A Goblin Story (or Why I Got Fired)

            It actually started out as a reasonably decent day before it all went horribly wrong. I caught the bus to downtown Seattle on time—wonder of wonders—and managed not to leave anything of value on it when I got off. The sweaty body smell of the bus hadn’t clung too tightly to my clothes today, so, while walking to the bank I was temping at, I caught a pleasant whiff of the light perfume I’d sprayed on my blouse. It mixed with the salty breeze off the Sound and put a smile on my face.

            I settled into my chair at the front desk of the home loan department and unhooked the night answering system before unpacking my bag and preparing for the day. The solid oak desk was a comfort to me, its clear organized top a perfect mask for the less organized chaos within. My boss, Lynn, gave me one of his less sleazy smiles while passing through to his office. My favorite co-workers gave me chipper hellos. Michael, an older loan official who was always a sweetheart to me, even brought a chai for me from the coffee shop next-door. An hour went by with not so much as a phone call. It’s going to be another too quiet day, I grumbled to myself pulling out the mail to sort.

            Almost lunch still next to nobody had called or come in. One sweet customer stopped to talk to me for a moment. We talked about books and he borrowed paper and a pen to write some titles down. Then his loan official, Lorraine, came out to greet him and I was left alone again. No-one else paid more attention to me than it took to ask for copies or a fax. My stomach grumbled from the tantalizing odors of someone else’s lunch. My last caller had bit my head off because his loan official wasn’t in. Personally I thought he was better off with Michael, who I’d offered him instead. I thought Jordan who normally helped him was becoming a troll.  

            To pass the time more quickly, I looked for my new pen to use in filling out some forms that I had been going to mail after lunch. I wanted my pen with the soft comfort grip and smooth writing action; the one the advertising lady had given me the day before. It wasn’t in my drawer. It wasn’t on my desk. Though I was sure it couldn’t be there, I checked my notebooks to see if I’d shut it in one of them. No luck. I wondered if someone had walked off with it. I grew more annoyed as I considered this, and looked through my desk again in denial.

            Annoyed, annoyed, annoyed I thought to myself. It became my mantra as I looked harder and deeper into my desk. I checked my bag three times. I looked under every paper and book in the top drawers. I checked inside my current reading material in case I’d used it as a book mark, and then checked the other books I had with me because maybe I’d started them and forgotten about it. I sat back in my chair and reminded myself to breathe before I went and rechecked everything again. “Where did I last have it,” I asked myself with my eyes closed.

            When I opened them Jordan, the previously absent loan official, was looking at me as if I might start speaking in tongues. I gave him a sweet smile, and shrugged my shoulders in an embarrassed little gesture and he continued on his way through. He had a slightly vacant expression and I swear I saw a bit of drool collecting at the corner of his mouth. Troll, I thought, but it didn’t help me with my complex.

            Once again I searched through everything, my mantra returning like a song you can’t get out of your head. This time I even opened the bottom drawer, the one I never open, the one that truly, couldn’t possibly hold my pen. It didn’t matter to me anymore. I was single mindedly obsessed.

            I knew what had happened. I knew who had my pen. She hadn’t even deliberately taken it. Her customer, who had seemed so nice, had snatched it off the front desk- my desk—and walked back to Lorraine’s carrying my pen. I knew this. I knew it in my gut, just as I knew I could never get it back. It was hers now, on her territory, and there was no way to prove otherwise; after-all the advertising lady had given them to everybody. Oddly it was precisely that point that made the pen important to me. I was a temp, but I wanted to be permanent. I’d been bouncing between temp jobs for a year. I’d been here for three months, but I knew I wasn’t part of the team yet. That the ad lady had not seen this, that she had included me with the rest of the office; that meant something to me. Besides, it was a really good pen.

            My mantra was having a most singular effect on me and not pleasantly so. If I had been less obsessed, I would have noticed that I was shrinking, but of course if I had been less obsessed I wouldn’t have been shrinking. My hair already thick brown hair was getting bushier by the expletive and my skin was getting darker. It turned not a natural dark but a grayish dry looking color as if I was old past reckoning and had spent more then too much time in the sun and followed that by wallowing in clay. And did I mention that I was shrinking? Because I was really getting small. The phone was larger than my head when I pulled out a notebook and set it on top of my desk out of the way of my search. The process accelerated the smaller I got. When I was no taller than my desk, I stood on my chair for a better angle into the drawer. Finally, as I was reaching toward the back of the drawer, I fell in. During the fall I rapidly shrank to a size no larger then an apple.

