August 24 - Luck, or Lack Thereof

Annalise was in trouble. Today had not been a good day for her. She’d been woken up an hour early by some idiot mowing the lawn at five-thirty in the morning, and after that nothing had gone right. Her toast had burned, which had set off the fire alarm, giving her a headache and pissing off the entire flat, who had all turned up on her doorstep to complain. Trying to explain the situation and soothe her neighbours had made her miss her normal bus, which meant that she would have to drive so as not to be late to work, and wouldn’t get to talk to Pierre, the florist, on the way. (Though she’d never tell anyone, she had a bit of a crush on Pierre, for his gentle eyes and his unexpected lack of a French accent.) She got stuck in traffic on Sandoval Street, and when she finally arrived had to drive around the block ten times to find a parking space. All this meant that she arrived late anyway, and so perfectly timed it that she ran into the Boss as she rushed through the foyer. (The kind of ‘ran into’ which bowls the other party over and scatters anything they might be holding into the wind. In this case, a rather large and rather hot cup of coffee that got all over his shirt and tie.) She’d gone to Café 89 to get him a replacement, but by that time there was a huge line and a kid ran past on the way to school and left a long smear of peanut-butter on her favourite work skirt. When she got back into the office the Boss was gone anyway, so she’d given the coffee to Cindy forgetting completely that she was lactose intolerant. So now Cindy had to be give the day off work because she certainly couldn’t be productive when she had to run to the bathroom every ten minutes, which means that Annalise had to do her work as well, and on top of all that the Boss called her up for a meeting in the afternoon, and he did not sound happy. So today had not been a good day, and it wasn’t even lunchtime yet.

Annalise sighed, puffing a lock of hair out of her eyes. Her fingers were cramping from typing, and her headache had settled into a throbbing right behind her eyes. She leaned back in her office chair, listening to it creak. She’d finally gotten all the paperwork done, hers and Cindy’s, and could do today’s field operation, albeit two hours behind schedule, even after skipping lunch. At least today’s assignment was pretty routine, just a reset of the alarms in the Municipal PD and clearing out any drifters that may have accumulated. She stuffed her work ID into a lanyard around her neck, and collected a field box from requisitions, before heading to the ground floor. The PD was only six blocks away, and she figured the walk would clear her head. No such luck. A taxi ran a red light and nearly clipped her as she was crossing the street, she was swooped by two birds and crapped on by a third, and was nearly knocked over by an overenthusiastic mime. 

Her luck didn’t change at the Police Department either. Each alarm went off at least twice whilst she was trying to reset it, which made all the officers grumble, those who didn’t laugh outright. To cap it off, not only had the normal wisps made their home in the lower levels, but four pixies had managed to get stuck in there as well. No matter how much she herded them around or tried to lure them with baby carrots they all kept bumbling around, cackling at her and spreading fairy dust everywhere, which of course she had to vacuum up once she’d finally gotten rid of them. What’s more, whilst she was distracted the wisps managed to charm one of the young officers out onto a fire escape, which of course meant that the fire department had to be called to get him down, and that her post-operational paperwork would double. When she returned to the office, she realised that one of the pixies had made off with her work ID, so she spent a whole hour getting a new one with all new access codes, whilst being lectured by Security. Her desk phone light was blinking, and played a pissy message from a co-worker she was supposed to have had lunch with. She dumped her bags and went to the bathroom sink, splashed water over her face and looked at her own reflection. Her makeup was smudged. Today was a bad day.

“Annalise. Come in. Sit down.” She slumped heavily into the chair across from the Boss, staring at the floor so as not to meet his eyes with their slitted pupils.
“I’ve been receiving reports of your conduct today, Annalise. Reports such as ‘low standards of professionalism’ and ‘endangerment of personnel’. Not to mention your presentation is markedly different from your norm...” As the Boss went on, Annalise slumped lower and lower into her chair. Nothing had gone right today.
“...This kind of behaviour  is, I hope I don’t need to tell you, completely unacceptable. We have a reputation to uphold as supernatural consultants, and having our specialists act in such a manner...”
Why was everything going wrong? Annalise just wanted to go home. Back to bed. She wished she’d never gotten up in the morning. The Boss leaned across the desk towards her.
“However, I think that under the circumstances you did remarkably well, for someone operating under the influence of a poltergeist.” Wait, what? The Boss reached one clawed hand to somewhere behind her left ear and drew back with something silver and squirming.
“Yes, I noticed it this morning when you ran in the office, but unfortunately had a meeting to attend.” Annalise watched as he deposited it in a small jar, and the silver thing bounced around the walls, making a small keening sound. For the briefest instant, a small face materialised. It poked its tongue out at Annalise, and then was gone again.  She just gaped. Was it possible? Could this tiny thing possibly have caused so much to happen to her? The Boss smiled.
“Tricky things, poltergeists. Capable of quite a lot of damage, if they are in the right place at the right time. Quite frankly, I’m glad you caught it. There is of course a significant finder’s fee, there’s a lot of pent up energy in one of these. You’ll find it included in your next paycheck.”

Annalise got home, this time without incident. She ran a bath. After a day like hers, she surely deserved it. But curiosity got the better of her, and she jumped online to check the details of her next payday. Her eyes widened. The bonus was... significant.

Perhaps today was not such a bad day.