"Make me laugh!" she shouted.
I cowered at my clerk station. "A-Am I a clown to you?" I whispered.
We were in the workroom at the Ruby Creek library in Australia, which as we know is where it is, and things were a little dull. Zani was snacking on a crunch bouquet of baklava and crackers. But it wasn't enough. It just wasn't enough.
"Make with the laughs, funny boy," she said spewfully.
"Er...."
Todd came over. He scowled at Zani as she continued to have a love affair with her food. "Remember how your mom told you not to eat with your mouth open?"
"Mmmmggh mm!" Zani said, unable to forestall a spume of cracker.
Todd held up his gloved hands. "Arrgh!"
I got up and took cover by the recycle bin. "Toots is a big fan, by the way," I said to Todd. "She thinks you're the coolest ever. She wants to work here with you. The other day she was here for our rock concert, mainly to get a Voodoo donut..."
"Dude, get your hands off that," Todd said. "You're stressing me out."
"Oh, okay." I took my hands off the lethal biohazard of the plastic trash lid. "Anyway, she's a big fan and she--"
"Who's a big fan of me?" Zani said, pressing within inches of us and grinning wrinkily.
"Of Todd, actually. My niece loves everything about him: the minimalism, the veganism, the bitchin' gloves and bastard beard."
"Those Voodoo donuts are not vegan," Todd said. "Did you tell her that?"
Jonah came over. "Am I the only one who pretends to work around here?"
"Sorry, boss," I said.
I went back to sit at my assigned station. Zani, Jonah and Todd stood over me. Silence.
"Well?"
"What?"
"Keep the laughs coming, harlequin boy!"
"Huh?"
Zani minutely scanned my skull. "You have scars on your head. Did you know that?"
"Scars?" I said, eyes shut against cracker rain. "Those are from when I had surgery..."
"Really! When did you have surgery?"
"A few years ago. They went into my brain to surgically remove my humour cortex. Apparently, I was causing too much of a disruption at work with my comedy stylings. So the bosses ordered a funnyectomy to get me to stop. Like now, for instance."
Zani grunted. "What's going on with Karen? She doesn't look good today."
"At least she knows if it's day today."
"What?"
"Last Friday night I got a text from her. In fact, I saved it on my phone..."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa." Jonah took several steps back. "Keep that thing away from me!"
"Anyway, the text said: Did I not get the memo? Where is everyone?"
"What?" Todd said.
"What did she mean?" said Zani.
"It was 8:30 at night, and it seemed that Karen thought it was 8:30 in the morning. She was getting ready to open the building, since we open at nine on Saturdays."
"By Hegel's pantaloons!" Jonah ejaculated.
"No fucking way," Todd said, with incredulous wrath.
"How is that even possible?" Zani said, her copper curls resplendent like the flashes of Zeus's thunderbolt.
"It is verily possible," I said overwritedly with a soupcon of smugness. "The sun doesn't set until about 8:10. So it was still light out when Karen got up, dressed, and raced in a panic to the library thinking she was late. Apparently she'd taken a new medication and had fallen asleep at five in the afternoon and then woke at eight thinking she'd slept through the night. When she got to the library, the lights were on and the security was unarmed because our Friday night custodian was there. Karen said she kept talking to the guy, but he spoke no English. Then she went to the coffee shop nearby, but it was closed. She told me she had been ignoring all the signs--and all logic--that it was pm rather than am. Then she texted me fifteen minutes later and said we'll either have a good laugh or a good cry about this someday. She had texted Jay also. He texted back right away and asked if she was all right. That's how it finally dawned--or, I should say, sunsetted on her." I smirked.
"What a long, tedious, unbelievable paragraph," Jonah said.
Zani looked around. "Where did Todd go?"
"I see him. He's over there yelling at a customer through the book return."
"Uh-oh, looks like he's stuck again."
"That's today's lesson, everyone. If you're going to yell at a customer, please do it at the desk." I sighed. "I guess we'll have to pry his face out again. Jonah? Isn't it your turn?"
Jonah bolts out back door.
"Ohh-kay. Justron....?"
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