            The fall did nothing to slow my search, so obsessed had I become to recover the pen that couldn’t possibly be there. Un-phased by my sudden change in stature and position, I wandered restlessly through piles of notebooks taller than I was and slightly abused paperback books featuring dragons and scantily clad heroes on the front covers, evidence of my not so secret enthrallment with sci-fi and fantasy. Nothing about my over-sized world struck me as odd, not because of the aforementioned enthrallment with sci-fi, but rather because it wasn’t important. The only matter of importance was finding my pen, the one with an easy comfort, rubber grip with soft white shading and shiny blue letters on its side and smooth writing action.

            I nearly cut myself on the sharp metal edge of an otherwise wood ruler. Why do they make the things like that anyway? In a fit of anger at it, I kicked it and stubbed my toe so then I was limping through the drawer. If I’d still been human I would probably have been embarrassed, of course I wasn’t human. I’d become an office goblin under a spell of obsession. I limped without dignity. I grumbled and cursed every pain filled step. Pens and pencils littered the hardwood floor, but none was the pen I sought, the one with an easy comfort, rubber grip with soft white shading and shiny blue letters on its side and a perfect twist out ball-point with smooth writing action. The need I felt for this pen left no room for the fact that, from my current perspective, the pens were all too big to use.

            By this point the drawer was proving to possess much more room then any respectable drawer ought to have. There was an ambient light coming from several glow-in-the-dark items stashed randomly in the drawer including glow-in-the-dark nail polish and Harry Potter Band-aids with glowing lightening bolts. This lovely green luminescence was not enough to keep me from tripping, ass over tea kettle, over an obstacle in my path. I tumbled and bumped my butt-bone badly. The pain was accompanied by a flash of rage. Typically, I wasn’t upset over the injury but rather the delay in my search. The anger vanished in a giggle fit upon seeing what it was I had tripped over.

            A fuzzy white rabbit body girded with a ridiculous pink tou-tou and mounted on top of an equally fuzzy pink pen with purple polka dots lay mocking the seriousness of my pen-hunt with its sheer silliness. I had bought this pen to harass my cousin. I’d waved it in her face, giggling while I asked her if she was sure she didn’t want it as it was so professional looking. The look she’d given me then was worth a thousand words. I wish I’d had a camera. I had proceeded to taunt her by singing “Little Bunny FooFoo.” (It’s amazing I’ve survived as long as I have.) Little could I have guessed that this “serious” pen would save my life, breaking the spell of my obsession, though not the goblin transformation, with laughter. It just goes to show one should take every opportunity to harass one’s cousins. (Though I’d advise against singing Little Bunny FooFoo.)

            Spell broken I gawked shamelessly at my surroundings. The smell of the air tickled my nose being both stale and magically infused. My memory of recent events was hazy at best. I was left with the knowledge that I was in the bottom drawer of my desk, but I had no idea how long I had been here and only a vague notion of which direction might lead back to the opening. This was devastatingly important because I had obviously fallen into a catch-all drawer, one of those magically spacious drawers that had no relationship to physics and so could go on forever in every direction. The opening could be anywhere and would only appear when I reached the currently manifested section of the drawer.

            While taking inventory of my situation I caught sight of my horribly wizened arms. With a lump in my gut, I sought and found a mirror. It was a broken make-up mirror in an old wallet purse, but it was all I needed. My reflection did not ease the lump in my gut but instead twisted it rather painfully. A shaggy mass of unruly wheat colored hair replaced my relatively controlled brown locks. The overlarge violet eyes might have looked more enchanting then my basic brown if they hadn’t been in a small pinched, angry looking face. Hunched shoulders and a wiry frame to which overlarge calloused hands and fingers were attached completed a picture of mild nightmare. During my transformation, my slacks had shrunk down smaller than they should have making them tight high-waters. My blouse was equally tight and uncomfortable. I sat down on a nearby hacky sac to think things through.

