Algernon Adkins

Algernon Adkins rocked backwards and forwards on his heels listlessly, hazel eyes wide with innocent curiosity as he regarded the large building in front of him. He raised a slender arm, and his watch emerged from beneath his sleeve like an animal creeping from a cave. The time was, he observed, 8.58 am. It was probably too early for him to go in yet, he decided, and so instead he watched a pigeon battling a sandwich. A while later he once again regarded his watch, cheap jewel set amidst a forest of arm-hair, and found that it was 9.04 am.

A bit late, he thought. Excellent. That's what employers are looking for – someone who lives on the edge. A busy man, someone who doesn't suffer fools gladly, and might not turn up to work one day because he has far more important business to attend to.

He gazed for a moment more at the fat pigeon, before dragging himself away to enter the building.

It was an awfully large foyer, panelled in what Adkins could only assumed were panels, giving the place an airy feeling of regularity and soft monotony. Sitting behind the smooth desk in front of him was a smooth man in a beige tie with a face so creamy one might almost dip a finger in it. Adkins, however, resisted the impulse. Mastery of ones self is the key to being a good employ, he told himself, smiling at the creamy man. 

"Hello," he said, and the receptionist pulled a smile that was genuine and warm. "I'm here for a job." 

"Your name?" 

Adkins told him, and the creamy face swivelled to a computer screen, where it was satisfied, and the smile broadened, double cream.

"Floor seven, Petron will meet you there."

As Algernon Adkins wandered away, straightening his tie, the cream-man, whose name was Jonstone, watched him go, and he grinned wider and his cream face dried and cracked.