Ficlets: The Office, Almost Famous
Ficlets!
outer space without the stars
The Office
Andy. Dwight. Post-The Job. 435 words.
Andy and Dwight repaint Michael's office on Saturday morning. Turns out it takes a lot of coats of paint to turn jet black into pea soup green. It's May and when they open all the windows for ventilation, the air that comes in is warm and just a little humid.
"Summertime.......... and the livin' is eee-EE-asy," Andy sings while he paints. He doesn't mind being at work on a weekend; sometimes you have to go above and beyond to show that you're star material, and he knows Michael will see that. Even if he cut Andy off when he started explaining when he and Dwight were going to come in and told him to stop being boring and just get it done. (That was the day Michael spent the whole afternoon staring mournfully at the copy of his condo key he'd just had made, while thinly telling everyone how awesome it was going to be to have a live-in girlfriend.)
Besides, it's not like there's a whole lot to do in Scranton on a Saturday morning otherwise. Ultimate Frisbee teams are pretty thin on the ground in the old PA, and those guys at the rec center are jerks anyway.
"Andy," snaps Dwight from the other wall. "No singing."
"Righto," says Andy. "My bad. Your choice, any requests?"
"No," says Dwight. "We work in silence." Andy watches his own roller go up and down the wall, leaving little spongey marks behind. The breeze through the open window makes the blinds clack, and he concentrates on not humming.
"T-t-teacher stop that screaming, teacher don't you see?" says Dwight suddenly. And by says, Andy means sings. His eyebrows go up and he looks over his shoulder at Dwight, who's standing on a chair and painting along the untaped ceiling (according to Dwight, painter's tape is for the weak).
"Don't wanna be no uptown fool," Dwight sings and Andy knows his cue to join in when he hears it.
"Maybe I should go to hell. But I'm doin' well." He bobs his roller in time, which makes paint splatter a little on the rug (he rubs it in with his toe) and his Cornell t-shirt (good thing he has spares). "Teacher needs to see me after school." He harmonizes at the end, which makes Dwight glare a little through his glasses. That guy needs to learn to appreciate the vocal arts.
They go through the rest of Andy's Van Halen repertoire while they work, the green covering up the black, sunlight glinting off their windshields in the parking lot.
**
Very belated birthday fic for honey_wheeler, who requested Almost Famous, Anita, what it's really like to be a stewardess.
your entire future
Almost Famous
Anita. 300 words.
Listen to Tommy with a candle burning and you will see your entire future.
Madison, St. Paul, Duluth. She gets her uniform, her wings, a rolling suitcase of her own. Heels that clack up and down the jetway. Hundreds of miles between her and her mother.
Kansas City, San Antonio, Des Moines. She gets spit on by her first passenger. The co-pilot gives her a scornful look when he catches her crying. Shelley, a girl from Jackson, Mississippi with a honey-colored accent hooks her arm through Anita's and tells her they're going to be best friends.
Tampa, Atlanta, Huntsville. She and Shelley get switched to different routes. She sends William a postcard with the lyrics to Simon & Garfunkel's America on the back. In a hotel bar she meets Jack, who becomes the second guy she's ever slept with, after Darryl. "Gotta ship right out again, right?" he says afterward, laughing. "That's the way I like my girls, gone in the morning."
Roanoke, Pittsburgh, Boston. No one knows it's her birthday; there's icy rain in Boston and turbulence when they take off. "San Diego," she says, when a passenger asks where home is. It feels far.
**
On her first day at stewardess training, Anita leaned over to the girl next to her, thinking gleefully of all the things her mom wouldn't approve of if she were here: the nylons she's wearing (tools of the patriarchy), the white flour in the muffin she just ate (poisoning her body), the chemicals in her hairspray (destroying the earth).
"I am so glad to be here," she said. "If I didn't get out of my house I was going to go crazy."
"Tell me about it," said the girl, who was blonde and skinny. "Hey, can you tell how much makeup I have on?" she said, lowering her voice. "My stepdad gave me the worst black eye last week."
