Teri's worst day continues...
Getting to work
Transmigrated Teri is a WIP that is part of a “post 200 words a day during July” challenge issued by
. Episodes posted daily will be of various lengths and sometimes will stop in the middle of the scene. You have been warned!The set up:
Teri Travers, a nearly-50 bitter “office lady” who has not led a happy life gets in a massive car accident after being sent home on the first day of COVID lockdown in 2020. She (and her dog) wake up in a strange new world that is also strangely familiar…that’s right, she’s been transmigrated into the world of her favorite 1990s fantasy novel series, the massively popular, critically disdained, and incredibly tropetastic Allisar Fireborn Chronicles by the infamous Chadwick Jarvaldson, aka “Fuckin’ Chad” to all his very annoyed fans who are still waiting for the final book to be published.
March 16, 2020, continues at the doggy daycare center, Barkingham Palace…
“Teri! And Theo, yes, good boy, Theo! Good boy!” Angie cooed at Teri’s traitorous dog from over the counter, making faces at him as if he was a toddler. Theo, predictably, bounced around with joy and headed immediately for the door leading to the play area. Teri tugged at his leash to hold him back for a moment.
“Angie, I don’t know when they are going to call the lockdown, so I’m headed in now but might be back early for pickup. I know I’ll be paying the full day’s rate,” she rattle off to forestall the lecture.
The door flew open and Louis, one of the dog handlers, spread his arms wide. “Holá, Theodorian!”
Teri just let the leash go, since it was hopeless to try to contain 80 pounds of excited doggy joy. He was half Chocolate Lab and half Great Pyrenees and 100% feather-brained exuberance personified, and far more popular than Teri herself would ever be. Theo scrambled across the concrete floor with a bark and disappeared with Louis into the back.
“Do you think you can keep him out of the pool today?”
Angie grimaced. “Probably not? But we’ll dry him off completely, I promise!”
Teri sighed. “Fine.” She turned and stomped out, fully expecting a slightly damp wet dog smell to ruin her day later.
By the time she got to work it was exactly 8:01 a.m., but as usual she was about the only person in the department who bothered to show up on time. She eyed the empty front desk critically as the phone rang and rang, but she walked straight past it instead of answering. It was probably a panicked parent calling for information about the assumed lockdown and, more to the point, information on how to get a refund on the dorm room if the school closed for longer than a month.
No one knew the answer to that, not even the university president’s office. She sure as hell wasn’t going to waste her time saying as much over and over until the student intern-du-jour came into work (if they did, which she doubted they would. Half the school was already fleeing homewards).
“Teri! Hey.” Devon waved from his cubicle. “You haven’t—”
“I have not heard anything. No news, no updates, nothing.” She kept walking. Devon was a good kid who at least showed up on time for work, but Teri was already done with all the uncertainties. She was not looking forward to going home to re-explain it all to her mother, who would just badger her for answers, over and over and over.
As she stopped to get her keys out to open her office, she glanced over at Ellie’s office door. There were two new photos of her kids plastered there, and Teri swallowed the bitter pill she swallowed every morning looking at Ellie’s door. She jammed the key in and swung the door open, stopping for a moment to take in the space. It was a small office but it did have a tall window overlooking the math department’s hideous brutalist architecture, all geometry and concrete.
But what caught her eye was the extravagant pothos plant draped over the top of her desk’s hutch, along with her sansevieria, her parlor palm, and her two boston ferns in pots. She realized that she would need to take all of them home, since they would not survive a long lockdown.
Her boss had said the other day that he assumed it would only last a few weeks but she was betting on three months, at least, so she started packing up. Aside from the awkward plants, everything she would need to work from home fit in a banker’s box, and the rest she spent cleaning up and organizing. Ellie came in and stood in the doorway, watching.
“You really think this is going to go on for a while, don’t you?”
“Yep.” Teri continued dusting the bookshelf. "I honestly doubt I’ll be back here any time soon.”