My stomach growled. The woman at the front desk remarked that it sounded like an old internet connection.
We both laughed hardily, then. But what she didn’t know, couldn’t know, was that I was currently in a tempestuous struggle to contain the sort of flatulence that might level this office building. Or at the very least, make the rest of our interaction awkward, possibly even unpleasant.
It was up to me, now. I couldn’t let my jovial new acquaintance know of the noxious darkness that roiled inside of me.
Suddenly, she stood. Had a vapor slipped past my defenses? Did she recognize me for the disgusting animal that I was?
No, her face still held a kind smile. She stood and politely excused herself, as she left her desk and walked into a back room.
And not a moment to soon. I quickly shuffled over to a large plant, in a remote corner of the office. Hell’s horn section was promptly released, and their gassy tune was a loud, rattling affair. With the soon to be wilted fern as its captive audience.
I sniffed at my stink. It was pleasant. I wanted to howl at a moon. To urinate on the potted plant at my feet. To run stark naked into a forest, and to just keep running. This was the freedom of the wild. I was the wolf man. Sasquatch.
The ancient dna of my caveman ancestors coursed through my being, and its primal charge whispered secrets of this unkown wild.
“Mr. Jajic, Jim will see you now.”
She smiled uncertainly, as I quickly stopped sniffing at the air, and let go of the fern.
Jim was ready to see me. And now we would truly meet.
Nik Was Here 