Those Days

       I thought the war was bad. Then they sent me here. In my five weeks at the Bytherian Institute of Curious Happenings I have been beaten, shot at, nearly exploded, and generally accosted on a regular basis. My job, specifically, is to guard the door to the Inevitability Department. It is a job which Felix, the department head, has assured me is both entirely pointless, and absolutely necessary. Such, he said, is the nature of the department.

       I spend the day sitting at the desk to the left of the door. The door itself, so I am told, was built many hundreds of years ago in this exact spot. No building, just the door. A grand, single cut of oak, with gold filigree, so intricate as to appear fractal, adorning it's edge. Later, when BICH acquired the land and began to build, they found that the door was exactly where the door to the Inevitability Department was supposed to go, so they let it be. Now it is the door to my nightmares.

       My first week here, there was the Cupcake Incident, which was not at all as enjoyable as one may think. Two days later our floor of the building experienced intermittent periods of “lackluster.” When I called Felix, a bit excitedly, given I had just seen most of the color drain out of the world, he said “just wait until you see your first full blown blackout!” Throw in the odd explosion, some hallucinations, and a mere 15 minute lunch break, and you have a standard day at the office.

       I'm writing this because I don't know how much more I can take. I am almost certain I'm going to die here, and probably within a week, perhaps sooner if another dessert bursts through the door with intent to kill. Felix says there's no point in worrying, because whatever is going to happen will, whether I whine or not. I do not like Felix. If I do meet my end here, could you, as the reader of this... whatever this is, tell my mother I died at war. I am sure that will sound more noble than however I snuff it here.

Thanks,

Tacken Polt

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       Tack set down the pen and leaned back. Even the comfort of his chair couldn't mask what he had felt since stepping into the building that morning. It was going to be one of those days.