She opened her handbag and tipped the contents onto the floor in a desperate attempt to find the key. She knew it was in there, there was no other option.
After searching for what felt like ages, she slumped down on the ground and cried. “How could I have been so stupid?” she berated herself. That key was her only link to discovering the truth behind her employer’s bizarre behavior.
He seemed perfectly normal and approachable some days, and then disheveled, surly, and downright curmudgeonly on others. It was more than that. It felt like he was two different people, a sort of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde scenario. Wasn’t that based on legitimate bi-polar disorder, or schizophrenia? She was unsure, and maybe using the smuggled key could answer these questions. Maybe there were medication bottles in his private area that would explain so much.
She knew it was ridiculous to even care. It was just a job after all. Yes, it was a good job that she liked, but it’s not like she was a VP or anything, she was just an assistant. Well, as a good assistant, shouldn’t she be predicting her manager’s needs and whims? How could she do that if she was unaware of a malady that plagued him? Yes, she had settled that this logic was extremely sound.
It was all for naught, as she had lost the ruddy key. She sat there on the floor, distraught and worried that it would be discovered she stole the key and then lost it and would lose her job. Her heel moved and the sound of something solid and metal rang out. The key!
With satisfied jubilance she stood, threw all the contents back into her purse, slid the key into the lock, and turned. The quiet clicking of the lock felt louder than it should have been in the quiet warehouse space. She closed it firmly behind her. The room was dark, made even darker by dark carpets, and décor. She pulled the tiny flashlight on her keys to illuminate the space.
What she saw was a fantastical laboratory straight out of the 18th century. Glass tubes and bottles connected by copper joints in an ornate maze with different colored liquids in them. The wall held a tall cabinet that stored dozens and dozens of jars with herbs, liquids, and even animal parts floating in liquid. What is this guy into? She thought nervously. Was he an actual mad scientist?
She heard the scrape of something outside the door so she turned off the flashlight and scurried under the table. Dim lights came up in the room and she could see it more clearly. It was straight out of Sherlock Holmes – a dark red Persian rug underneath her, thick dark wood table above with a long table cloth that provided some coverage for her. His black boots, that she now recognized looked like they were from another time approached the table and stood there. She could hear him clinking bottles around.
Her heart raced and she prayed silently that he would finish quickly and leave, or go to a place where she might be able to silently escape, but that’s the sort of thing for movies. So she froze there awaiting anything that might give her a glimmer of hope for how to leave and still have a job tomorrow.
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