            Becoming a goblin was rarely an irreversible process, but the longer I stayed a goblin, the harder it would be to change back. Catch-all drawers also had a nasty reputation for swallowing objects. They naturally shift their interior every night and anything newly caught is stuck for at least a year and a day. This made my troubles double with a time limit. I couldn’t, even if I knew how, change back until I found my way out of the catch-all because the manifested space wouldn’t be large enough to fit in when I was normal size. Also if I stayed in the catch-all till sunset I might never get out –not to mention I could get fired. I had no idea how long I’d been in the drawer. I started to get angry thinking about all this, but I fell off the hacky sac and had to laugh again. After I stopped laughing, I recalled that goblins can only feel two emotions- anger and mirth. Anger led to obsession and could leave me wandering about the drawer mindlessly again. Something tickled my mind about mirth, but I couldn’t quite remember it. It had something to do with the cure, I knew.

             I set the thought aside and decided to look for the way out. Knowing how easy it would be to slide into obsession, I took care to notice my surroundings as I searched.

Good thing too, because even while paying attention I nearly got sucked in to a black hole. I was circling a baseball mitt that had me really confused when I almost walked right into it. It didn’t take me long feeling that unrelenting pull to realize the swirling black disc in front of me was a black hole. I’d grabbed the glove the minute I’d started to slide. Hanging onto the glove, I managed to pull myself around the corner. A black-hole is a dangerous vortex that sucks things into no-one knows where and rarely returns them.

            Sitting there panting, leaning against that confusing baseball mitt, hiding from a black hole, I had a sudden inspiration. After a quick look around I spotted what I was looking for- dog tags. I proceeded on the trail moving from a resplendent costume necklace to a man’s ring. After that it was a sock, followed of course by another sock (not its mate as socks never run off together). Next it was a Spiderman action figure. For a moment I was stymied looking for the next object, but then I realized the action figure had been a false trail. I’d brought it to work with me for fun after the movie came out. I backtracked and spotted some jax, from there I continued following the trail of objects that didn’t belong. They became more frequent as I went, so I knew I was on the right track. Sure enough, after the doll clothes, my dog’s missing toenail clippers, and a whole bath towel I found it. A worm hole!

            I ran to the white swirling disc and jumped through laughing. I hit something indefinably solid and was subsequently thrown back the way I’d come. I was furious and jumped again into the hole and was again tossed out. I jumped up and down in rage before once again leaping. This was the beginning of a pattern. I jumped into the hole over and over again, only to be thrown, tossed, and shot back the way I’d come. I did this until I was too tired to move, though I have to admit the last three times were more for the fun of my aerial acrobatics. I had to face the truth; this was not a worm hole, but the lesser known and lesser appreciated white hole. (I really ought to pay more attention when people are trying to tell me important things.)

            There are some theories about a connection between white-holes and black-holes but nothing has been proven so far. Other theorists believe moving companies are connected. The speed at which objects fly from a white hole combined with the rate of disappearance of objects during a move tends to support this notion, but again, nothing has been proven as yet. My brother is convinced a white hole is the reason so much crap lands on his desk, but I’ve told him that’s not likely. White holes generally spout items of an extraordinarily random nature.

            As I stood there facing down the anger that was building again, a sock hit me in the face and a super-ball made a near miss, bouncing out of control through the drawer behind me. In front of me the white-hole, free of my interference, shot items out at random intervals. Whatever, this was not what I had been hoping for. I moved quickly out of the area to avoid the coffee cup now flying through the air.

            “What am I going to do now,” I huffed to myself angrily. There was nothing for it but to continue my search. I really tried to keep from obsessing, honestly, but it was inevitable being that I was still a goblin. My new obsession was the opening. It wasn’t long before I was racing around staring at the ceiling and tripping over every paperclip that got in my way. I would like to blame my goblin demeanor for the following actions, and so I stand in firm denial of the level of stupidity I next achieved.

