Diary of a Toy - Day 2 (Patreon)

Day 2

I’ve never woken up so alert in my life. My alarm went off at 7 AM, and I jumped out of bed. Brushed my teeth etc. in my personal bathroom (did I mention this place is insane?) and headed straight for the dining hall.

I loaded up a wonderful plate of bacon, soft fluffy cooked-on-demand cheese omelet, and wonderfully crispy-on-the-outside gooey-on-the-inside French toast, with a nice pad of butter to top it all off. I know it sounds cliche, but there really were so many options on the menu. Mexican preparation of eggs, European cold cuts, smoked fish, Indian curried potato with flatbreads, Chinese and Japanese rice with a myriad of accoutrements… and this was only breakfast. I suppose the stereotypical cliche one is me.

I polished it all off gleefully with two cups of dark, fragrant coffee. This would’ve cost me upwards of $20! I’d have to watch my weight here.

I got back to my room and took my laptop to the office. There was a shared space for all the employees to focus on work. Completely optional, of course. A few others were there, but they weren’t nearly as excited as me. I discovered that I was the only new hire in this particular mansion. Some of them looked positively haggard. Would this job get significantly harder than I expected? Maybe I didn’t know what I was in for.

At lunch, I got in a company golf cart and drove to the central mansion where orientation would take place. About 30 of us were gathered there, jittering with excitement. They served us lunch and seated us at various round tables. It turned out that I was the only new hire residing in mansion 6 (we numbered them 1-6, left to right, front to back, facing the driveway in.)

It grew quiet as the clock neared 12:30. I’d never seen such a thing before. Usually, someone clinks a glass or we get microphone feedback before the background murmurs stop, but the anticipation was killing all of us. We scanned all of the various doorways she might come through, each hoping we’d be the first to notice her.

But none of us could have predicted she would have flown down into the mansion. I mean, yes, obviously we knew she could do that. But the roof and ceiling actually parted to create an opening! That wasn’t fair!

She floated down in her costume, cape fluttering deliciously, looking so perfectly beautiful as she waved to us. I have never heard such raving applause and cheering from a crowd of just thirty. We sounded like legions.

Lady Z landed at the podium. The microphone was too high, but she simply adjusted herself, her entire body rising to the correct level.

“Welcome, new hires of Zenterprise! We are very selective in our process, and we know that you will do great things with us! With your help, I can literally make the world a better place! I look forward to meeting each and every one of you personally!”

And with that, she was gone.