“Five?! Freaking five cases right when I walk in the door?”

Cary threw down five folders on her desk with a satisfying crack. “Jesus Christ,” she said, “Creditrow better have burned to the ground, or I’m going to scream.”

Two weeks before being shoved onto an interview stage, Cary Rivera received what she presumed was a “gift” to congratulate her for passing Career Forward’s six month probation. As the unemployment office for Ferris City and its sibling suburbs, her office needed all hands on deck. And Cary had already been garnering a reputation as the reliable policy nerd--better known, she corrected ruefully, as “The Big Jerk.”

Well, she thought to herself, staring at them won’t make them disappear. “No job experience,” she said, predicting the future of the thin folder as she flipped past the demographic page. “Some schooling, looks like...what the hell?”

She blinked ruefully before reading out loud, as if to her own disbelief: “Special Skills: Dancing. Talking to people. Smiling!” She slammed the folder shut, punctuating a bleating ring from the office phone. She groaned to herself, pinching back another outburst along the bridge of her nose, and grabbed the phone with her free hand

“Career Forward, Cary speaking,” she said. She felt her own eyes close as if to put her to a state of meditation.

“Cary? Oh Cary, thank God,” said a frantic voice on the phone. “It’s Terra up front. I would--I’m talking to her right now, just a minute please!--oh I’d be screwed if you didn’t pick up.”

“Terra?” Cary asked. Terra was a volunteer, and normally not one to lose her cool in the hot seat, let alone panic. “Calm down, what’s...what’s going on?”

“Your nine o’clocks are here,” said Terra. “And they really want to see you.”

“That’s fine?” Cary's mind had an odd pause at why ‘nine o’clock’ was plural, but she figured it was just a slip of tongue. “You can send them in, I’m free.”

“No, nonono Cary,” said Terra. “You didn’t read the file, did you? I can’t just, wait WAIT YOU CAN’T JUST GO THROUGH--CARY THEY’RE HEADING RIGHT TOWARD YOU.” Cary could barely hear a click of the phone over the sound of the double doors springing open like a gunshot.

When she was young, and far more frightened, Cary would often catch herself making plans of actions for dangerous and ridiculous situations. Like a crazed axeman breaking into school, or a meteor crashing into her house. Both were fair metaphors for the life changing disaster that would be five human spectacles that burst through her door in a whirlwind of color and sound. Now Cary could only sit, as small silly as her disaster plans, as life’s chaos came and began to perform their show.

“Hello gals, hello guys, and to those who labels don’t applies, hello, hello, and hello!” blared the leader, a bright pink spore of a brunette who all but skipped into the office. “Is this a dream come true? Or is it Dream Come True? The answer, of course, is yessiree!”

“Your enthusiasm is precious as always...if complete overkill,” said an elegant woman behind her, as deep red and deeply bored as a sunset after a long day. “I’m not good with numbers, but isn’t there only one person here?”

“Seconded,” said her cohort, a prickly-looking woman with a face of perpetual mischief. “Mind killing the speakers there, Iona? I mean, I love pressure headaches as much as the next guy...”

“Oops, got me again!” said the leader. (Iona?) who flashed an apologetic grin. “But come on guys! Look how cute she is! Was it not worth it for that? Now, what name do I put to this cute face?”

“Is this real?” Cary asked. “Am I dead?”

“Ah ha ha, no silly!” said Iona. “Your name! What’s your name!”

“Maybe I’m making assumptions, but I get the feeling she doesn’t know what’s going on,” said a slight woman with a orange hue to her dress and a wise look in her eyes.

“I must agree,” said the last woman, tall and poised, with an air of sophistication. “She seems quite alert, and more surprised than confounded. Perhaps she doesn’t know who we are?”

“No way! Is that even possible?” said Iona. “Well, we’ve got to fix that right this second! Allow me to introduce my friends! My name’s Iona, better known as Beauty Dream! This cute little thing over here,” she said, pointing to the petite woman in orange, who gave a small curtsy on cue, “Is Sweet Dream!”

“A pleasure to meet you, dear,” she said.

“And these two are Quirky Dream and Sexy Dream!” Iona said, as Cary swallowed a snort of laughter.

“I’m Sexy Dream, as you can probably tell,” said the tall, scarlet lady, giving a small wink that was undermined by her slouch against the wall of Cary’s office. The stud-pierced rocker carried a similarly bored expression, making them look like a couple of teenagers stuck after school.

“I’m Quirky,” said her snaggled companion. She flashed a teasing grin and a casual flip of a wave. “Bet you won’t forget it.”

“And this handsome devil right here is our one and only Cool Dream!” squealed Iona, using both hands to frame the mature young woman who extended a friendly hand.

“An absolute pleasure to meet you!” she said. “I hope our relations shall be quite cordial.” Cary just glared back. You have got to be kidding, she thought.

“All together, we make Dream Come True!” said Iona, spinning back to the front. “And we’re in the worst fix right now. Something came up, and now our contracts are in limbo! Even though we’ve been topping the charts for months! Totally unfair, right?”

“The hell should I know?” Cary asked, still reeling.

“Don’t worry--I know for a fact that we’ll all get through this,” said Iona. “But we all got together and thought, hey, if the worst of the worst happened, we ought to have a Plan B, right?”

“I don’t know, maybe?” asked Cary. “What exactly is going on here?”

“Oh shoot! We’re running out of time!” said Iona. “Well, I’m sure you’ve got lots of questions, but it’s going to have to wait for our appointments proper! Thank you so much, Miss Career Guidance Counselor! I hope you have a--”

“No! Stop it! Just...just stop!” yelled Cary, rising swiftly out of her chair. “What do you think this is? A playground? You don’t even need jobs!”

“And thank goodness for that!” Iona beamed.

“‘Thank goodness for that’?!” Cary said, feeling her voice come close to a scream. “This is an unemployment office! This is where people come to when they’re laid off, or sick, or...or bad things actually happened to them!”

There was an odd pause in the air, with something close to a grimace crossing Sexy Dream’s face. Quirky shot Cary a dirty look.

“I understand where you’re coming from,” said Sweet Dream, “but that’s a harsh way of putting it, isn’t it?”

“So what if it is?” said Cary. “If you want to know how to put a resume together, go do a websearch. But I don’t have time for a bunch of selfish, stupid bimbos prancing into my office when I have people who actually need my help.” She pulled out her chair and sat back at her desk, preparing for her real work and her real clients, not once looking away from the increasingly bewildered group. “Now, if you have nothing else to bother me with, leave.”

Iona, or Beauty Dream, gave a small note of pause before nodding. “I gotcha! Sorry for catching you at a bad time!” She smiled at the rest. “Weyelp! I guess we’ll have to wait for our appointments, gals!!”

“Can’t wait,” snorted Quirky Dream, giving a half nod over her shoulder as she left. “Later.”

“Bye for now,” said Sexy Dream, raising a hand next to her cheek and fluttering her fingers in a coy wave.

“Sorry for the trouble,” said Sweet Dream, as Cool Dream gave a small bow and they both left after the others.

“See you later!” sang Iona, giving Cary a wide sweep of her arm. She kept an unnervingly happy smile, and if Cary didn’t know better, she wondered if she was being made fun of. “Let’s talk more soon!”

And in what felt more like a hallucination than a meeting, they were gone. Cary could hear some faint commotion from the other side of the doors, and a few loud peals of laughter and friendly banter. Probably yucking out another apology to everyone, she thought, as if smashing through doors and breaking rules was only a minor inconvenience for everyone else.

Cary looked at the clock. “Eight fifty-seven,” she said, “and they didn’t even get my name.”