the stuff of Tarturaus, and Greek legend. He half expected to see Orpheus descending at any moment to rescue him.

Sadly, that would never happen, so he was stuck here, filing and typing and coming up with creative reasons to call in sick tomorrow. He had run out of dead relatives, so a funeral was out of the question, and his boss now required a doctor's note after his two week long battle with the boogy woogy flu. This is one of the few times Steven wished he had a cat, as a well times vet visit would do the trick quite well. Maybe he had a no-good brother who had to get bailed out of jail? Or a sister who needed help moving. Or maybe he could just get raptured right there in his bedroom.

The ogre woman brought another stack of files and Steven could not help but smile. This was how his world was going to end, not with a bang, but with the quiet shuffling of papers. This would be his tomb, this mausoleum of envelops and files. Centuries from now, archaeologists would uncover this strange site and conclude, ironically, that this was a man obsessed with his work.

Movers

Steven sighed as he watched the movers struggle with the couch. It was clearly to wide for the door as it was and yet they had not figured out that turning it on it's side was an option. He could not believe that he was paying these people to move his entire life. He never trusted anyone with so much as his umbrella. Now here were a number of large, men, tossing around his vintage vinyls and furniture as if they were sacks of rice.

He had been dreading this day for a long time, and it had finally come. He had been so, so comfortable in his old surroundings, with his familiar things and faces. He did not like his neighbors, but at least he knew them. This new abode promised new people that Steven would have to pretend to get along with, new paths to learn, new things to try not and see. He would have to learn all the new places to get food from on Netflix, and a find a new path to get to work.

It was the little things that bothered him the most. He loathed having to change his address with his bank, his work, the electrical company, and all the other places that required it. They should have to find that information out for themselves. Why should he have to do it? Also, this whole moving thing was too much for him. That he was paying these ogres to destroy his belongings was just too much to deal with.

He watched again as they finally got the sofa in. They had completely scratched the sides of both the door frame and the couch in the process. Susan, oblivious to the damage, squealed with delight as the last item was moved into place. It was over, mercifully, at long last, over. Now, the long, hard task of unpacking lay ahead. Steven shuddered as he thought of how long it would take him to get everything exactly right.