The papers were in alphabetical order, every inch of dust had been vacuumed away, photos set up and framed perfectly, and most importantly the door hinges had finally been fixed. All of her work practically finished right before the end of her shift. Avila Davis sat at her office, gazing out with joy at the fruits of all her labor. She was an older woman, the majority of her once dark hair now peppery grey. The shine around her eyes now dull and draining by the instant, yet seeing everything in such an orderly and perfect manner gave it back a bit of shine, a small sliver of hope to hold onto. If only perfect moments like this could last forever. Just as if on cue the door slammed open, prompting Avila to slightly jump and grimace.

“Avila,” Antonio called out. She widened her eyes. Her attention had already been caught by the door slamming, was it really that necessary for him to yell on top of everything? “I’m going on a break, one week.”

“Excuse me but isn't there something you're supposed to say before that," she asked through gritted teeth.That poor door, was there a day that it wouldn't suffer such abuse? However Antonio seemed confused and glanced around the room for ideas on what he was supposed to say. The day was going to be much longer than originally expected at this rate.

“What?”

“My door.”

“Your door,” Antonio repeated, looking back and trying to find just what it was about the door that Avila was so focused on. Avila was only able to twist her lips into a forced smile, fearing that if she didn’t force her mouth shut she might let out some unpleasant words.

“Antonio, it just got fixed,” she whispered out through half-clenched teeth. Antonio glanced behind him and attempted to shut the door, yet rather than smoothly closing it teetered to the side slightly.

“Remember when I first asked you for a job?”

“Yes…?”

“And when I came in here there was some guy quitting?”

“Antonio, please don’t go down this road.”

“He was being rude to you. You were his boss but he was acting so stuck-up, like-like some arrogant little shit.” As Antonio spoke he paced around the room, harassing the air as if it was the little clown that haunted his memories. Meanwhile Avila dropped her head into her hands, somehow this was worse than she had expected. “So right before he left I opened the door and hit him in the face with it. And the door broke that time too but you said it was ok.”

“Antonio there’s a reason I’ve tried to forget that,” Avila sighed. Antonio stopped his air abuse momentarily to face Avila.

“What I wanted to say is that sometimes, you know under certain circumstances, I think it should be socially acceptable to slam a door into someone's face and maybe even to throw someone out of a three-story building and I think that this is one of those,” he muttered. This was the exact kind of bullshit that Avila dreaded every day when arriving at work, all these mindless ramblings of violence and dumb audacity pecking and pecking away at those last few remnants of sanity that she held onto so desperately.

“You really do need a vacation. One week you said? Let's do two weeks instead,” Avila decided instead. Yet even at the generous offer, Antonio seemed annoyed rather than pleased. Perhaps something inside him was beginning to realize that this was more a vacation for Avila than it was for him.

“One week is perfectly-”

“No. I need you out of my office for two weeks.” In the hopes that he’d take that as assign to finally leave Avila brought her attention back again to the papers before her, however hopes are almost always not enough.

“Is this a subtle way of firing me? Are you going to have my things ready to leave when I get back,” Antonio asked. Yet Avila didn’t trust herself to not say something that could reveal her true sentiments and re-read one of the letters she’d been agonizing over for the entirety of the week.

“An old employee wrote to me recently. We hadn’t talked for years but suddenly he sent me a letter, telling me who I should vote for in the next elections,” she muttered, half to herself and half to Antonio. Finally it seemed that she had been able to successfully distract him from whatever kind of train wreck was going on in his mind and he took a few steps closer to her desk, cocking his head to the side like a dog plagued by curiosity.

“It's election time again,” he questioned with almost a hint of innocence in his words. This wasn’t exactly the kind of question that Avila expected or much less approved of, but at this point she was desperate to get the conversation anywhere else.

“Yes, Hutchinson against McKay, and it seems my employee has risen from the dead just to beg me to vote for McKay,” she explained. Antonio only nodded, a slight smirk dancing around the edges of his lips as he internally scoffed at the kind of political fanatics who would go through so much time and effort to help someone who in the end would screw them over just as any other. All the sort of actions that were alien to him as he was blind to the world around him, particularly the political one. In the end what mattered to him was being able to sleep safely at night, not who sat at some desk miles away. Then, almost as if set to interrupt his happily election-free thoughts, Avila’s clock began to ring. The day was waning and Avila’s shift was over. “So two weeks of vacation it is. Go home.”