pissville

During the meeting, the department head, Florian, was looking over at Mike and Jenny and furrowing his brow. Mike scribbled and doodled like they all did, because meetings in the afterlife were even more rambling and pointless than they are in the here and now. At one point, when Bryan from accounting was talking about issues concerning the new shekel and how figures from past accounting would have to be migrated to the tables indicating...blah..blah...blah, he caught Florian doing it again. He and Jenny glanced at each other quizzically.
"Ask him" she mouthed the words.
"no, YOU" he mouthed back.
She kicked him under the conference table..
"Wanker...."
"jackass" he replied softly.
Florian, realizing what was going on hmmmphed, and wagged his finger at the both of them, just as he would have during his old old monastic days.
Finally, something from the mayors office. The demonic bureacrats would occassionally teleconference if there was reason to. The battered plastic thingy on the table started talking about current events. Now, demonic voices are almost impossible to discern at first since they use static the way we use whatever the heck it is we use to talk.
"kkkkkkk eeeeee iiii uahooo.........Thank you all for your kind attention" it went on to squawk and hiss.
"Lately, you might have noticed that the damned have been wandering around a lot more than usual. In fact, some of them seem intent on settling down by the old Roman afterlife area. As I'm sure you'll agree, they are a nuisance because they often prove intrusive and they also draw our minions....uh, orcs...(We rather like that one, yes). Truth to tell there are just so damned many of them, no pun intended, and life up top as it were is so awful and pointless and grim that, they just aren't suffering enough. By the time they get here, they are so thoroughly mean and nasty....well, I don't mean to bore you with shop talk..."
Actually, Mike was quite interested. He'd been here so long and there were always nuances and loopholes to look into.
"I just want to make sure you understand that management..and I mean local and UNIVERSAL management are going to make some changes soon and I think you may appreciate those changes....at least we all hope you will. Umm, have a nice day, everybody, Thanks so much.
Then he was out..
.Bryan used a clipboard to swat at the flames coming from the conference speaker.

Mike was just about to swivel out of his chair and make dash for his office. He was suddenly very interested in his field phone and his 13....12 files. Jenny had the same idea and, since she was smarter and faster than he was, she was almost to the door.
"Mike...Jenny..a word with you both please." Florian spoke quietly and calmly and just a bit amused. The way he said their names, it might just as well have been "come here tweedle dee and tweedle dumbass"
" You two are my best workers, I want you to know that, which is why, when management asked me to pick mentors for two new hires...I just had to pick you. That and the fact is that you are so good that you are getting lazy and we can't have that."
Florian always had to mix sincere praise with humourous criticism.
Mike spoke up first, " I thought we were in trouble..."
"Well, I'm not doing you any favors, that's for sure."
"When are they getting here, chief?"
"About fifteen minutes. Neither one of you have ever had a new hire so I suggest
you actually read your employee handbook you ignored on your first day here about
forever ago"

"Damn, I never read that thing. It's propping up my monitor"
"Me neither, " said Mike,
"And, unlike you, I never had a mentor"
"Why not?" he asked.
" I'm an old fashioned Etruscan girl.In My day, you woke up by a river after you died
and started walking, either that or you got to turn into an olive tree.

Sitting behind his desk, trying to concentrate on the parchment and leather employee handbook, he remembered how he first felt in his first moments of afterlife. He was confused and kept telling himself he was in a coma or asleep in the hospital or he was just dozing on his sofa next to the radio and horror of horrors, he was dead and naked on a wooden bench like they have in train stations.
Florian's voice interrupted his reverie. "Mike, it's time. Don't keep her waiting"
He got up and grabbed the book almost spilling its loos pages on the ground.
"Oh, and Mike, don't forget my coat"
He grabbed the coat off the rack in the corner of his office by the doorway. It was luxurious, chocolate brown leather with a smooth silk lining black and loving. It was the same coat Florian had put over him when he went down to tell him all about afterlife.