The midmorning light that shines through the dusty slats of your blinds is enough to rouse you from sleep. You awake slowly and rub the sleep from your eyes as you stare at the ceiling. A minute passes, maybe two, and the alarm on your phone blares out before being immediately silenced by you. You sit up in bed with a deep sense of dread down in your soul. Outside your window you can see sun shining, hear birds singing cheery tunes. You can hear the droning sound of someone mowing their lawn a block or two away and the joyous screams of the neighbor children at play come muffled through the walls of your bedroom. By all rights it should be a wonderful day, but you won't get to enjoy it. No, you have to work.
You roll out of bed, and walk on heavy feet to the bathroom. The routine is the same almost every day. Shit, brush your teeth, have a quick shower. By the time you come out of the shower, you find that you are running a bit late. You rummage through a pile of mostly clean laundry in your hamper and pull out some jeans and a wrinkled work shirt. The logo on the breast of the shirt taunts you. The smiling face of a cartoonish satyr hovers above the words Stop-N-Go. You hate it, hate the smug look on that cartoon Satyr's face.
You head out the door and into a tauntingly idyllic suburban day. The sun is pleasantly bright, the breeze annoyingly perfect. You walk along the sidewalk, envying the good folk out enjoying the weekend. You see a family of orcs roasting a whole hog over a pit barbecue in their yard, some centaurs are out for a gallop around the local park, and a pack of delinquent harpies are loitering at the bus stop. You'd trade places with any of them in a heartbeat.
The walk to work isn't long. The little corner store is only about two blocks from your place, which was the entire reason you applied there. Not having a car kind of limits your choices for work. The outside of the corner gas station is clean and cheery. Neat red accents give the building a modern, professional look. On the top you see the sign, complete with an oversized depiction of Saul the Satyr, the company mascot. His smiling, overly hirsute face mocks you as you enter the building. Inside you can see the usual motley crowd of local weirdos and regulars. There are a pair of kappa perusing the liquor section, an old gnome with a walker is trying to grab a large bag of potato chips off of the top shelf, and skunk ape is busy raiding the rolling hotdog tray.
Before you even have time to clock in, however, your manager spots you and walks up to you. Kah'ren means well, but she always takes her job far too seriously. The sphinx woman, about the size of a leopard or jaguar, has a feline body to match. Her face is human, with some cat-like features mixed in, and she wears her hair in a tight bob very reminiscent of a typical soccer mom. She has the body of a big cat, the face of a middle aged woman, and is entirely your problem.
"Good morning, Anon. Glad to see you in on time. I have a riddle for you," she says with a sharp-toothed smile.
"Come on, Kah'ren, you know I hate riddles. Just tell me what you want me to do," you say to her as you walk over to one of the electronic registers and use the touch screen to clock in for your shift.
Ignoring you, she starts to rattle off her riddle very proudly. "What has four legs but does not walk? It comes in three parts, but has one purpose? Both hard and soft, it is wet while it dries. What is it?" she asks, looking decidedly like a house cat that just ate the family canary.
"A mop," You answer with a roll of your eyes. You've heard this one almost every week since you started this job and the novelty has LONG since worn off.
"A mop! We had a spill in the cooler. Would you be a dear and mop it up?" she asks as she walks past you and gives you a firm, patronizing pat on the back with one of her big paws.
You grumble as you fill the mop bucket in the back of the small store. You can hear Kah'ren chatting with customers as she checks them out at the register. As soon as you're done mopping, that is going to be your job, and you are not looking forward to it. So you take your time with the spilled puddle of sugary syrup in the walk-in cooler. Fifteen, twenty minutes pass, and soon you realize that you're going to have to go out and face the rest of your shift. Eight hours of uninterrupted customer service, oh joy. You stow the mop back by the sink in the back of the corner store and affix your nametag.
"Got that spill cleaned up? Good, then you can take over register duty. I'm off to lunch. See you in a tick," Kah'ren says as she slips out of her vest and hangs it on a hook on the wall. The sphinx heads for the front doors, but casts you a friendly smile before heading out for her lunch hour. The bright blue, noonday sky outside the windowed wall of the front of the store calls to you as you settle in behind the cash register for what is almost certainly going to be an excruciatingly long shift. The shift starts off typically boring, but then