It had been a long day for Ted. After 9 months of working three jobs, getting less than one hour of sleep per night, and saving every penny earned, Ted finally had enough cash to purchase his girlfriend her dream horse. After cashing his final check from his last job, he sat outside on the curb and sobbed. His weeping was hard to identify as joyful or sorrowful, as it was a mixture of genuine misery, suffering, and relief.
The sun was bright and the sky was a crisp blue, illuminating the countryside bank and its emerald and white coat of paint. Flecks of gold shimmered from the pillars and made gorgeous patterns on Ted's back as he wailed into his hands. People walked by with sharp sneer looks, thankful that it wasn't them suffering today. "Look at that milksop, crying on a beautiful day like this... Something awful must have happened, haha!" The woman fell to her knees as she laughed so hard at the sight of soft-minded Ted.
Ted could hardly hear her, in fact, he had no sense of time. He couldn't believe that when he finally had finished crying, over three days had passed. The horrors he had faced to earn the money for this horse had overcome any sense of time and space. Ted took some deep breaths and tried to calm down, but after reliving the last six months in his head, he began to weep again.
When Ted set out to save up for the horse, he only had one job. It was a call center for a national flower delivery service. He loved it, in fact, and was happy to work at such an amazing company. He didn't have to be there until 10am, and was free to go as soon as his work was complete since he was a salaried employee. All he had to do was respond to any voicemail complaints left on the phone from the previous evening. All of that changed the moment he was hired at his second job.
As if the universe knew, his workload at the flower company increased tenfold as soon as he accepted his second position. His boss, Howard, who had hired him and raised him up to his current role in the company, was fired. The new boss was named Melgo, and his underbite was nearly 3 inches further out than his nose. Melgo had one mission alone, and it was to torment Ted. He would spill coffee on Ted's desk nearly every day, unplug his computer and phone during calls, and turn the lights out whenever Ted had a restroom break.
Ted had no idea why Melgo was angry with him, but it was clear. He was asked to start arriving at work no later than 5:30am. Melgo would be waiting in the parking lot when he arrived, slamming a large club into his fist and pointing it towards Ted. He loved pushing Ted towards the office with the blunt end of the club, usually singing, "dirt-clod Ted has lost his way, dirt-clod Ted must work today." Ted could barely handle it, but this was his main source of income and that horse wasn't going to pay for itself. Julie deserved it, didn't she?
His second job was a different story. Although he had to renegotiate his hours after Melgo started keeping him from 5:30am-5:30pm at the flower company, the new job was actually a pleasant experience. He had to rush to get here by 6pm, however, the work was rewarding. It was called BunCo, and his duties were to feed cute baby bunnies and make sure they were comfortable. After a horrible day with Melgo, this was the perfect way (other than relaxing at home with Julie) to wind down.
After a month of 12 hour shifts at the flower company and 6 hours per night at BunCo, Ted was finally starting to get into a good flow. After a nightmare day with Melgo installing a hot plate in his work chair, Ted was excited to feed some bunnies. Then Ted saw something that turned his face to a pale gray stone, tears immediately welling in his eyes; Melgo was shaking hands with the owner of BunCo. Melgo slowly turned his head towards Ted, his teeth sharp and a look of sociopathic murder in his eyes.
Melgo's first order of business as the new supervisor at BunCo was to decrease Ted's pay by nearly half. He also reassigned him to the buttwipe center, where Ted would have to wipe the rear's of all the bunnies he had once fed. They remembered his scent well, and would come to him for food, quickly sinking their teeth into his hands when they realized there weren't carrots to be had. Melgo also had the bunnies' diets adjusted to only include chocolate pudding, so the easy to clean pellets quickly became scalding hot pools of rabbit diarrhea. In turn, this also made the bunnies more violent towards Ted.
With his compensation docked at BunCo, Ted realized after a long night of number crunching that he'd have to get a 3rd job in order to afford Julie's horse. He hadn't even seen Julie in two weeks, his time was completely consumed with work. He got home at 12:30am from BunCo and Julie would be sound asleep, sign on the door saying "sleep on the couch if you get home after 10pm." He'd leave by 5am to make it to the flower company by 5:30am, and Julie wasn't much of a morning person, so he didn't have much of an opportunity. The rings under his eyes were dark, dark purple.
He started his third job, and it was from 12:30am-4:30am. It had to be simple, as he was really starting to lose his grip on reality. All Ted needed to do was crush animal bones and encapsulate them for an online fulfillment center. It was a short shift with no breaks, but it finally got him on budget to afford Julie's horse. This took quite the toll on Ted's mind, as he would need to go straight to the flower company and sleep in his car until his shift would begin, giving him less than an hour of sleep each night. (after picking out the bone splinters, he was getting an average of 37 minutes of sleep per night, roughly 4.5 hours per week)
And that was that. 9 months passed after getting this job and Ted had forgotten who he was and the things he loved. His mind had become irreparably soft, and he could barely remember Julie's face. He hadn't even called out sick, it was the first of the month when he took all three checks to the bank to deposit. Now it was the fourth day of the month, and he had spent three days sobbing on the curb outside the bank. His butt was sore, his brain was cloudy, but he forced himself off the curb with a huge grunt. His hands still had bone splinters from his last shift.
Ted patted down the gorgeous white nag that he had purchased at the stable, shook hands with the cattleman, and mounted the beautiful pale horse. Ted felt more free than he had in nearly a year, no phones, no carrots, no bones, but best of all, no Melgo. Ted was as pale as the horse, there was no windows in any of the offices he worked at. His eyes had sunken nearly 2 inches in, and he no longer had a peripheral view. The rings under his eyes were a smokey black, and reached all the way to the bottom of his cheeks. The whites of his eyes were dark purple.
He pulled out his cellphone as he rode into his neighborhood, closing in on his house. He ignored the many missed calls from all three jobs, and texted Julie to meet him outside. Ted actually had some swagger of confidence as he galloped slowly towards Julie, who he finally saw as she came out from their home. He had tears in his eyes, he couldn't believe all of this was finally over.
"Hello partne-" Ted began as he heard a sound he was very familiar with, the snapping of a femur bone. The horse's leg had come down the wrong way in a pothole, and Ted had no time to react as the horse toppled towards the ground, bones splintering out of its leg. The horse landed on its neck, snapped it, and died, rolling on top of Ted and disintegrating his legs in the process. It was over for Ted.
Julie was screaming angrily at him, not understanding why he would do this to her horse, and how he'd need to replace the steed immediately. He couldn't hear her anymore, as he looked towards his home and saw Melgo emerge from the front door, arms folded and jaw jutted outward. Melgo's eyes bulged with joy at the site of the dead horse and ruined Ted, and he began howling with laughter. Melgo put his arm around Julie and began to grow, at first only inches but was quickly over 16 feet tall and proportionally growing larger all the time.
Ted's mind was completely erased at this point, unable to comprehend as Melgo grew well above 30 feet tall, his voice bellowing deep and vibrating the earth. Melgo walked over, lifted the horse off of Ted, and dropped it into his mouth, swallowing without chewing. Ted lived under a bridge for the rest of his life, not knowing who he was or why he was there.
