The Supervisor
By Christian Riley
Two hours ago, I crept up behind my supervisor, drew my forty-five caliber handgun to the back of his head, and blew his last remaining thought into a scrambled heap upon his desk.
I have never so much as killed anything larger than a fish, and would like to say that I am not a madman, but at this point I’m not too sure anymore. The authorities will definitely think so. They will find me soon on this stormy Christmas Eve, sitting here in this restaurant eating Kung Pao Chicken, and then haul me away like an animal, where I will ultimately be thrown into some remote asylum you or I have never heard of.
Hard to blame them really. One just doesn’t walk into their place of employment and murder their supervisor, then receive a light sentence for “temporarily losing his mind.” Not in this day and age. My life is over, this I know, but as God is my witness, I would have it no other way. For you see, in truth, the real crime here was how I let that horrendous monster, my supervisor, take from me all that any man could ever live for.
The seeds of my guilt were planted several months ago, during the affectionate unfolding of summer’s tide. Teddy White transferred to our backwater town of Issaquah, Washington, from our company’s headquarters near downtown Seattle. He was our new, fearless leader in our charge through the sea of web development, and much to our dismay, seemed as proverbial to the notion of diplomacy as one would expect from a guy like him. It was, of course, no stretch of our imagination how we silently dubbed him “The Great White,” as we talked amongst ourselves in our circles…
The Great White wants you to email that progress report to Advanced Cycle Systems…now!
The Great White just gave me that condescending smile in the break room…yeah, yeah…that’s the one.
Some of Ted’s annoyances could have been more palatable if it were not for the fact that he was always delegating his duties to us. At what point does the act of “delegation,” that icon of proficiency gaggled over by upper management, bring with it a relevant salary? That’s the question we would often ask ourselves in the break room, as we made sport of the topic. But it was during one of these comic reliefs, while Ben Jukowski was reproducing one of Ted’s ridiculous demands with flawless appeal, that I caught my first glimpse of something strange about Ted…something not quite right .
I had stood up from the chair I was in, still laughing while Ben went on with his routine, and then proceeded to walk out of the break room to use the toilet. Standing there silently, around the corner, was Ted. He had caught me by surprise, most definitely; in fact, I had even jumped a bit, which I noticed brought a moment of pleasure to his eyes.
“Having fun, Dan?”
That’s what he said to me, a question I had no answer for. I tucked my head with embarrassment, and cowered my way to the restroom, anxiety washing over me from the awkwardness of it all. As expected, I fretted over the incident for quite some time, worried about how Ted would handle being the target of our jokes. But it was during this moment of anxiety that I discovered that “something” about Ted. I had remembered seeing a look on his face that was quite disturbing, during that brief moment as I walked around the corner. He had quickly concealed the face with a smile, before he posed his question to me, but I had glimpsed enough of that gesture to award me with a haunted feeling for days to come. The only word I could think of as I tried to rationalize my observation of Ted was sinister .
Just as alarming was the fact that Ted never mentioned the incident to me, or any of us in the office again. Of course, I alerted the others to how I caught Ted spying on our conversation, which had us all speculating when the man would bring the hammer down. But there was no change in his demeanor. Nothing new, for better or for worse, that
By Christian Riley
Two hours ago, I crept up behind my supervisor, drew my forty-five caliber handgun to the back of his head, and blew his last remaining thought into a scrambled heap upon his desk.
I have never so much as killed anything larger than a fish, and would like to say that I am not a madman, but at this point I’m not too sure anymore. The authorities will definitely think so. They will find me soon on this stormy Christmas Eve, sitting here in this restaurant eating Kung Pao Chicken, and then haul me away like an animal, where I will ultimately be thrown into some remote asylum you or I have never heard of.
Hard to blame them really. One just doesn’t walk into their place of employment and murder their supervisor, then receive a light sentence for “temporarily losing his mind.” Not in this day and age. My life is over, this I know, but as God is my witness, I would have it no other way. For you see, in truth, the real crime here was how I let that horrendous monster, my supervisor, take from me all that any man could ever live for.
The seeds of my guilt were planted several months ago, during the affectionate unfolding of summer’s tide. Teddy White transferred to our backwater town of Issaquah, Washington, from our company’s headquarters near downtown Seattle. He was our new, fearless leader in our charge through the sea of web development, and much to our dismay, seemed as proverbial to the notion of diplomacy as one would expect from a guy like him. It was, of course, no stretch of our imagination how we silently dubbed him “The Great White,” as we talked amongst ourselves in our circles…
The Great White wants you to email that progress report to Advanced Cycle Systems…now!
The Great White just gave me that condescending smile in the break room…yeah, yeah…that’s the one.
Some of Ted’s annoyances could have been more palatable if it were not for the fact that he was always delegating his duties to us. At what point does the act of “delegation,” that icon of proficiency gaggled over by upper management, bring with it a relevant salary? That’s the question we would often ask ourselves in the break room, as we made sport of the topic. But it was during one of these comic reliefs, while Ben Jukowski was reproducing one of Ted’s ridiculous demands with flawless appeal, that I caught my first glimpse of something strange about Ted…something not quite right .
I had stood up from the chair I was in, still laughing while Ben went on with his routine, and then proceeded to walk out of the break room to use the toilet. Standing there silently, around the corner, was Ted. He had caught me by surprise, most definitely; in fact, I had even jumped a bit, which I noticed brought a moment of pleasure to his eyes.
“Having fun, Dan?”
That’s what he said to me, a question I had no answer for. I tucked my head with embarrassment, and cowered my way to the restroom, anxiety washing over me from the awkwardness of it all. As expected, I fretted over the incident for quite some time, worried about how Ted would handle being the target of our jokes. But it was during this moment of anxiety that I discovered that “something” about Ted. I had remembered seeing a look on his face that was quite disturbing, during that brief moment as I walked around the corner. He had quickly concealed the face with a smile, before he posed his question to me, but I had glimpsed enough of that gesture to award me with a haunted feeling for days to come. The only word I could think of as I tried to rationalize my observation of Ted was sinister .
Just as alarming was the fact that Ted never mentioned the incident to me, or any of us in the office again. Of course, I alerted the others to how I caught Ted spying on our conversation, which had us all speculating when the man would bring the hammer down. But there was no change in his demeanor. Nothing new, for better or for worse, that
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