Patience: Prologue

Your name is...well, it hardly matters at the moment. You're sitting inside a grease stained office, looking over equally dirtied job applications as the metallic whir of the semi-functional fan above you drowns out most of the outside clatter. Many prospects recently, summer vacation if you had to guess. Not that the calendar sitting beside your, heavily burdened, memo-board could help you. It's withered pages had been out of date years ago. Besides, the thick layer of sweat and grease adorning your nigh-bald head could attest to the current season.

"Sooner we find something, sooner we can leave." You mumble to yourself as you began to absentmindedly rub your aching knuckles. The discoloration had left them a red-purplish color, a side effect from one of your many medications no doubt. But a little splash of color around your joints was a small price to pay, considering all they alleviated.

You took a brief moment to pull your chair back, its rusty wheels screeching as you do so, to pull open your third drawer. Pushing aside your snub-nosed .32 with a hesitant thought, you continue on to pull out a pair of bottles, gray and orange respectively. They weren't cure-alls, but they helped the day-to-day stuff. Dulled the aches as it were. Now if only they had a pill for-

Your heart feels like it stops as your eyes go wide. If your shirt hadn't already been stained with sweat, there would've been a slick layer of it running down your collar. The sound echoed about the room, causing your hands to clench hard enough to pop the lid off of your medication. The memories from those damnable sounds flood in, bringing your head to the peak of it's migraine your nightmares had started. You felt crying as the overwhelming pain blurred the walls and played your sickly heartbeat demanding in your ears. But you didn't cry, you reached back into the third drawer and picked out a third bottle with pitiful urgency. A green one that sloshed around while you held it. The medication could wait, for now you needed the solace of cheap whiskey to blur it out, to quiet the sounds. The laughter of those kids.

"Table six. Birthday today, nothing more...nothing more." You didn't find any comfort in your words, but the memories, as quick as they came, had left. You made a mental note to remember to forget whatever you were thinking of.

With the majority of the episode having quelled itself, you looked down to see an assortment of your pills dissolving into the puddle of whiskey that'd missed your mouth. Or was it the sweat from your extra fold of fat? Not that it mattered, but you had work to do. Deadlines and quotas to make. Reaching back into the 3rd drawer, you toss the pill bottles in without ceremony, or their caps, and replace the cork to the top of your whiskey. That stays out today.

"David Sarklosky. "Looking for work to coincide with schooling.'."

Three contact numbers, several references, and a clean record. Decent enough looking kid, probably looking for a part-time job. You toss his record into the shredder and move onto the next in your stack.

"Stacy Kraemer. 'Recently graduated, looking for a first time job.'"

Pretty. Probably prom queen at some point in her happy life. Five contact numbers, no references. Probably just turned legal age for a proper job. You spit on the record and toss it into the shredder.

"...Eggs Benedict. 'Looking to scramble up the team!'"

You look over the sheet in bewilderment, and find it's covered in many similar egg puns. They even listed a reference to the pancake parlor down the street, and listed a contact as 'Mrs.Hen-Mother'. It was humor, a joke. You've never been one for humor, but it was still a shock. Someone took the time out of their day to make this. They wasted their time for a joke they won't even be able to see in action. The resounding question of 'why?' bounces around your head. Everything they could've been doing, everything they missed in that time! All that wasted time! ALL THESE WASTED YEARS!

...By the time you've stopped and realized you've been holding onto a joke so hard that your hands had began to hurt, you realize you've crushed it into a ball. You take another thirsty swig of whiskey and toss the balled up joke at the stained 'Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria' poster beside the door. You manage to hit the big-shot bear with it, and feel a deep satisfaction at the irony of the situation. With a sigh, you rub the bridge of your nose and move on. About three or applications later, you finally find one that piques your interest.

"Mike Schmidt. 'Looking for work, any position, any time. Full availability.'"

No contacts, no references, but the man looked like a wreck. A homeless wreck, probably mid twenties. A sad state of a man really, in fact, he actually made you feel better about your own self-image. You think it over for awhile, going over the details once, twice, thrice more before you make the decision. You DID have to make a decision today.

You grab your whiskey and drain nearly half the contents inside, turning to face the old rotary phone hanging on the wall. Despite it's age, it was the only pristine thing left in your office. The cluttered dump had it's wallpaper peeling off and sticking to it's own greasy exterior. It was dingy, filthy. Disgusting down to the foundation of this goddamned pizzeria. So many goddamned stains, so many goddamned mistakes. You take a ragged breath before moving over to the phone and dialing with your sausage-like fingers.

"Hello, is this Mr.Schmidt?"