2 - Rainbow Eyes, Laura
1052 Words
The woman didn't meet Harold's eyes, not at first. She was fumbling papers and a purse in her hands, and Harold saw, a pair of glasses as well. That she didn't drop anything seemed a minor miracle to Harold. She looked up, with eyes cascading the color of rainbows, eyes without pupils, and gasped.
"Please don't kill me." she said. "I'm only here because... uhm... because..." She thrust one of the papers at him.
"Oh, renewal for registration sticker. Yes, Ma'am, I can help you with that."
"The sins of vanity condemn her soul. You should reap it, if you belonged here." Madge said. Harold could actually hear the words Madge said, and worse, smell her sulphurous aura. And he seemed to be the only one who saw Madge's cloven hooves as anything other than shoes.
"I'll remember that, Madge, thank you." Harold replied. Harold had learned years earlier that trying to tell people about the things that only he could see or hear or otherwise perceived would land him in front of a very special kind of doctor. The shrinks had called it "a vivid imagination coupled with a need for attention". Whatever. People didn't want to know, and Harold certainly wasn't trying to force them to it.
"This is my domain." Madge said, but didn't move from her desk.
"Yes ma'am." Harold said. "You ARE absolutely in charge."
"Oh." the woman said, with obvious relief. "You're a mundane."
"I like your eyes." Harold said to her.
"My... oh, thank you so much."
"May I see your driver's license?" Harold asked.
She juggled things for a while. "Here." she said.
Laura Esteban, her license said. In her photo, her eyes were caught in a shade of green that was more blue on top, and less on bottom. The rest of her features, Harold noted, were more or less normal.
"Has your address changed in the last year?"
"Oh, not at all." she said, looking cautiously at Madge, who was pointedly ignoring her.
Harold went through the other questions, and things went smoothly until Laura tried to pay.
"Might you have any American currency?" he asked. "US dollars?"
"Oh, I... I'm sorry." She leaned in close to the pane of plastic that separated them. "Look, I'll owe you a favor."
"I'm afraid the state doesn't accept that form of currency, ma'am."
Like magic, Madge was there. "A curse on you, soul whose sloth outweighs your greed. Stand aside, and I shall claim... a favor."
"Wait!" Laura said, thrusting a plastic rectangle at him. "Can you accept payment from this instead?"
Madge hissed.
"If it works, ma'am." Harold said, noticing that the end of it was warped and melted, as though only that edge of it had been stuck into an oven.
The credit card worked; Madge slowly stomped off to her desk. "Digital. Banks. Donkey Bong. Dildo Bordellos. Eh! A thousand and one curses upon your houses of filth and lies."
Harold handed over the sticker (the state required only the one), and recited the directions for its use.
Laura nodded eagerly smiling. "Have a blessed day." she said, and left.
Unfortunately for her, a blessing between awakened beings is more than just a formality. Although she got into her car (a green Ford station wagon, an LTD Country Squire) and drove off, the bonds of Fate did not release such events lightly.
Harold, for his part, discovered he had more energy, and more patience. It was one of those rare days at the DMV where nobody had fallen asleep and missed their ticket being called. Nobody threatened to kill him over documentation or funds they had misplaced. It seemed that time, and clients, just flew by.
And in the intervals between mundane and boring tasks, Harold had time to wonder at Laura's nature. But without any manner of experience in such things, there was no way he could possibly know. He certainly wasn't going to ask Madge.
He'd learned on his first day that the DMV was, sometimes literally, a slice of hell on Earth. Instead of running away screaming, which increasingly seemed the sane thing to do, he'd just dealt with Madge the way everyone else in the office seemed to. He'd treated her like a rude but experienced and sometimes helpful senior employee.
Not that Harold had ever seen her work. The boss talked to her sometimes, but nothing ever came of it. And for her part, Madge seemed content to just linger, mocking the unfortunate and saying things that were equal parts revolting and unlikely.
He ignored her (especially the things she brought in for lunch, which she ate noisily and messily at her desk), and for the most part, she ignored him. But the same energy that infused him today infested Madge as well, such that she needed to take a trip to the restroom. After ten minutes that sounded and smelled like an exorcism, she emerged from the women's toilet.
When it was reported out of order, Harold left his station to put up the sign and the traffic cone. He made the call to the plumber, whose worker, usually male, would come and nearly faint, but would clean up the mess and "fix" the toilet. And then, would leave, as though nothing was amiss, and certainly the restroom hadn't looked like an abottoir.
When his time was up, Harold walked to his own car, a battered Toyota Prius that had seen better days before Harold walked into a used auto lot and purchased her. Over the past four months, she had leeched away at Harold's bank account, almost but not quite a fourth of every dollar he earned. But her air conditioner worked well enough, and she didn't actually leak oil, even if she always seemed to be low.
Russel, the auto mechanic with teeth that only Harold seemed to be able to see where carved of solid metal, had pronounced her a beauty with a solid frame, and called her different names. At least she'd never spoken back, not where Harold could hear.
Whistling slightly, Harold got in, noticed the air freshener was almost out, and drove toward home. It was at the dollar store, where Harold was buying a soda, bag of jerky, and a new air freshener, that the Bloodling attacked him.
- Writer
