His
alarm went off on time that morning, but it didn't matter, Aidan had
been awake for a few minutes anyway. He sat up, stretched, and
switched the alarm off. He was feeling well-rested this morning,
with no strange dreams troubling him to change his life. “My
subconscious couldn't be dissatisfied with last night”, he thought,
getting out of bed.
He
could still hardly believe it had happened. It had been ages since
he'd talked to a girl he didn't work with, much less been on a date.
What had possessed him to try to talk to her? She was very pretty,
yes, but that wasn't usually a big deal to him. Maybe it was
something about the way she was always sitting all alone that called
out to him. He shrugged. It didn't matter, however it had come
about, it had paid off in a big way, he could hardly wait for the
weekend. He popped a couple pieces of toast in the toaster and
walked over to the window. A few snowflakes fluttered by, not enough
to build up anywhere, just enough to announce winter's arrival. It
was kind of pretty, though, and the view from his window really was
quite good, it had been a long time since he'd noticed it.
He
ate his breakfast, picked up his briefcase, put on his coat, and
headed off to the train station. The snow continued to blow about as
he walked, but it wasn't terribly cold out and he was on time today,
so he took his time. Some children were playing as they waited for a
bus, trying to catch snowflakes, which made him smile as he walked
by. He arrived at the train station early enough to get a cup of
good coffee from the donut shop, and used it to warm his hands as he
sat on the train. He watched the sun come up over the bay out the
window and couldn't help but feel optimistic. “I think things are
finally starting to change for me.”
He
arrived at work right on time this morning. “Good morning,
Nicole”, he greeted the receptionist before she even had time to
notice him, averting any possible reprisal for the last few days.
“Good
morning, Aidan. Cold morning, isn't it?”
“Oh,
it's not so bad”, he said cheerily as the elevator arrived. “Have
a nice day.”
Upstairs,
he got himself another cup of coffee, sat down at his desk, and got
straight to work on his in pile.
“Good
morning Aidan”, his boss greeted him, “it's good to see you in
bright and early this morning.”
“Yes
sir”, he replied. “No temporal mishaps this morning.”
“Good,
good, I knew I could count on you.”
He
had already made good progress on his pile by lunchtime. He
retrieved his lunch and headed down to the cafeteria, and he even got
there before Dan, though not by much, he had only just finished
taking out his sandwich when he arrived.
“So
first you skip lunch and now you're down here early? What's next,
tomorrow you won't have a sandwich?”
“I
don't think the world is ready for that level of culinary upheaval
yet.”
Dan
sat down and took out his lunch. “So what happened to you
yesterday?”
“What
DIDN'T happen to me yesterday?”
“You
didn't eat lunch, I already know that part.”
“Well,
it all started with my alarm not going off, so I got to work about an
hour late. I already had work to catch up on from yesterday, and my
boss was none too pleased about it. Not only did I not get lunch, I
had to work really late to get all my work done.”
“That
doesn't sound like you.”
“You
don't know the half of it”, he said, coyly. “That's only one of
the things that happened yesterday.”
“Oh?”
he raised his eyebrow. “Don't hold out on me.”
“Well...
I kinda met someone.”
“Who?”
“A
girl. We're going out this weekend.”
“You
met a girl?!” he exclaimed much too loudly, embarrassing Aidan.
“Who? When? How did this happen?”
“Geez,
keep it down. We take the train together. We finally got a chance
to talk while we were waiting for the train last night. I asked her
out to coffee and now we're going on a date.”
“This
is huge news!”, he exclaimed, not keeping it down. “Where are
you going to take her?”
“I
don't know, to a movie I guess.” He hadn't really thought that
part out yet. “Do you know of anything good that's playing?”
“Well,
what does she like?”
Aidan
rubbed his face with his hand, a bit embarrassed. “Actually, I
don't really know too much about her yet, we've only known each other
for a little while. She's an artist, so maybe something animated?”
“Well,
you're on your own there. But still, you've got to tell me all about
it. I want all the details.”
“The
details will have to wait”, he said, finishing his sandwich. “I
have to get back to work. I can't afford to be late again right
now.”
In
truth, he wasn't really in that much of a rush, his pile was mostly
under control, but Aidan was glad to get away from that conversation,
even if it meant getting back to work. “My life could really
change a lot if this goes somewhere”, he thought, suddenly feeling
a bit anxious. If he had a girlfriend, maybe he'd need to find
another job, one where he didn't have to work such long hours. And
they'd probably have to move into a bigger place, and get a car. The
thought of it suddenly seemed daunting, and he found himself sweating
a little. He pulled a paper off the top of his pile and took a deep
breath to calm himself down. “No sense getting ahead of myself”,
he thought, “life is just like this pile, as long as you take it
one page at a time you can make it through the whole stack.”
