RING RING
"Hello, Jaxley, Smith and Cone, this is Melon speaking, how may I direct your call?" Melon's sweet voice permeated Helomoto's dream and he quickly woke up.
"It's odd," he thought, "I didn't think I would need to sleep as an object, but I am grateful for the respite, for the break from my reality."
Who would've thought staplers dreamt, let alone slept.
He was relieved to see Melon working away at her desk and was comforted to see the usual rustle and bustle of the office. He took a better look around. There were several cubicles containing workers hunched over their computers. More employees seemed to be darting from room to room. Some of them were huddled into a corner which, as far as he could see, contained a Xerox machine, Coffee pot, hole puncher etc.
There were 4 offices behind glass doors. One was a conference room in which 5 people were visibly arguing, one of the other 3 had its blinds down, but Helomoto could tell they were personal offices.
He looked at the entryway. "Jaxley, Smith and Cone" was engraved in the glass door.
"This is a law office," he muttered.
"Couldn't he have come back as a stapler in say, an entertainment office, or a news room?" he thought.
His eyes rolled HARD as concrete and he tried to think of whom and how he would send his letter of complaint.
"How was last night?" One of the employees had walked over from her cubicle to chat with Melon.
Helomoto zoomed into the nameplate on her cubicle.
"CheGuevara Nose, Paralegal," it wrote.
"Ughh girl, let me tell you, I DO NOT trust men. He ghosted me," admitted Melon. There was a twinge of pain and disappointment in her voice.
"I'm sorry! I promise you'll find someone worth your time!" Che exclaimed.
"That's easy for you to say! Look at you!" replied Melon.
Helomoto looked more closely at "Che." She was tall, blonde and had an athletic build. Her eyes were the color of honey. She had a very carefree attitude and Helomoto noticed she spent much of her time bantering at her coworker's cubicles. She was lucky she was a feisty, natural beauty, because she did not invest too much in her personal hygiene, Helomoto noted as he analyzed her dank nails.
"Stinky…." he muttered.
As stinky as she was he could not help but notice how much she resembled a white Arabian horse with her golden hair, golden eyes and golden skin. She skipped around the drab office gracefully like one too.
"How can I turn your mood around? Come on girl!" Che questioned, trying her best to flip around Melon's frown.
"You cannnnnn…..finally tell me the story behind your name again," Melon requested sweetly.
"Anything but that!!" Responded Che and Melon shook her head.
"Ugh fine. My mother was a fan of cuban cigars and communism, only "in theory" though," she mentioned, making air quotes as she spoke, " My dad was an olfactory scientist- thought it would be funny to name me after the body part he studied," she rolled her eyes. "This is the explanation they gave me but I think they were just stoned when they filled out my birth certificate." She turned purple.
As it turns out, poor CheGuevara Nose was the only member of the family who did not share the Johnson namesake.
Melon's frown melted and she roared with laughter.
Even Helomoto cracked a smile. "What stupidity!" he said.
"Mel, I want these reports sorted alphabetically and placed on my desk in an hour. Nose, have you finished your research on the Brown case yet?" a catty voice hissed.
A stack of files hit Melon's desk.
Helomoto turned to look at the owner of the voice.
At that moment it happened. Helomoto was convinced he was looking at the devil herself.
A devilishly beautiful woman stood in front of him. She was sharply dressed in a Tiffany-blue dress suit- not a wrinkle in sight. She wore a white gold necklace with a single pearl at the center. Her jet black hair was slickly pulled back tugging back her piercing green eyes into an upturned almond shape. She smelled strongly of YSL's Obsidian perfume and a healthy okra breakfast.
Helomoto felt chills go up his spine.
"I need these done STAT!" She yelled once more before turning back to make a beeline to her office. She occupied one of the offices behind the glass doors, the one with the blinds down.
"As you wish, Maam!" Che exclaimed ironically behind the woman's back and the girls chuckled.
Helomoto had a bad taste in his mouth.