If you read yesterday’s short story I wrote for my fiction writing class, you may have wanted more. Today you can get a free short story part two. Just scroll down.
Good news! I have another short story for you, following the one I shared with you yesterday! And this is a genuine story by me, Andy Zach, author of Zombie Turkeys.
Here Is My Free Short Story Part Two
Entitled:
My Crummy Job at the Bureau of Resurrection
I sighed as I got off the transport path and walked through the force field entrance to work at the Bureau of Resurrection. It wasn’t merely that my job bored me, every day. It was my stupid boss too. He never gave us a bit of freedom to do anything new! Everything had to be strictly to regulations. If you violated one, you got a warning. Twice, and a note went into your file with a second warning. The third time, you were fired. Or worse, I might be demoted to running errands for the other clerks.
I shuddered. All of us Bureau agents looked down on the messengers and errand runners. They were the lowest of the low: uneducated, stupid and slow. To become one of them was to become less. Especially in the eyes of my coworkers. The humiliation! I couldn’t bear it.
So I bore the daily grind instead. I strolled by the lines of applicants already lined up, waiting to be processed. Hundreds of species, each dumber than the last. If they knew anything, they’d know how to apply for a resurrection permit themselves!
Of course, when I graduated from Galactic University with my degree in Galactic Bureaucracy five planetary revolutions ago, I was young and naive. I thought this government job was ideal: high paying, secure, and easy. I quickly learned what a regulation filled landmine the job was. Not to mention the office politics! Most of my coworkers would gladly stab me in the back to advance to the next rung, Senior Agent. Well, I’m a quick learner. I beat them to it.
Mid-Story Break
I sat at my office desk and gazed with despair at the long line stretching out the entrance. There was a day’s work in just what I could see! I took the first sentient, a rather hideous pseudopod, leaving a trail of slime. Apparently it spoke by eyestalk gestures, for the Universal Translator spoke, “I’ve come for a Resurrection Permit.”
As I processed it, I glanced down the line and tried to guess the phylum of each species. Reptilia. Animated plant, some kind of whale, fungi, and a human. A wide-eyed, tight-faced human. He might be interesting to process.
I watched him from the corner of my eye as I went through the routine background checks. Yep. He showed all the signs of impatience. Most species had no concept of impatience. They endured events as they happened. Humans always felt they could control things. Silly man.
I took as long as I could with that applicant. I waited as long as I could until the next, reading my email while seeming to record data. Then I processed the lizard.
He/She/It—the species changed gender for the sake of fashion—was especially complicated. I had a lot of forms to fill out and regulations to follow. Goody! The human’s face was getting tighter and tighter. I think he was gritting his teeth as well as tapping his foot!
Now the plant. No gender; I had to use the asexual forms. The plant communicated by emitting scents, which was especially slow. I had to hold back my grin. I was going to make it! My break would be here before I got to the impatient human! He’d have to stare at my empty desk for fifteen minutes before I came back. And I could probably stretch it to twenty minutes!
I would never admit it, but sometimes I love my crummy job!
Closing Comments by Andy
Finally, I’d never admit this to anyone, but I love my own writing. Ironically, for this short story, so did my wife. When I read it to her, she laughed out loud. She is my harshest critic, you see.
So, what do you think? Post a reply below, or send me a comment directly. I can always post more short stories. I am a writer. I’ve got a million of them!
