When my boss billed me for a toilet

“Five thousand dollars.” Vanessa, my colleague, slapped the paper onto my desk.

Picking it up with trembling hands, I read “Claim for Damages” in bold, with my name printed beneath it.

“Damn.”

“What did you break?” Vanessa asked. “The diamond statue of the boss’s dog?”

“A toilet.”

I tried to look composed, but everything inside me was boiling. How dare that woman pin this on me? They did not have a case. At least, I hoped they did not.

“I was in the restroom when the metal staircase overturned and broke it. First responder, you could say.”

“And now they want you to pay?”

I closed my laptop and swept my things into a huge bag. Enough was enough. For two months, I had typed every expense into our accounting system. Dinners, clothes, car repairs. The firm covered all the boss’s personal expenses. And now she wanted me, a poor student, to pay for an office accident?

I scratched my answer onto the claim, crumpled the paper together with my badge, and clenched the whole mess in my fist. Never again would I set foot in this place.
Storming into the boss’s office, I threw the ball of paper onto her desk.
The city was as gray and miserable as my mood as I walked toward the university building, where lectures started at five. I stepped into an empty foyer and dropped onto a hard bench, staring at the blinking sign at the end of the corridor.

The light on the “Department of Relations” sign went out for the hundredth time when a woman stepped out of the door beneath it and click-clacked past me. Five minutes later she returned, leaving the door ajar.

I did not need another invitation.

A huge desk stood in the middle of the room with no one behind it.

“Ahem,“ I cleared my throat to attract attention.

“Oh, hello,” the woman said, peering up from under the table. She straightened, clutching a stack of papers to her chest. “How can I help you?”

“I was wondering if you had an opening for me to study elsewhere.”

The job I had lost today was the third I’d taken during my studies to become a banker. I’d tried. I really had. But the boredom was unbelievable. I felt as if my whole life were sliding toward doom.

It was time for a change.

“Let me see,” said the woman, opening a ledger in front of her. “Nothing here or in Europe. Nothing across the ocean. Nothing over there either.” She shook her head, her finger sliding down the page. Then it stopped. “You are lucky. It looks like we have one option left.”

“Although…” she paused, biting her lip as she read the small text on the page. “It’s in Northunderworld.”

“Where?” It sounded like a cold place. I would’ve preferred an underworld with “south” in its name to warm my sorry bones, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

“It’s in a parallel world,” she said, reading on. “From which no one has ever returned.”

She looked up, eyes wide.

“I’ll take it.”