08-13-2013, 05:31 PM
Yellow. Yellow was the mustard on her dress when she gleefully agreed to my question. Yellow was the color that delicately outlined her iris.
Now yellow is morning mocking me. Yellow are the dying flowers accenting our new cherry-wood home.
I stared at the canary yellow post-it note neatly pressed onto my calendar. “Good luck.”
Astrid had left before me. First grade elementary school teachers head into the classroom early. I had always equated ignorance with grammar school.
Meticulously, so as not to excite the muscles in my body, I gently rolled out of bed and scoffed down a bagel before I had the chance to remember what I would say to the man administering my interview: CEO, entrepreneur, renowned mathematician and possibly closet rocket scientist, 27-year-old Finn Donovan. Yeah. Fuck him.
The train into the city was mind-numbing. I thought the long ride would give me time to think up of clever remarks and jests to counteract my typical, very apparent, very inept disposition.
“Penn Weiss?” a small old lady examined the room until I stumbled out of my yellow chair, perspiring and squeaking,
“Yes?!”
“Mr. Donovan is ready for you. Please follow me.”
She scurried forward. Why was she in a rush? I felt the slow shock of nervosa creep through my gut like an untamed horse, kicking incessantly at the walls of my stomach. I shot up and bounced behind the old little lady.
Fuck it. I’m going to be great. Light on my feet. For a near second I felt utterly fantastic about the interview. Nothing could go wrong.
Inside his office I saw an abacus with small lemon-like beads on different ends of the wires. Finn Donovan eyed me as I noticed the device on his desk and sighed,
“It was a gift from my grandfather.” I thought you learned simple arithmetic in the womb, you intellectual fuck.
“Oh,” I managed to snort out.
When the little old lady left the room, Finny-boy gestured for me to sit down as he popped a yellow jelly bean into his mouth.
“So, Penn,” he chewed, “tell me something about yourself that makes you elig…” he choked on his last word. For the slightest moment I almost let out a giggle, until I saw Finn's bisque face, eyes bulging. I never learned the Heimlich maneuver, but I squatted around his back anyway, the same position I had seen Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, and began thrusting my hands into his gut repeatedly. His body fell limp. Fuck.
As I dragged Mr. Donovan’s body out into the hallway, a layer of screams echoed into my face. I saw the little old lady hastening her way to me, though her previous, pert expression was replaced with a mechanical, murderous glare. And then I noticed a shiny golden stapler clenched under her white knuckles.
I woke up in a white room, needles strapped to my arms. It only took a few disorienting minutes before I realized--
“Mr. Weiss?” A tall dark man peered over a clipboard, pen in hand.
“Yes?”
“Mr. Weiss, you have been taken to the hospital. We have contacted your wife, and she is on her way. However, we have some bad news.”
Grief overtook my face. I have cancer. Heart disease. Chronic death.
“Finn Donovan is dead.”
“Oh.” I am a terrible person.
“Also,”
“Yes?”
“We found a tumor.” Sweat began to perspire on my forehead.
“Where?” I gulped.
“… on your toe.”
“On my toe?”
“Yes. I’m afraid we had to amputate it, for fear that the cancer might spread throughout your body.”
“Which toe?”
“The big one, left foot.” He looked at me morosely.
“Don’t you have to get permission before you remove someone’s fucking toe?”
“I’m sorry Mr. Weiss. We had no choice.”
“Do people even get cancer in their toes?”
“Yes but-”
“Give me my toe back.”
“But-”
“I said, give me, my fucking toe back.”
“Sir,”
“NURSE!” I yelled impatiently. In a matter of seconds a small man wearing a pair of yellow scrubs greeted my neck with a syringe that held an unidentifiable amber liquid.
I woke up to Astrid’s back hand. What the fuck is happening?
“It's about time you woke up.”
“How long have I been out?”
“I heard you killed a man.”
An image of Finn Donovan’s yellow face and that menacing little lady with a stapler crept into my cranium. While gathering my right arm to uncover the sheets, I found it chained to the hospital bed. I used the other to pull off the sheets.
A manila yellow bandage. Where my toe used to be. Oh, it’s like that, is it?
Astrid threw my canary yellow Samsung at my face.
“They’ve been calling all day.”
I picked up the phone. His voice was unrecognizable.
“Mr. Weiss?”
“Yes?”
“You’re fired. You can pick up your stuff tomorrow, in the yellow crate next to your desk.”
