Page 1 of Abdominal Snowman

Hot as Hell

“Well, clearly it wasn’t hard enough.”

Shuffling the photos in her hand, Sage grit her teeth and kept her mouth shut.

“I mean if—and that’s a big if—you had been working as hard as you say, I would expect to see something a little more impressive than…” Dick glanced down at the story Sage had presented him with a few moments ago. “Local Littering Endangers Alligator Population.”

Sage had worked all week on finding the perfect opportunity to get those shots of the gators swimming in plastic and trash, while Dick hadn’t done much more than leave his desk for a donut break. There wasn’t a whole lot for her to report on in Florida besides the outrageous stories that got turned into internet memes overnight.

“I had to wait for hours in the baking hot sun to get those photos. Not to mention all the interviews I had to do at the sanctuaries and finding local experts to—”

Dick interrupted her with a sigh and slapped her photos onto his desk. It disturbed the latest wrapper of whatever plastic wrapped cake he’d been snacking on, and she watched sadly as it fell to the floor. The oscillating fan turned their way, and the plastic wrapper bounced across the nasty carpet, probably gone forever. Sage leaned into the fan and tried to compose herself.

But then Dick opened his mouth again. “Sage, why can’t you just do fun stories like on the crackhead art Steve brought in earlier?”

“Because—”

“Because it doesn’t matter, that’s what you always say, Sage. But does your job matter?”

Snapping her lips together, Sage stared across the sloppy desk at the man she was supposed to call her boss. But this whole office was a joke. They didn’t want real news, real stories. They wanted memes to laugh about over the shitty coffee pot sludge in the break room.

Wiping a bead of sweat off her forehead, Sage stood.

“I think you’re right, Dick,” she announced, using the name she only called him in her head. He preferred Richard. “I’m not cut out for this place of employment. I quit. You can find another photographer like Steve to get you the latest updates on the pigeons two blocks away.”

His face reddened in embarrassment or anger, Sage didn’t really care. She took the photos back off his desk, snatched her well written story, and packed it away in her bag. Dick’s lips parted to interrupt her, but she held a hand up. “I’m done here. It’ll take me five minutes to pack my cubicle, and then you can fill it with whatever poor schmuck you hire next.”

“Well, you’re one of those poor schmucks too, you know,” Dick snapped back.

Sage leveled him with a friendly stare. It took him aback, and he leaned back in his chair away from her. His belly touched the desk though, thanks to all the donuts he consumed. “The difference between me and the other schmucks is that I know my worth and have the sense to leave. See ya, Dick.”

Sage took her things, stalked to her desk, and packed everything up. Not a single person spared her even a glance while she packed her few belongings. Dick could pick up the pieces and all the stories she had been working on.

“Good luck,” she whispered beneath her breath as she moved her works in progress to her flash drive and left the computer blank.

In the off chance that they did ever want to accept her stories, she wasn’t giving them the chance to piggyback off all the hard work she’d already done.

No one said a single word to her as she left the building, and that was probably for the best. It’s not like she’d gotten to know any of them anyway. As she pushed the door open, the heat rushed in and battled with the air conditioner in the entryway, throwing her hair around haphazardly.

Sage groaned as she walked across the hot asphalt, the heat and humidity of the summer day wrapping around her like a wet blanket. “I hate summer,” she muttered, yanking her car door open and setting the bag of her work shit inside.

The car offered no relief from the thick heat. It was like sitting down in an oven.

“If I wanted to be cookies, I would fucking be cookies. I don’t want to bake!” she complained as she sank down into the driver’s seat, door wide open, and blasted the air conditioner. It was pure hot air at first, and Sage let her head fall against the seat, miserable.

Once the air finally cooperated and Sage had a nice cool air-conditioned breeze blowing against her damp skin, she slammed the door, put the car in drive, and got the hell out of Dodge.

“I should feel panicked, right?” she asked herself in the silence of the car. “I just quit my job. I… don’t have a job.”

A laugh fell from Sage’s lips, but it wasn’t a happy one. It was one of disbelief. The revelation sank in slowly as she navigated through the sunlit traffic. Palm trees lined the road, but not a single palm leaf was blowing in the breeze. There was no breeze, and once again Sage was reminded why she hated the heat.

I hate a lot of things today.

Once she arrived home, she groaned at leaving the barely chilled air of her car to grab her bags from the back, and dashed inside to her apartment, the blissful blast of air offering her instant relief.

“Finally!”

Dropping her bags by the door, Sage decided her first move was to shower the sweat of the day away. The only thing left to do was throw on her comfiest pants and the softest tee she owned. Unfortunately, it was one she’d found the morning after a one-night stand, but… who was she to waste a good shirt?