As
it turned out, the next application was another business request.
This one was something technical, for a company that manufactured
some sort of electronic components. They were looking for capital to
get a new product to market, and as he leafed through the application
he quickly found himself face to face with several circuit diagrams.
“Oh
boy, there's a reason I didn't go into engineering.” The diagram
just looked like a bunch of scribbles to him. “I'm glad I'm not
the one who has to figure this out”. He looked over the company's
quarterly financial earnings and their net holdings, and they were
solvent, but they had most of their money tied up in whatever this
thing was, it was definitely a crucial time for them. Aidan
scribbled down a note “Basic finances okay”, and stuck it to the
document with a paper clip. He then added “good luck” below it,
and dropped it off in his boss's office, who wasn't back from lunch
yet. “It's a crucial time for me too”, he thought to himself,
imagining some angelic version of himself up in Heaven reviewing his
existence and deciding his fate in much the same way. “But I can't
have bad karma, I pay my bill every month!”, he pleaded with the
imaginary Aidan, chuckling to himself. He scribbled something down
about that when he got back to his desk. He never had time to draw
comics anymore, but he still wrote down material if it came to him
just in case he ever had a use for it again.
There
was not much joviality in the rest of his afternoon, he had to place
a few phone calls to the western branch, and finally succeeded at
getting through to someone, but beyond that it was all just filling
in forms. Thanks to his short lunch, however, he was mostly done the
pile by 4:00 PM, when his boss dropped by to check on him.
“Hello
Aidan, it's good to see you making good progress today. I got your
note, it was very amusing.”
“Oh,
pardon me, sir. I just don't envy the task of evaluating that
proposal. I wouldn't even know where to start.”
“Well
we always start in the same place, my boy, with the money – How
much they want, and how long they want to pay it back. Everything
starts from there.”
Aidan
scratched his head. “But we'd have to know which is a good risk
and which is a bad one.”
“You
might be surprised how flexible we can be with that. Here, you don't
seem to busy, why don't you come into my office and I'll show you how
we go through the process? You did seem interested in learning some
of this stuff.”
He
could scarcely believe it, in all the time he'd been here he'd never
had an opportunity like this one. He dutifully followed his boss
into his office and sat down.
“So,
let's take a look-see”, his boss said, leaning back in his chair,
“just what is it that they want our money for?”
“It's
something in electronics. Apparently it's going to make computers
twice as fast as they are now.”
“Ghastly
stuff, computer hardware, moves too fast. It's too much for an old
man like me.”
“So
what do we do? Turn it down?”
“Now
now, Aidan, what did I tell you was the first step?”
“The
money.”
“That's
right, how much do they want, and for how long?”
“They're
asking for two hundred thousand dollars, and the term of the loan is
six months.”
“Well
now, if the term is that short, they must be fairly confident that
they have a lot of money coming to them.”
“But
what if they don't? With a term that short, we won't get a lot of
interest payments on the deal.”
“Smart
boy!” he said, pleased. “That just means we'll have to charge
them a higher rate.”
“It
still seems like the risk is fairly high, though, if this product
doesn't work or doesn't sell, we won't get anything back.”
“That's
true, but this loan isn't for a lot of money, so we can tolerate a
little risk, just as long as we set the terms right so things are
more likely to work out in our favour.”
“Two
hundred thousand dollars isn't a lot of money?”
He
laughed heartily. “My boy, the financial world works on a very
different scale from you or me. Two hundred thousand is just a drop
in the ocean of big business. And besides, we won't be bearing the
entirety of the risk ourselves, we can sell a stake in this loan to
investors, allowing us to make guaranteed profits even if they
default.”
“Wow,
it's like we're getting money without even doing anything.” Aidan
was having another idea for one of his comics.
“When
you have money, if you invest it wisely, you can always turn it into
more money, that's one of the things that makes this country great.”
“At
some point, aren't we actually required to know what we're investing
in?”
“Oh
sure, I'll have a consultant look over those schematics to make sure
they're not compete rubbish, we have to do our due diligence lest our
investors claim we sold them bad loans, but that's not so hard.”
“What
do you know, maybe I could do this job after all.”
His
boss laughed again, this time so hard it looked like he might fall
over in his chair. “There's a lot more to it than that, but it's
like I keep telling you, my boy, 'work hard and you'll go far at
Walder Financial'.” For the first time in a while, it seemed like
that might actually be true. “Off with you, now, I have some phone
calls to make.”
“Yes,
sir, thank you very much.” Aidan let himself out. The Aidan in
the sky must have approved a big deal for him in the last 24 hours,
he thought. “But if the firm wins either way, just what does that
mean for my life?”
