Desk Drawer Paradise [FICTOID]

“They tell me you want to quit, Suzanne.”

Suzanne sighed.  “I do, Mr. Quiggly, I do.”

“Any particular reason?”

Suzanne gestured to the windowless wall surrounding them.  “I arrive before dawn, I go home after sundown.  I need a vacation, but I also need the extra hours to pay my share of the apartment rent.  I’m sharing a one bedroom flat with three other gals.  No privacy, no peace, the place is a perpetual pigsty.  I’m going crazy, Mr. Quiggly.  I can’t take it anymore.”

“You’re one of our most productive workers, Suzanne.”

“I can’t take it.”

“Would a vacation help?”

“Ha!  As if.  I’ve got no money for a vacation, much less the time.”

“Well, that can be arranged,” Mr. Quiggly said, pulling open one of his desk’s large lower drawers.

Suzanne leaned over and looked down.  Through some trick of optics the desk drawer seemed to stretch down into darkness, a ladder attached to one side.

“We don’t do this for everyone,” Mr. Quiggly said, “but as I mentioned, you’re a good worker, we value you, so I’m giving you a chance to spend a month long vacation in the sun and sand.”

Suzanne peered into the bottomless void.  “How?”

“Don’t ask how, just enjoy it.”

Suzanne stepped around to his side of the desk, staring at the drawer.  “This is crazy.”

“Maybe, but do you want a vacation or not?”

“I can’t stay away for a month without telling anybody.”

“They’ll never know.  The month is subjective, stay a year if you like.  You climb in, I shut the drawer.  I open the drawer and it synchs up with the moment you’re ready to leave.”

Suzanne bit her lip, weighing her options, then said, “What the hell…” and put one foot on the top rung of the ladder.

Mr. Quiggly held her hand as she climbed down.  As soon as her head disappeared in the drawer, he closed it, waited a moment, then reopened it.

Suzanne climbed out, her hair windblown and sunkissed, her skin darkly tanned, barefoot, wearing a sarong, a big wide grin plastered on her face.

“So, how was it?” Mr. Quiggly asked.

“It was great!  A big blue sun, bright green sand, ///three/// moons in the night sky.  All my favorite food and drink and I never put on a pound, never got a handover.”

“Anything else?”

Suzanne giggled.  “That would be telling, but, yeah, something else.”  Another giggle.  “A ///lot/// else.”

“Ready to go back to work now?”

“I suppose,” Suzanne said, holding up the laundry bag she put her work clothes in.  “Mind if I change first?”

“Go right ahead,” said Mr. Quiggly, closing the drawer again.

The drawer cost the company a pretty penny, but it was cheaper than training a new hire.

© Buzz Dixon