            You see, a clutter collector raced in front of me, once more sending me tumbling. My initial thought, after the requisite flash of rage, was honestly that the clutter collector would be able to lead me to the exit. Clutter collectors are tiny six legged furry creatures related to dust bunnies that run freely between mystical and non-mystical places. They collect anything that’s allowed to sit for too long and deposit the items at their chosen nest site, usually a flat surface like a table or counter but sometimes a cupboard or drawer. It stood to reason that either the clutter collector had its nest in my office or it visited my office to steal items for its nest. If I followed it, it should eventually lead me to the exit. What I hadn’t counted on was that the item the clutter collector was carrying was my pen. I hadn’t seen it at first because the clutter collector had been pushing it, and all I saw was its receding back-side. When it turned a corner, I saw it was pushing my pen, the one with an easy comfort, rubber grip with soft white shading and shiny blue letters on its side and a perfect twist out ball-point with smooth writing action writing in jet black ink that would form a line neither too thin and refined nor too thick and sloppy.

            All thoughts of escape from the drawer vanished in a flash of renewed obsession. What followed was the most ridiculous chase scene ever to pass un-witnessed. The clutter collector saw me following, and, in not un-called for paranoia for its stolen booty, picked up the pen with three legs, raising it over its head while running on the other three. When running on three legs, clutter collectors tend to be slightly off balance and often end up spinning. So a spinning clutter collector with a pen raised over its head making equally dizzy loops ran as fast as it could to escape a grasping goblin. I, the grasping goblin, was forced to duck every so often to avoid being clunked on the head with the object of my affection and would subsequently lunge after said object inevitably tripping on my own feet and end having to start the chase all over again. During this odd scene the opening of the drawer flashed over my head, blocked only by a large reaching hand. I snapped irritably at the hand as it brushed my head while aiming for a stapler. My teeth met flesh and I tasted blood. I continued past the opening ignoring the yelp of pain I’d inspired without a second glance, intent on the fuzzy creature in front of me making off with my pen.

            I finally caught up enough with the clutter collector to get involved in a tug of war over the pen. With six legs it had a decided advantage over me in traction. We hit something slimy on the ground and I slipped, losing my grip on the pen and skidding across the drawer to smash up against an oddly shaped log. The crash left me dazed and I watched the clutter collector race off through a muddled haze. When my senses cleared, enough distance was between us that I could once again recognize my surroundings and remember my conundrum.

            Ironically the solution I’d been looking for earlier was now a part of my scenery. A worm hole, swirling dark brown and starry faced me across the clearing where I had fought with the clutter collector and slipped. It didn’t look anything like the white hole. I had no idea where the worm hole could be expected to come out. Likewise, now that I recalled my mind, I remembered passing the drawer opening. Maybe I ought to try retracing my steps was a question that circled my head. I faced the ultimate decision. I sat down on another hacky-sac (you’d be surprised how many had disappeared on me over the years) to try and decide whether I should take the wormhole, though there was no telling where it would take me, or if I should take my chances on finding the opening of the drawer.

             I would very likely lose my job if the worm hole took me too far from the office. Of course, I had no idea how long I’d already been in the drawer and whether or not I’d been missed yet. In fact, to my chagrin, I recalled biting that hand which had looked all too much like my boss’s hand. (This is the main complaint about office goblins. They are usually the culprits when you reach into a drawer and get stabbed or bit by something.) That meant somebody (please not my boss) had already been checking around my desk. Yet on the other hand, what if I couldn’t find the opening and couldn’t re-locate the wormhole? I could be stuck for a year and a day. A wave of indecision washed over me. My body began to seize up and grow bark. I was turning into a stump. It was too much; I started to laugh great horrible gasping laughs that became a bizarre cross between laughing and crying. You know how laughing can do that to you; it can free up all the bottled up emotion and change from laughs to sobs with no recognizable break.

            Immediately changes rippled through my system. My skin gained some real color again and I started to feel heavier. My arms started to grow and my feet got huge. I finally grasped what was happening and broke the stump spell by making the only real choice I had. I’d broken the goblin spell by crying. Now I had to go through the worm-hole because I’d never get out the drawer entrance as a full sized human.