*Click*
Now yellow is morning mocking me. Yellow are the dying flowers accenting our new cherry-wood home.
I stared at the canary yellow post-it note neatly pressed onto my calendar. “Good luck.”
Astrid had left before me. First grade elementary school teachers head into the classroom early. I had always equated ignorance with grammar school.
Meticulously, so as not to excite the muscles in my body, I gently rolled out of bed and scoffed down a bagel before I had the chance to remember what I would say to the man administering my interview: CEO, entrepreneur, renowned mathematician and possibly closet rocket scientist, 27-year-old Finn Donovan. Yeah. Fuck him.
The train into the city was mind-numbing. I thought the long ride would give me time to think up of clever remarks and jests to counteract my typical, very apparent, very inept disposition.
“Penn Weiss?” a small old lady examined the room until I stumbled out of my yellow chair, perspiring and squeaking,
“Yes?!”
“Mr. Donovan is ready for you. Please follow me.”
She scurried forward. Why was she in a rush? I felt the slow shock of nervosa creep through my gut like an untamed horse, kicking incessantly at the walls of my stomach. I shot up and bounced behind the old little lady.
Fuck it. I’m going to be great. Light on my feet. For a near second I felt utterly fantastic about the interview. Nothing could go wrong.
Inside his office I saw an abacus with small lemon-like beads on different ends of the wires. Finn Donovan eyed me as I noticed the device on his desk and sighed,
“It was a gift from my grandfather.” I thought you learned simple arithmetic in the womb, you intellectual fuck.
“Oh,” I managed to snort out.
When the little old lady left the room, Finny-boy gestured for me to sit down as he popped a yellow jelly bean into his mouth.
“So, Penn,” he chewed, “tell me something about yourself that makes you elig…” he choked on his last word. For the slightest moment I almost let out a giggle, until I saw Finn's bisque face, eyes bulging. I never learned the Heimlich maneuver, but I squatted around his back anyway, the same position I had seen Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, and began thrusting my hands into his gut repeatedly. His body fell limp. Fuck.
As I dragged Mr. Donovan’s body out into the hallway, a layer of screams echoed into my face. I saw the little old lady hastening her way to me, though her previous, pert expression was replaced with a mechanical, murderous glare. And then I noticed a shiny golden stapler clenched under her white knuckles.
I woke up in a white room, needles strapped to my arms. It only took a few disorienting minutes before I realized--
“Mr. Weiss?” A tall dark man peered over a clipboard, pen in hand.
“Yes?”
“Mr. Weiss, you have been taken to the hospital. We have contacted your wife, and she is on her way. However, we have some bad news.”
Grief overtook my face. I have cancer. Heart disease. Chronic death.
“Finn Donovan is dead.”
“Oh.” I am a terrible person.
“Also,”
“Yes?”
“We found a tumor.” Sweat began to perspire on my forehead.
“Where?” I gulped.
“… on your toe.”
“On my toe?”
“Yes. I’m afraid we had to amputate it, for fear that the cancer might spread throughout your body.”
“Which toe?”
“The big one, left foot.” He looked at me morosely.
“Don’t you have to get permission before you remove someone’s fucking toe?”
“I’m sorry Mr. Weiss. We had no choice.”
“Do people even get cancer in their toes?”
“Yes but-”
“Give me my toe back.”
“But-”
“I said, give me, my fucking toe back.”
“Sir,”
“NURSE!” I yelled impatiently. In a matter of seconds a small man wearing a pair of yellow scrubs greeted my neck with a syringe that held an unidentifiable amber liquid.
I woke up to Astrid’s back hand. What the fuck is happening?
“It's about time you woke up.”
“How long have I been out?”
“I heard you killed a man.”
An image of Finn Donovan’s yellow face and that menacing little lady with a stapler crept into my cranium. While gathering my right arm to uncover the sheets, I found it chained to the hospital bed. I used the other to pull off the sheets.
A manila yellow bandage. Where my toe used to be. Oh, it’s like that, is it?
Astrid threw my canary yellow Samsung at my face.
“They’ve been calling all day.”
I picked up the phone. His voice was unrecognizable.
“Mr. Weiss?”
“Yes?”
“You’re fired. You can pick up your stuff tomorrow, in the yellow crate next to your desk.”
*Click*
I'll be there in a minute.
the progression through the piece worked well. for some reason i presumed at the start that penn was a woman 
