Caustic Soda

Billy had a pressing need for a cold can of fizzy pop. He was on his well earned lunch break and had been working like a slaves dog all morning. There had been two truck loads of office stationary arrive and it was under Billy's job description to not only order essential equipment for mainaining, running and keeping an office organised, efficient and well filed but also when said delivery of office supplies arrived to check it as a legitimate order, supervise the unloading of said delivery vehicle and then make sure that all of the stationary and supplies were stored away neatly in their correct place.
Normally this part of Billy's job was easy peasy, it was a case of signing for a box of post-it notes or rubber bands or paper clips or occassionally and excitingly a pack of dry wipe markers. But today was differentt all of the supplies had seemed to be running low all at once. It's what, if stationary supply people would call a perfect storm if anyone thought it was a good or even not a waste of time to have a conference on stationary management at which people discuss matters of importance or significance in the office supply world.
Yes today Billy had been rushed straight off his feet, he was a regular whirling dervish of activity and as you can imagine being a whirling dervish whirling dervish this didn't really help.
The first problem was that the two lorries hadn't arrived first thing which would have been very much better for Billy but in mid morning and within about two minutes of one another and this led to several piles of office supplies sitting on the loading dock and looking for all the world like a pile of office supplies that were going to cause Billy a huge amount of problems because they were. Part of the problem was that not only did Billy have to organise the unloading of the two lorries of office supplies he also had to check the inventory against his own order records to make sure this vast logisitical nightmare was accurate, mercifully it was, but he also then had to put it all away, each different office necessity had it's own place of storage so Billy could find it easy when people needed a refill of photocopier ink or staples or clicky topped pens and knowing how light fingered office workers can be all of this had to be secured in a locked area. The problem with such a large delivery of office supplies was that it was difficult to keep the stock secure.
The lorries had long since gone but the large piles of office equipment was know sitting on the loading dock and this left Billy with a dilemma. Should he stay with the supplies and make sure no thieving went on at the port of origin or by the store cupboard where the stock was being brought to.
He opted to get a chain going between some of the loading bay workers so the whole of the delivery was being continuously moved and to stand by the store cupboard and check off all the items as they arrived and be the last link in the chain and put the various boxes where they needed to go.
This alsp created problems for Billy, several in fact, the first was that the loading bay workers were far more used to physical work than Billy and their rhythm as a human chain of office supply movement was a lot quicker than Billy could cope with. No sooner had Billy taken possession of the first box, checked it's particulars and decided where to put it when another turned up. This bought Billy out in a sheen of sweat. He didn't like it. Another problem was that in Billy's mind there would have been a logical sequence to moving the boxes. The biggest stuff that was supposed to go at the back of the cupboard would have come first and so on and so on and so on. But the loading bay workers, eager to get back to rolling up some polythene wrapping into a ball and set about having a crafty kick about aand maybe a quick fag where throwing the boxes about in such a random way that Billy was have to check each box, decide that it was out of sequence and leave it until it was appropriate to store the box, this left him working around an untidy pile of boxes as he struggled to maintain his faculties.
It also didn't help that people at random intervals would wander over, seemingly oblivious to Billy's trials and tribulations to request some office supply. There was a definate procedure for requesting office supplies, ask Billy, Billy got stationary, Billy locked store cupboard, office supply was signed for only then was a person allowed to wander away with any equipment.
So Billy's day hadn't been great so far. In fact it hadn't been great to such an extent that after the last box in his chain had arrived he'd plonked it down with all of the other boxes that he'd been forced to stack due to the loading bay workers not having the faintest idea about organised transportation of office supplies through the form of a human chain, locked the door, deciding to clear up the remaining boxes when he got back from lunch and went to lunch.
Billy locked up, ignored a request for some A4 manila envelopes with a really rather over-curt "it'll wait, come back after lunch." and went in search of cold, fizzy pop. It was what he craved after all his exertions, both physical and mental, this morning. In fact, Billy thought, one can might not be eonugh I may have to have two.
He left the cold, seventies built office building and strolled off down the road to the corner shop.
He bought one can of a generic brand lemonade and one can of a generic fizzy orange, a lot of fizzy citrus goodness, and as a treat a Lion bar, he also bought a newspaper, it was a bit better than watching the traffic Billy supposed. He walked on to the little bit of green space that doubled as a traffic island, it wasn't just any old traffic island though. Some bright spark at the traffic management section of the town council had thought that it might be a good and pleasant idea to have the island set out in a variety of flora. Arborial was a nice way to describe it. The island had a little path linking two sets of pedestrian crossings and three benches that folk could sit on and a waste bin so you could enjoy your lunch al fresco but also be aware of your responsibility towards the environment.
Billy sat down on the left hand bench and focussed out the dirty drone of the constant traffic as it revolved around the island, picked up his paper and was happy for the first time in three hours.