            While the last vestiges of the stump spell were still fading and before the goblin reversal had fully transpired, I fought stiff joints and legs that had tried to grow roots to reach the worm-hole opening. As I struggled I heard a strange muffled giggle/sob. Though my situation was getting desperate, I turned my head and in one of my finest leaps of intuition, I grabbed the object I saw before making a final push for the wormhole. It was heavy, but it came quickly when snagged into the gravity of the wormhole. It was almost too cliché at first, all swirling lights. Alternative passages flashed by but, not knowing which might be the best, I simply stayed on the straightest route. Then I started to understand why they’re called wormholes. It meandered around slowly and then began to get narrower and oddly dirtier. Dirt started drifting down into my hair, which bothered me more than it should have under the circumstances, but, in my defense, I had only just got back my own soft and shiny brown locks as opposed to the dry splendor of goblin hair. I almost turned around when I saw the wormhole abruptly narrow into a tiny dirty crawl space. I persevered, however, and the object I’d snagged continued to float complacently behind me.

            Finally, squeezing through a hole that no mental maneuvering could ever picture a full size human being fitting through, I came free of the wormhole—or I thought I was free. No I was definitely free. I reached back through the impossible hole which really did look like it was made by a worm, imagine that, to tug free my prize. To the untrained eye it looked to be an oddly shaped log with a big knob on it. To me it looked like an oddly shaped old log with a big knob on it, but it had giggled, and now it did it again. I though for a minute, then gave it a good solid kick. It was a guess as to the cure, but it worked. The bump-on-the-log turned into a young woman about my age.

            Susan explained that she was the previous temp and almost the exact same thing had happened to her—minus a few of my more embarrassing goofs, except she had been unable to laugh at the situation and had instead gotten angrier. After sunset the drawer had shifted her away from the wormhole and she changed from being stumped to being a bump-on-the-log. (Indecision will do that to you.) Over the course of the year, she had shifted throughout the drawer and just watched the world go by, somewhat literally. Her experience forced patience and a sense of humor on her so she was able to giggle when I came along just in time for the end of her year and a day drawer stay to be over.

            I asked her if she’d jumped into the white hole and she gave me a quelling look.    “Why would I do that?” she asked.

            “You didn’t think it might be a worm hole?” I suggested tentatively.  

            “Worm holes have slimy worm tracks leading up to them. (So that was what I’d slipped in.) “They swirl brown like dirt with shiny lights like the sun reflecting off dew.” “White holes, which swirl with a pearlescent white glow, oppose black holes and are usually found in the same vicinity.” Her pedantic, stuffy tone made me think she hadn’t spent enough time in the drawer. I comforted myself by knowing smarty-pants didn’t know all the theories about white holes- even if knowing them hadn’t done me any good.

            When she finished her lecture, a quick exploration revealed that we really had come clear of the worm hole and had ended up in the Seattle underground. We surreptitiously blended with a tour group, receiving a glare from the tour guide who could only guess we’d snuck in somehow. I found a clock in the entrance and discovered the whole adventure had only lasted just a little longer then lunch. The thought of which reminded me that I was starving. Luckily I’d stuck some cash in my pocket when I left in the morning, so I could stop at McDonalds on the way back to work. I felt a little ridiculous because my stupid slacks hadn’t quite returned to full length, but then it could be worse I thought as I looked at Susan and noticed she seemed to have the same problem with her blouse. I asked her if she wanted to stop and get a new one and she looked at me blankly.

            “What’s wrong with this one?” she asked and I kept my mouth shut.

            The office of course didn’t believe my story and fired me. My hamburger breath and salty finger-tips probably hadn’t helped my case; However, my boss was sporting a fresh bandage on his hand which he rubbed surreptitiously during my story while flashing me a dirty look. This suggests it wasn’t entirely disbelief that got me fired. Susan cheerfully renewed her acquaintances and after my bad luck wisely refrained from telling her story completely. She explained merely that she went through some bad times, hit rock bottom and had required an emergency sabbatical. She went on to say how much better she was feeling and after some coy leans in the boss’s direction and a few flirty smiles, she had her old job—till recently my job—back. No, the shirt clearly hadn’t shrunk in the transformation and I was probably better off without the job. Such is life. Hopefully I’ll have better luck at my next job.

PS—I never did get my pen back.