Everyone said Christopher was in a good mood in the week leading up to the presentation. This sullen, moody boy, often muttering to himself now walked with a spring in his step, wore a smile on his lips and went so far as to ask people about their day.
Odd because, rarely in the three years working for the company did he speak in full sentences, usually making do with nasally monosyllabic grunts and somehow, he now spoke in full paragraphs with a happy tone.
There wasn’t much to the kid. He was a college dropout, the son of some bigwig upstairs who had pulled a few strings to get his boy anywhere. Most people at the office were ready to write Christopher off as a benefactor of nepotism but he soon established himself as a tireless worker, locating and processing twenty records from the archives in half an hour whilst the office hens sipping their coffee would only manage five if they felt generous.
Reg, the office manager didn’t know what to make of Christopher requesting to speak at the annual presentation. Only that he recalled being bored and tired as he and Christopher waited outside the lecture hall, alone in the corridor.
“I think this job is killing me,” Christopher confessed with a thin smile “the same thing every day. Like Sisyphus or Groundhog’s Day. Is this as good as life will ever get?”
Reg felt the same career wise, but he, at least had a family, so watching his three daughters grow up was something of a cure for monotony.
“I made a vow,” Christopher went on “never to die a virgin so last week I paid a thousand pounds to a first-class prostitute.”
A pause as Reg stared at Christopher to see him crack a smile since there was no irony or sarcasm in his voice, but Reg only saw an almost childlike earnestness written across the lad’s face.
“What can I say?” Christopher explained “I don’t want to end up like Dean.”
Dean was the office misery guts. And at aged sixty-five, was the bald sour faced bachelor, permanently squinting in distaste at anyone in his line of sight.
You had to admit, it wasn’t too hard to see Christopher morph into Dean, given enough decades.
“But there’s a cure,” Christopher smiled again, “leave the party early.”
Before Reg could decipher that line, Christopher was called in to give his presentation, nothing too fancy, he was asked to only speak for a minute or so.
Instead, he demonstrated something nobody there had ever seen before. He pulled out from his coat pocket, a 55 Beretta and placing it behind his temple, pulled the trigger.