"... no," said Anita. "Nope, it looks great."
outer space without the stars
The Office
Andy. Dwight. Post-The Job. 435 words.
Andy and Dwight repaint Michael's office on Saturday morning. Turns out it takes a lot of coats of paint to turn jet black into pea soup green. It's May and when they open all the windows for ventilation, the air that comes in is warm and just a little humid.
"Summertime.......... and the livin' is eee-EE-asy," Andy sings while he paints. He doesn't mind being at work on a weekend; sometimes you have to go above and beyond to show that you're star material, and he knows Michael will see that. Even if he cut Andy off when he started explaining when he and Dwight were going to come in and told him to stop being boring and just get it done. (That was the day Michael spent the whole afternoon staring mournfully at the copy of his condo key he'd just had made, while thinly telling everyone how awesome it was going to be to have a live-in girlfriend.)
Besides, it's not like there's a whole lot to do in Scranton on a Saturday morning otherwise. Ultimate Frisbee teams are pretty thin on the ground in the old PA, and those guys at the rec center are jerks anyway.
"Andy," snaps Dwight from the other wall. "No singing."
"Righto," says Andy. "My bad. Your choice, any requests?"
"No," says Dwight. "We work in silence." Andy watches his own roller go up and down the wall, leaving little spongey marks behind. The breeze through the open window makes the blinds clack, and he concentrates on not humming.
"T-t-teacher stop that screaming, teacher don't you see?" says Dwight suddenly. And by says, Andy means sings. His eyebrows go up and he looks over his shoulder at Dwight, who's standing on a chair and painting along the untaped ceiling (according to Dwight, painter's tape is for the weak).
"Don't wanna be no uptown fool," Dwight sings and Andy knows his cue to join in when he hears it.
"Maybe I should go to hell. But I'm doin' well." He bobs his roller in time, which makes paint splatter a little on the rug (he rubs it in with his toe) and his Cornell t-shirt (good thing he has spares). "Teacher needs to see me after school." He harmonizes at the end, which makes Dwight glare a little through his glasses. That guy needs to learn to appreciate the vocal arts.
They go through the rest of Andy's Van Halen repertoire while they work, the green covering up the black, sunlight glinting off their windshields in the parking lot.
**
Very belated birthday fic for honey_wheeler, who requested Almost Famous, Anita, what it's really like to be a stewardess.
your entire future
Almost Famous
Anita. 300 words.
Listen to Tommy with a candle burning and you will see your entire future.
Madison, St. Paul, Duluth. She gets her uniform, her wings, a rolling suitcase of her own. Heels that clack up and down the jetway. Hundreds of miles between her and her mother.
Kansas City, San Antonio, Des Moines. She gets spit on by her first passenger. The co-pilot gives her a scornful look when he catches her crying. Shelley, a girl from Jackson, Mississippi with a honey-colored accent hooks her arm through Anita's and tells her they're going to be best friends.
Tampa, Atlanta, Huntsville. She and Shelley get switched to different routes. She sends William a postcard with the lyrics to Simon & Garfunkel's America on the back. In a hotel bar she meets Jack, who becomes the second guy she's ever slept with, after Darryl. "Gotta ship right out again, right?" he says afterward, laughing. "That's the way I like my girls, gone in the morning."
Roanoke, Pittsburgh, Boston. No one knows it's her birthday; there's icy rain in Boston and turbulence when they take off. "San Diego," she says, when a passenger asks where home is. It feels far.
**
On her first day at stewardess training, Anita leaned over to the girl next to her, thinking gleefully of all the things her mom wouldn't approve of if she were here: the nylons she's wearing (tools of the patriarchy), the white flour in the muffin she just ate (poisoning her body), the chemicals in her hairspray (destroying the earth).
"I am so glad to be here," she said. "If I didn't get out of my house I was going to go crazy."
"Tell me about it," said the girl, who was blonde and skinny. "Hey, can you tell how much makeup I have on?" she said, lowering her voice. "My stepdad gave me the worst black eye last week."
"... no," said Anita. "Nope, it looks great."