james28837
"Barry, how's it coming with those quarterlies?"
I turned around and my boss's face lay behind a steam of smoke from his mug. He was looking at me?
"I thought that was going to be Mark who was supposed to handle that."
"Change of pace, you'll be doing it. You mean you haven't even started yet then?"
"This is the first time I've heard about it, sir."
"Well," he said, lowering his cup, "make sure you get it done by tomorrow in any case. Can't have the company falling apart because of one cog, you know what I mean?"
I hadn't seen too much of him, far away as he was. So I had to come through all the brush and all the trees and plants that stood in the way between him and my heart, what he aimed at and struck so cleanly and precisely from that distance. I had to give him that. His ability to wait patiently and lovingly for me when he could see me along and I barely could see him.
Usually it was just the mud around us. Like really around us, towering up as high as our shoulders. But we had to stay hunched, and so we never stood up straight. Afraid to look up. The corporal was always looking at us like he was going to send us up there, and I hated it.