0 comments/ 9275 views/ 0 favorites Midair By: WFEATHER In my job, I've seen quite a few things over the past six years or so. Suspended from the roof of a massive building, I've watched helplessly as a just-fired business executive jumped from the seventeenth floor and got impaled on the decorative fencing below, I've seen several police chases -- including one where the getaway car was actually a stolen police car -- speeding past that day's work location, I've seen a woman under some guy's desk clearly giving him head while he was apparently on the phone... and I even once saw a fist fight in a conference room and had to use the walkie-talkie to alert dispatch and have them call in the cops. Being a window washer is usually mundane, but at least I have the radio to keep me from falling over from the drudgery of it all. Talk radio is my ticket: sometimes political talk, sometimes sports talk (especially during football season). I usually work with a partner, Ed. He's a good guy, and he fortunately loves football just as much as I do, although he's more NCAA while I prefer NFL. He's really a bit young to be balding already, and his gut proves that he likes his beer -- "tastes great, less filling" -- but he's definitely got my back and I've got his. That's what's most important when you're twenty-six stories off the ground on a rather windy day. What really shocked me though was one day in early spring at the "bean" building (seen from above on Google Earth, it's got the general shape of a coffee bean). We'd just started for the morning on the north side of the building and had just lowered to the next to top floor to start washing the windows. Most of the buildings we go to don't have windows which open, but that one did. We'd just started our work on that floor when the window directly to my left opened and a well-freckled redheaded babe stuck her head out and looked directly at me. "I need a witness," she announced. I was stunned, and when I looked at Ed, he also had no idea what to think about this one. We finally shrugged at the same time and I turned back to face the lady, noting the outline of her bra through her nice yet thin white blouse. "I'm game," I told her. "Go on," Ed said. "I'll get this whole floor, but you've got the next one." "Deal," I agreed over my shoulder, then carefully made my way to and through the open window. I was in a conference room, my jeans and t-shirt and flannel shirt and basketball shoes -- all of which had seen much better days -- definitely at odds with the niceties on this side of the glass. I had seen many such business environments before, but always from the outside looking in. It felt so strange to be on the inside looking around, but I tried my best to make her believe that I'd been in this situation before. "So what'll I be witnessing?" I asked. I was already inside, so I was "stuck" in the situation, but I wanted to at least know what I had just volunteered for. "Divorce." "Um... huh?" "Here." She led the way to the adjacent office, and I recognized it as her office from the picture on the desk of her with a nice-looking young man and a beautiful baby girl sitting on his lap, the girl clearly having the woman's hair and freckles and the man's eyes and skin color. She closed the door behind us, and I turned to her, confused, wary. "There are several cameras hidden in this office," she told me, and instantly I began looking around, trying to spot any of them. "You won't find them. I'm fortunately the only one working in the office today since the main execs are all at a conference in Philadelphia and the usual office assistant is out with food poisoning. So, you're going to have sex with me, and make it rough." "Whoa! Lady, you're good-looking, no doubt about it, but I just met you not two minutes ago." "So?" "'So!?!' I'm not about to get mixed up in a divorce. I don't intend to be a mistress... or, um..." "Look, I've finally seen the light about Kenichi but I'm not in a position to file for divorce myself, so I need to make him start that nasty process. Once he starts it, I'll play it out for a few weeks, but then quickly give in." "What?" "You heard me, and you're part of my ticket to the divorce." "And the cameras are so you can record the sex and have your husband somehow discover the tapes?" "This is 2008. Tapes no longer exist." I couldn't believe my ears. I turned back to her desk and picked up the picture. "Have you looked at this picture lately? Especially the little girl on your husband's lap?" "So?" "'So!?!' Again you say 'So!?!' What the fuck's wrong with you, lady? Don't you have any compassion for your own daughter?" She didn't answer, but from her body language, I knew that I'd just struck a chord inside her. "I'm heading back outside. You wanna talk, you know where to find me. But I suggest that instead of talking to me, instead of trying to make sex tapes with a stranger, you do those things with the guy in this picture." I thrust the picture at her, and it took her a moment to finally take it from me. Stepping past her, I opened the door and headed back to the conference room so I could go back out the window. "I need a beer and it isn't even Noon yet!" I said, partly from frustration, but mostly so she could hear it. When I learned this morning that Ed and I had been assigned to the "bean" building again, I was thinking about that woman and her husband and especially their beautiful daughter. As we lowered to that floor again, I wanted to turn around and jump just so I wouldn't have to see that inhuman person again. But as I forced myself to peer into the window of her office, I saw that there were two photos on her desk: The same one from before, and another one of her and her husband and their daughter all sitting in front of the big fountain during the July 4 festivities at Treas Park near downtown. I recognized that it was from this year because, in the background of the shot, I saw myself with my niece about to walk together behind the fountain, and this was the first time that my niece had visited during July 4 Weekend. From window washer to marriage counselor. Now I believe I've seen everything in this job. Midas: Retouched He had everything he could have ever wanted. There were nubile young women surrounding him as he counted cash on the counter. Then suddenly everything seemed to fall apart. There was the blare of police sirens, and everyone fled. Even the money grew legs and fled. Money growing legs? He thought to himself, how is that possible. He pondered the idea for a moment before everything faded to black, except that pounding noise, that siren. Millan woke up with a curse on his lips and he violently hit the alarm clock to make it stop going off. He rubbed his hands over his face in an attempt to