Aidan
finished all his work a bit early that evening and decided to clock
out a few minutes earlier than normal. It meant he wouldn't have to
run quite so much to make it to his train, though now that quitting
time had arrived he was starting to feel like doing it anyway, the
thought of seeing her again was already playing on his mind. As he
reached the lobby, he saw Dan talking to Nicole, and he tried to
sneak by to avoid having to answer more questions about his upcoming
date. Unfortunately, Dan must have heard the elevator doors open.
“Aidan!
Just the person I wanted to see!” Dan greeted him
enthusiastically.
“Aidan,
I hear you've met someone, that's great”.
“Oh,
come on, how many people have you told? I just met her yesterday!”
“Not
too many. Anyway, I know you need to get to your train, you can tell
me about it on the way. Good evening, Nicole.”
“You
don't even take this train” Aidan protested warily as Dan
questioned him.
“Yeah,
but I'm in no hurry. Can I meet her?”
“No,
that would be weird.”
“Well,
then you've at least got to tell me what she's like.”
“I
told you already”, he said, rolling his eyes. “She's quiet,
she's an artist, and she seems smart.”
“What
does she look like?”
“Well,
she's very... I don't know, what's the word... sleek? She has really
nice brown hair and eyes.”
“Oh
come on, that tells me nothing. On a scale from 1 to Nicole, how are
her breasts?”
Aidan
shoved him. “It's time for you to head home, doofus.”
“Fine,
but I'll be expecting more out of you tomorrow.” He finally left.
Aidan reached the station, which was absolutely packed, as usual.
Getting out early had not made even a slight impact on the size of
the crowd, but he wasn't concerned, he made a beeline straight for
his train, not wanting to wait any longer to see her.
As
he entered the train, he quickly scanned the seats, but she wasn't
there. He looked again, but she definitely wasn't on the train.
Of
course, she had been working late last night, she did warn him that
he might not see her again this week. Still, his heart sank. For a
brief, crazy moment, he considered getting off the train to wait for
her, but he knew he couldn't do that. She might have believed that
he had to work overtime last night, but a second time would just be
too suspicious. No, he had to take this train, but it was still a
few minutes until it departed, perhaps she would show up. He took a
seat and watched out the window for her, anxiously. A few minutes
later, the doors closed, and the train departed without her.
“Well,
that's just how things go”, he tried to tell himself, but he had
been waiting all day to see her, and he really felt disappointed.
He
watched the train pull out of the station out the window. The sun
had just recently set, leaving the whole sky tinged purple. “I bet
she would have loved to see this”, he thought. “It's too bad
she's stuck at work.”
Then
he had a terrible thought – What if she had to work late the whole
week? What if he didn't see her before Saturday, and she didn't want
to go on their date? Then what would he tell people? Why had Dan
already gone and told people about it? He smacked his forehead with
his palm, he was feeling frustrated just thinking about it.
“Calm
down”, he reassured himself, “she gave me her number just in case
that happened. I'll just have to be patient and try to wait.”
And
so he waited patiently as the train slowly headed for the little
station across the bay.
If
that afternoon had been tough, the evening was even worse. Alone in
his apartment, he had nothing to distract himself from idle thoughts.
“This is crazy”, he told himself, “I just met her yesterday,
we haven't even been on a date yet. I shouldn't be over-thinking it
so much.” He tried to take his mind off it all by cooking himself
something a bit more elaborate for dinner, he fried up some scrambled
eggs on toast with a few slices of bacon, but it wasn't really
working. The dinner turned out fine, but then he just wished he had
someone to share it with.
By
9:00 he'd had enough. “I could stop this. I have her number. She
must be home by now, we could talk for a while, and then I wouldn't
have to worry so much.”
He
located the little piece of paper where she had written her number
and stared at it as he stood by the phone.
“No”,
he decided, eventually, “I'm not calling her tonight. That would
just look pathetic. She said to call on Friday if I hadn't seen her.
I'm definitely at least waiting until tomorrow.”
Still,
it wasn't easy to wait around that evening. He tried to content
himself with TV, but he wasn't very interested in it. Now that his
mind was focused on her, he didn't want anything else. “How do
things always turn out this way?” he wondered to himself, “Just
this afternoon I was so happy about it.”
He
decided to turn in early, but he wasn't able to get to sleep quickly,
he couldn't stop thinking about her.
When
he did finally fall asleep, he found himself alone in the hall of
mirrors again, searching for something that still eluded him. “You
have to get out of here”, the voice told him.
“Is
it her?” he demanded of the voice. “Is it her that I'm looking
for?”
“No,
please, you have to leave this place!” was the only reply.
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