Extra Special

There is no going back, it is a phrase from the Department of the Mysteries. It wasn't a very quotable line, but it describes the work environment that I entered every day. I wanted to quit but that isn’t a possibility anymore. I have lost interest in people who look at my job and expect me to say I was exaggerating but it is not exaggeration to say that I would kill anyone if I had to look at another tax report.

Yes, that is my job. The Department of Mysteries is a government agency that looks after the wishes made by every citizen, and I deal with the taxes. I chose this job because the slacker that I am needed a job that did little work and no schedule to hold me accountable as long my work is done. I had access to magic codexes to automate the workflow. But the problem is that whenever there is a bump in financial activity that people who have little or no cashflow, I am expected to investigate. And people who are at the bottom are desperate and scared and I just happened to be the thing standing poverty and a better life. So yes, I am usually in danger and I hate it.

A fine example of this danger is that I am currently hanging upside down with my feet chained to the ceiling in a meat locker. I can see the expected large cow carcasses and the cutting board that had a meat cleaver embedded into it to far away for me to grab but no worries, I am a ghoul. Yes, I am undead meat-eating ghoul because I died during my first ever investigation and now, I can just keep yanking the chain’s cuffs with my feet until I bleed and the skin and muscles of my ankles until enough flesh come and I fall on my head. I hear a sound that tells me that I have a crack skull. I just laugh and get back up as I feel my body heal the damage. I hate that this job took so much from me already but hey I need to survive and I wasted enough of it. I eat some of the carcasses since I am hungry. I got my fill and walk out the door. In front of me, the criminal was spooked to see me and immediately grabbed his wand. I just clawed at his hand. I do not actually have claws like long nails or whatever, I am just really strong, and I am tensing my fingers and with a wet smack sound, there is his wand holding hands. He tries to scream and I just lift by his neck and I tell, “just wish your hand better and then you give the wishing wand back to me or I make you a snack.”

“That could have gone better,” was a constant recurring phrase I used but as I drove back to the office, with the latest collection of wishing wands. A lot of them were bloody but I have lost a lot of empathy because of this job. It wasn’t something I can blame the job for, it was a learned skill from life, and something that made the job easier as everyone has a sob story to tell and the moment, I let my guard down, I only survived because I used a wishing wand that I stole to save myself and now I am monster that can’t be around anyone. And that is how I see the world since, just a world full of desperate monsters. “Hello, Ciel. How was the investigation,” came the voice of an angel and closest thing to a mother I have had ever, Joan. “Nothing to worry about Joan, just threaten an elderly woman for a wand and she just gave it up, nothing a little dismemberment couldn’t handle.”

The car was silent for awhile and it was broken after Joan bemoaned, “Jesus Christ, Ciel what the fuck”

I just laughed, “Ah, don’t be like that Joan, I tell you what the old hag was doing and you’ll see that the bitch deserves it.”

Joan asked through a weary sigh, “Alright, but used the back entrance, administration took away your human status again and want you to work harder to bring it back.”

I snorted and Joan weakly chuckled, either due to shared empathy as someone who was also labeled as inhuman or sadness that at any time, our statuses as a human being can just be taken away and not even just by the government but even fucking companies. I just accepted, Joan maybe older than me but I have worked at the company longer, she will learn that it was everyone for themselves at the Department of Mysteries. It was a cesspool that attracted outsiders and made them even more outsiders often by making them something other than if not physically than at least mentally.

I saw Joan through her glass bubble helmet, her suit was as heavy looking as ever and I wondered if she missed the lighter suit the company originally gave her when she had her human status but then Joan was a hard worker and amazing intuition, she will make up the numbers. Her blobby face look at me and she waved calling out my name, the people around me sneered at me or chuckle, I just laughed it all the same. Joan also ignored the unwanted audience and just smiled at me. It was a nice smile, I wished I had more of those in my life. I walked into the meeting room and wait for the clicks that alerted the two of us, that the security measures were in place and that the guards were watching us. I wished I could beat those guys up for the grief they give me every morning. But that was forbidden and I haven’t been allowed to be in the same room as those fucks since my first day of work. I can only sigh at my choice of profession.