come back to the real world. He swing his feet over the edge of the bed and looked at his apartment in disgust. It was small and sparsely furnished, he had always lived just above the poverty line and things had always been hard. In his bedroom was a bed in the middle of the room, left there after an attempt to make his apartment feng-shui style, a desk and a bookshelf. The bookshelf was covered in self-help books, all of which pertained to becoming a millionaire. He even had some of those real estate scheme books, magazines, and videos strewn around the living room, and trialing into the bedroom. He walked into the bathroom to shave and get ready for another day of scheming for money... any money... hopefully enough money to pay off his rent that was two weeks overdue. He had always refused to get a job, even as a teenager he had never worked at a library of burger joint. He hated the idea of real work and instead had been hatching money schemes since he was thirteen. They had started simple enough, con the parents out of money for grades he never deserved. Sometimes he would force other people into doing the work, and other times he simply grabbed a red pen and changed the grade himself. It had worked pretty well until they started mailing printed report cards when he was in high school. That had taken some different ingenuity. In the end, he found, sleeping with the female teachers and blackmailing the male ones worked out perfectly. After he had graduated high school he had to really find some form of money without having to work for it. He had spent his graduation presents on all these self-help and make money now books. He had made enough money on those schemes, he supposed, but he was barely making ends meet now. That thought brought him back to reality. He quickly got dressed and turned on his laptop, another graduation present, and waited while it started up. If only that dream had been real, he mused as he pulled up his email through the web-browser. He checked through his emails seeing who had replied to the spam he had sent out the day before on some kind of new medicine. As he browsed through the emails he came to one that appeared to be personal. Personal, Addressed to his email? That had to be a mistake. He had no friends, no acquaintances, hell, he thought, even his family didn't talk to him anymore. They had called him many things before they disowned him, freeloader and scumbag being among the nicest. But this wasn't an email from any of his family members, and if it was, it certainly wasn't one he recognized. Out of curiosity more than anything he opened the untitled email. It read simply, what would you do if granted one wish? He smirked. He knew a scam email when he saw one. What would he do with one wish indeed? Deciding to go ahead and answer the email anyway, he hit respond and typed in; I would wish that everything I touched turned into gold. There, that was a good wish, he thought. Hitting the send button he sat down and went about his work. A woman with long blue hair looked into her computer waiting for the response she knew would come. Sure enough her mail beeped at her a moment later. She smiled as she saw what she knew she would see: I would wish that everything I touched turned to gold. It was a good wish, with many loopholes. She cleared her mind and with a power only one of her kind could possess she intoned: All that glitters is not gold, This is something you will behold, When your world becomes bleak and cold. But since this wish you asked of me, By earth, wind, fire, and the sea, What you wish shall come to be. She decided it would be interesting to watch his wish unfold as she turned to a half sphere by her and it changed from the view of a battle to his bedroom. He had just finished his work for the day. He decided it was high time he went scrounging in the fridge to see if anything was left. He got up, grabbing the chair on his way and walked past the living room and into the kitchen. The chair was the color of newly polished gold as soon as he left the room. He entered the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, and noticed something was different about it. It seemed heavier as if made of... no it couldn't be, he thought. He turned on the light and looked again. The door was made of gold. "Well isn't that weird. I must be dreaming," he muttered to himself before reaching in and grabbing a sandwich. He bit into it and almost lost all his front teeth. "Ow!" He exclaimed. He looked down at his sandwich, and it too had turned to gold. "Well, now at least I am rich," he said to himself since no one was in the room, "I wonder what else I can make into gold." He walked around his house touching various objects, until at last everything in it was gold. His magazines, videos, computer, clothing, even the carpet and the walls were gold, due to him tripping over a now 7-pound magazine. As he was looking over his new golden apartment his thought fell to the riches he now had and what he would do with them. As his mind flitted over all the ladies he could have with this newly found fortune of his a knock sounded at the door. Knock. It seemed to boom through the house. He looked through the house not wishing to share any of his new found wealth, but in his haste to be rich he had turned everything into gold. Knock. Came the sound again, it thundered like a falling god. That noise scared him more than ever. Maybe if he did not say anything or make any noise they would go away. Knock. Knock. Knock. The sound seemed to be mocking him, even as the sound of feet rapped against the newly gold floor, not marring it an iota. Knock! Knock! Knock! Faster and faster his heart beat, and faster and faster the knocking came. He knew who it was; of course, it was his property owner coming to evict him. He knew he could easily pay the bill now, but he did not want the landlord to know how rich he had become, even the thought of being able to make more later did not quench his greed. He would not give anyone any of his money. It was his, all his. He started laughing manically. The money was all his. Knock. Knock. Knock. I know you are in there, said the person muffled behind the door. Knock, knock, knock. I can hear you in there. Knock. Knock. Knock. He heard the jingling of the landlord's keys as he went to unlock the door. Then Millan made a mistake, he knew he had made almost before he did it. He grabbed his head to rip out his hair in frustration. The landlord opened the door and saw an empty apartment. All of the items belonging to Millan were gone. The magazines, videos, books, and the computer, all were gone. The only thing in the entire apartment was the ugliest statue the landlord had ever seen. It was of a man screaming as he ripped out his hair.