Billy opened his frosty can of orange fizzy pop and damn near finished the thing in one go. He emptied it on the second swig and got up and put it carefully in the bin which was down the other end of the row of benches on the far side of the right hand bench. This little walk was fine though, it was a nice day and the fizzy orange pop had given him a new burst of sugar fuelled energy. He turned back round and someone was sitting on the bench where he'd left his paper and in fact was reading his paper.
"Excuse me, that's my paper and I was sitting there."
"Really."
"Yes."
"But you got up, I thought you were off."
"No, I just went to the bin. I was always going to come back."
"But I didn't know that."
"Well I didn't think I needed to advertise it, look the other two benches are free. Why don't you use one of those?"
"Why don't you?"
"What?"
"Well, I'm sat here now. If I got up that would be just too complicated when you could just sit on one of the other benches. If I got up I'd be getting up to sit back down again but you're already up."
This cold logic caught Billy unawares. He hadn't been expecting this level of arguemental prowess and couldn't really think of a suitable response as to why he should have the bench when the other guy was already sitting down. He gave in.
"Can I have my paper, my pop and my Lion Bar then."
"Oh sure, can I have the paper after you. I like to check my astrological outlook and read the problem page."
"Errr, yeah I gues."
Billy wandered off down to the bench by the bin. He felt it best to put a bench in between himself and this mysterious interloper. It was weird plus he had the feeling that if he didn't he might end up in some sort of conversation where at some point he sold his soul to a powerful anti-deity or something. This guy was giving off just that sort of creepy aura.
"Cripes that's some deep weird thinking there. I think maybe lugging boxes has blown a sensible circuit in my brain."
And slightly disconcerted Billy started on his paper and his Lion Bar. His recent unnerving encounter however meant that his enjoyment of said chocolatey/nougaty/peanutty treat was diminshed and he found that the enjoyment that he was expecting to get from the Lion Bar was dissapointingly low, he put the wrapper in the bin as he mulled over how his day had started out seemingly as routine as any other but had quickly turned into a frantic and strange day full of lugging boxes, uncoordination and weird strangers.
He opened his remaining can of fizzy pop and was about to take a well earned swig when he heard a rattle and from in the can as well. Billy took a weary glance inside the can's small opening, he could see the cold lemonade sitting there but nothing rattle worthy. He swirled the cold fluid around and sure enough something rattled away in the can.
Billy poured out the liquid, obviously he didn't want to drink the Lemonade now and he was curious to find out what was causing this rattle.
"Hey, hey, hey if you don't want the pop don't waste it, I'll have it." The bench stealing interloper was back in Billy's life again.
"Oh great, no you don't understand. There's something in it."
"I know, you're supposed to drink it. It's called Lemonade. It says so on the can."
"No, God you're a pain in my arse. It's a thing, it has something else in it. A rattly thing. Listen."
He swirled the can around for the benefit of his new aquaintence and sure enough there was the rattle. "See. Told you."
"Oh yeah. What is it?"
"I don't know. that was why I was pouring out the liquid so I could see."
"Oh well, go ahead then. Don't let me stop you."
"Thanks." Billy thought this might be enough to get rid of the stranger but he just hung around watching to see what Billy did next.
Billy tipped out the remainder of the liquid and the mysterious object in the can got wedged in the cans small opening. Billy jiggled the can about to try to free the thing but it would budge. The thing was stuck in the can.
The stranger took the can from Billy. "Oi" said Billy.
But before he could get the whole of the Oi out the guy had ripped the can in two and freed the object.
He tossed the can in the shredded can in the bin and sat down next to Billy handing him the wet, lemony smelling object.
"What is it?" Billy said. It was sharp like a piece of rock, stone not candy, although it's texture didn't feel like stone or rock. It was hard but had a strange smoothness and it was arrowheaded to a sharp point.
"Is it rock or maybe flint?"
"No," said the stranger taking it from Billy and rolling it in the palm of his hand. and then between his index finger and his thumb. "It's a tooth."
"A tooth, nah, it's too big."
"No, not Human. It's animal."
"What sort of animal?"
"Well that's the tricky bit. Like you say my friend, it's big so it's got to be a big animal."
"Like an elephant or a hippo?"
"Not quite. If you see how sharp it is you can see it's a meateaters tooth. Good for ripping up flesh."
"Oh like a lion or a tiger than. Wow a real tiger tooth that's awesome."
"No, it's not mammal. It's a bit too long, wouldn't fit in a big cat's jaw."
"Ooooh, is it a shark? Please say it's a Hammerhead."
"No, unfortunately. Shark's teeth have serated edges. This doesn't. I'm thinking it's reptillian."
"Oh, king cobra, black mamba something cool. Maybe a viper."
"I don't think so but you're closer. It's more of a lizard than a snake."
"Monitor lizard or one of those strange things with a massive ridge on it's head."
"No, Gecko or Salamander I think."
"That's to big to be a gecko or a salamander. I'm getting the hang of this."
"There is one species of gecko that's big enough. And it's a meat eater."
"What?"
"Well you're not going to believe this."
"What is it" Stop fucking about and tell me."
"It's a dragon's tooth."
"Oh fuck off."