Chapter 3:
Patricia Murphey sat at her desk, sorting paperwork. She paused momentarily, looked over at the half-finished game of solitaire displayed on her computer screen, and sighed softly. Patricia had been a secretary for nearly twenty years--not always at this office of course--but she still fondly remembered the first time she used a computer for her job. It was a beautiful workstation with all the options: word processing, spreadsheets, and, best of all, solitaire. Patricia smiled. She loved working with computers on her job. But being a secretary wasn't all it was cracked up to be.
Patricia looked up to see Thomas reentering the office from Dodge Avenue. She sighed deeply. This was the part of her job that got her down: the people. It wasn't that Patricia hated all people. To the contrary, Patricia did enjoy the company of her workmates and got along very well with her boss. The people who bothered her the most were the clients. This made her work as a secretary rather difficult, but Patricia put on her professional hat when needed, and trudged through the days. Most of the time it wasn't too bad, but Thomas was challenging her much more than the average client. He sat down on the couch and picked up a copy of National Geographic from the coffee table.
Patricia shook her head. Thomas was more than two hours early, and she had made it clear to him that morning when he arrived that Ms. Tharpe would not be able to see him until after three that evening. Yet here he was, several hours early. Patricia shook her head again. She could not understand why some people had no concept of time at all. It seemed like a fairly straightforward, important concept. But here was yet another person who had apparently failed to learn. Patricia dismissed the thoughts from her mind. What did she care, so long as he didn't bother her?
Thomas sighed softly and put the magazine down. The cover article hadn't turned out to be very interesting after all. He looked around the office and wondered idly what Ms. Tharpe would be like. He had never dealt with a Realtor before and hoped that she would be trustworthy. He spotted a bulletin board on the opposite side of the office littered with notes, business cards, and flyers. With nothing else to do, he wandered over to take a look. He quickly skimmed over the posted items. Someone lost their dog and was offering a reward. There were going to be childbirth classes down the street at the community center in a month. A local school was going to be holding classes for American Sign Language starting next week. Thomas paused for a second. Sign language. That might be fun... He then noticed the flyer right below that. It simply read this:
"Fed Up?"
Below it were precut strips in the paper, each containing an identical name and phone number. None had been taken. Thomas always felt awkward about taking pull tabs from flyers. He once had a bad experience in which he took a tab from a flyer advertising a bike that was for sale. After he called, he was suddenly thrust into the middle of a very strained relationship between the girl who was selling the bike, and her ex-boyfriend who actually owned the bike.
Thomas had vowed to never again take the chance and call a number on one of these flyers, but this flyer spoke to him on several deep levels. The simple words "Fed Up?" expressed everything he had been feeling about the world recently. He took out his cell phone, and carefully dialed the number. It rang three times, and finally, there was an answer.
"Hello..."
"Yes, hello! My name is Thom--"
"Thank you for calling!" the recording said. "You have seen our flyer and you are clearly, and quite simply, fed up with it all. We share the feeling, and that's why our group of clear thinking and concerned community members is inviting you, a fellow groaner and sigher, to our next meeting--on December 11th, 2007, at the Old Fort Library Branch, meeting room B, at 2 PM. At the meeting, we will discuss a conclusion we have reached that we believe will finally give resolution to all of the problems you're having with Earth and the people who live on it. Please, be punctual."
Thomas looked at his watch: 1:45 PM, December 11th, 2007. If he was going to make it to the Old Fort Library in fifteen minutes, he was going to have to start running the twelve block distance immediately. He looked over at the receptionist, back at his watch, at the receptionist, and at his watch again. 1:46.
"Excuse me, miss?"
Patricia slowly and painfully turned her head away from the game of solitaire in a way that would send a message of her disdain of being disturbed as clearly as possible. When it was finally in position, she slowly moved her hand to push her horn rimmed glasses up her nose. When she succeeded in doing that, she cleared her throat and said in the driest tone imaginable, "Yes, sir, may I help you?"
"Uh ... Hi ... so sorry to bother you," he paused as Patricia started to smile, drinking in the success of years of practice. "Well, I was just wondering if Ms. Tharpe will be able to see me soon?"
Patricia looked at him with a profound sense of awe. She had encountered this many times before, but every time she couldn't help but wonder how such scatterbrained, unobservant people could get by in the world without losing their kidneys to fast talking con-artists. She did the only thing she could do in this situation. She reached across the desk and slowly moved a plastic sign that had a clock face and two plastic hands on it towards him. She cleared her throat loudly and went back to playing solitaire. Thomas looked at the sign that he hadn't noticed until that very moment and read it. It said "Will return at:" and had the plastic hands pointing at 2:30. Thomas was profoundly embarrassed.
"Ah… right then, well, thank you, I'm going to take care of some other things, and I'll be back later. Thank ... thank you for your, uh, help."
Thomas dashed out the door and stole a look at his watch. 1:48. He turned out of the office on the corner of 42nd Street and Dodge Avenue, and began running north, saw the sign for 43rd Street, and quickly turned around and began running south. The Old Fort Library was located on the corner of 30th Street and Dodge, and Thomas didn't have much time. As he raced down the streets, he bumped into countless people, got cursed at by several others, and received at least one death threat. He ran as fast as he could, hesitating at crosswalks and dashing between cars where he could do so safely. He crossed 36th Street and stole a look at his watch. 1:55.
"There's no way I can make it on time!" He thought to himself, but he came this far and couldn't let himself stop now. Thomas was fairly athletic, but the streets were simply too crowded to get through quickly enough. Had the streets been empty, he mused, he would be able to get there in no time. Finally, at long last, he burst through the doors of the Old Fort Library and saw the clock on the wall: 2:00.
"Quick!" He shouted. "Where's meeting room B!"
The librarian looked up at him slowly, raising her head in a way that would express her utter contempt for all things human.
"Ahhh, I don't have time for this!" Thomas looked up and saw a sign that said "Meeting Rooms." It was accompanied with a rather friendly, helpful arrow pointing in the direction of a hallway straight ahead of him. He ran off in that direction, down the corridor, and finally located Room B in the middle of the stretch of hall. He panted and looked at his watch. 2:01. He turned the knob slowly and entered the room...