The Delectable Corpse
Now-Irrelevant conjecture on how select McGraw-Hill employee will receive their final notice and what their reaction will be.
Dave
Dave prepares to leave at his usual 2:15pm punch-out time on sunny Fall afternoon. (Gary was never really CERTAIN how these apparent half-days added up to 37.5 at the bottom of the week, but to delve deeper into the matter would be to actually QUESTION Dave on something, and even if he wanted to the words...just wouldn't....come out...) Things were looking up for the dual-pronged franchise of Jot & Jab and SciFiGuys, despite only being able to log 30 hours this week due to pesky manager-types hovering about. NONE OF IT MATTERED. Clutched tightly in his hot little hand was the Golden Ticket that would change everything. HE was invited to a CLOSED DOOR meeting in the East Village and ALL of his favorite people were going to be there--XETH FEINBERG, MATT GROENING, JOHN KRIFALSKI, the shimmering blue ghost of CHUCK JONES. Hell, CONAN was showing up just to make the boys laugh. They ALL wanted to meet with HIM. Plum out of ideas, it was time to pass on the torch to a newcomer. And THIS LITTLE TRAIN TICKET was his....ticket.
He arrived at the bohemian warehouse space. Apparently one of Groening's get-aways, it was cluttered G5's (you didn't KNOW? they're made from pressed latinum) and hundreds of Emmy's which served as champagne coolers and ashtrays. The meeting started abruptly as Dave and Conan were just getting acquainted, trading freestyle impersonations of what Dole-Tron would sound like with Arnold Schwarzenegger's pig-heart. The room fell deathly quiet. Everyone turned to Dave. Suddenly they all looked...different, somehow shorter, DEFINITELY less pleased with him. Why were they all holding rubber faces in their hands? Then he realized they were, all of them, ROBERTAS!!!! He looked down at his ticket. It didn't look Golden anymore. In fact, in this light, it was almost SALMON colored. Come to think of it.....it was PINK.
Francisco
Francisco's concentration is broken by a hesitant tap on his shoulder. He removes his headphones as he rises to his feet, snapping to attention in the presence of his superior. He pauses but a moment to absorb the meaning of the delicate, yet powerful dawn-tinted paper in his hands. He bows in respect. With the stern expression of a true warrior, he reaches for a seppuku blade, kept hidden in a lower drawer until now. He raises the ceremonial blade, gripped firmly with both hands, the point aimed into his abdomen. Somewhere in the distance, Taps is heard...
Keith
It's another brutal day in the trenches as Keith wiles the hours away playing Close Combat VI: The Scourge of CMM. Keith's godlike tactical abilities have forced him to impose artificially cruel handicaps on his forces in order to make the game challenging. This time around, he is working with shoeless 17-year-old CPA understudies with NO military training, armed only with tongue depressors and U.S. savings bonds. He is going up against a crack squad of elite Nazi robots with titanium skin and titanium flasks, and an unbreakable supply line to the Goldschlager refinery. As Keith's greenhorn bean counters miraculously take the last bunker, he realizes that it's not the Der Fuhrer at all in that chair, it's Greg Witmer. Fade to pink.
Petra
Somberly approaching Petra's cube, Isabelle is only able to get out the words "Petra, I have bad news..." when Petra swiftly steals her thunder by finishing her sentence regarding layoffs. She finishes off with several comments Isabelle was about to make regarding her sincere regret and the fine job Petra has done for the company. As Isabelle stands agape, her very words torn from her esophagus, Petra rises with dignity, lights a cigarette, flips everyone the bird and flicks ashes on Isabelle as she saunters casually from the building.
Brian
The dulcet tones of the Rocky Horror Picture Show reverberating in his skull like a BB in a boxcar, Brian Bradshaw's sweaty, sausage-fingered hand lazily probes the Candy Pumpkin for an intoxicating nugget of choccy. His mind barely torn from thoughts of rampaging through the office in God-Mode, he unwraps the sweetmeat and absentmindedly pops it in his maw, barely pausing to masticize it before it joins its brethren in his gullet. In a trained maneuver bordering on the Pavlovian (perhaps triggered by the faint sweetness in the back of his throat) he drops the 'wrapper' into the waste basket. It was no ordinary wrapper, however, but a small, neatly printed pink slip. He continues to go about his day, and many after that, only breaking routine to call payroll and say, "Question: I haven't gotten my paycheck yet..."
Andy
Andy returns from the kitchen with some of the most intoxicatingly foul smelling-Cajun-Thai-fusion gruel that was ever concocted. As he approaches his cube and his co-workers are gagging from the fumes of death, Andy prepares in his mind the list of 26 home-building-related phone calls he will make over the course of the next three hours, while he listens to Iron Chef online and fantasizes about mutilating certain co-workers with a plastic fork. Just as he nears his cube, cocksucking gremlins trip him, and he lands face first in a soft, still-hot-from-the-horse shit-pie. "Aauughhh, GAWD!" he exclaims as he wipes the putrefyingly liquid feces from his eyes and nose. "You COCKSUCKERS!" Within the shit-pie was his pink slip. Then John Fillip steps around the corner and wheezes while shooting him repeatedly in the ass with a Crossman Air-Powered Rifle.
Audrey
Reaching in the drawer of her tiny cubicle desk, Audrey fumbles for her ubiquitous bedazzler. Fixing her well trained eye on a portion of her pants about mid calf she squeezes the trigger like she has on so many occasions before. Instead of the smooth and reaffirming ca-chunk of a sequin being tightly fastened she hears only a whispery thwup. Looking down at the floor she sees not the expected fallen sequin but a tightly crumpled piece of pink paper. Refusing to accept the reality lying mutely at her feet she looks first left, then right, and in one swift movement brings the paper to her mouth and swallows it. The inevitable is prolonged, but only for the moment.
Nancy
Nancy will be in the her cube stitching the latest in her new series of patchwork quilts depicting pony-tailed men wearing bathrobes, holding stringed instruments. She reaches for a particularly feminine swatch of pink cloth, only to find the terms of her severance embroidered on the fabric. She immediately sets about stitching her rebuttal, which begins, "BUT I KNOW MANDARIN CHINESE, YOU BASTARDS"
Maribeth
Maribeth will awaken at 3:15 and as she rubs the sleep from her eyes she'll catch her first glimpse of the small pink object carefully pinned below her windshield wiper. Furiously attempting to rework the word "severance" into some potentially humorous derivation such as "several ants" or "severed pants" her brain grows dangerously hot and the abundance of mousse in her hair bursts into a horrifying spray of flames.
Pete
During recess Pete will be playing another rollicking round of Godzilla vs. Gameron with his carefully crafted "action figures". Depressing the lever on Gameron's back to activate his fearsome tongue strike he will note that it is not the tongue which issues forth, but rather a tightly coiled slip of pink paper. Slowly unfolding it he begins to weep in bitter despair, his pitiful mutterings punctuated with the words "puppet" and "genius".
Carl
Carl will receive a tap on his should are 2:30 in the afternoon, causing him to take off his headphones and stop shoot Ferris and Friends. Roberta will say "That doesn't look like the learning network" as Ferris's alter ego "Tinshaft" sneaks up behind Carl's "Carebear Crow" and knifes him. Carl hardly notices his online death as he reads a pink slip of paper.