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 Posted: Fri Jan 26, 2007 6:58 pm
Although Gaius's words had giving a new strength to the confused frog-man, his far more greater sense of general terror concerning everything around him made the idea of up and quitting right then a bit too hasty for his taste. While thinking things over, he had finished his rounds, only to then wearily hop off to try to find something to eat. By the time he dragged his cart back to his duplex, he had been too exhausted to do much of anything but crawl into his bathtub of mud and curl up to sleep.
The next morning, he had been up again bright and early. By the time he had time to think about quitting, he had been mopping diligently before the cleaning crew came in for the day. He felt guilty in the sight of the cameras, though. Big Brother was watching. He remembered reading 1984 when he was still in school, and felt very much like the unfortunate Winston Smith. In his head, he hated this. It was degrading. It was stupid, there were other people who could do this, and it was boring and he wasn't even very good at it! Externally though, for anyone who might have been watching, he moved about in his awkward hopping manner, tidying and wiping down each table. He was diligent. Nothing to be reprimanded.
It was the fear of those cameras and the pointed, stern warnings he had received and a terror of a fate that could possibly be worse than not only being turned into a frog, but being a janitor for the rest of his life as well kept him locked into submission.
He had been mopping again after the dinner rush when he reached a saturation point of misery, having left his puddle and mop and cart to hide under a table so the cameras had a smaller chance of seeing him cry.
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Posted: Fri Jan 26, 2007 7:13 pm
Sophie needed to relax: after learning just about every little dirty secret belonging to this rock she now lived on, she'd also started having nightmares from hell, which meant that her medicine wasn't working right. Oy, nothing seemed to be going right, now that she thought about it: she'd never even gotten around to begging for Marshall's forgiveness! She sighed as she entered the cafeteria, not even paying particular attention to what she slopped on her tray before starting her walk to one of the farther tables.
A certain sniffling noise made her aware to someone else in the room, and for a moment, she thought herself to be hallucinating again, all too alert as she scanned the room for anything out of the ordinary. Of course, she'd forgotten to assume that a puddle was out of the ordinary, and before she could even realize that it was there, she lost her footing and fell forwards, dropping her tray before falling flat out on the floor.
Whatever she'd put on her plate (it appeared to be macaroni and cheese) had splattered all over the floor, and apparently, she'd landed in some of it as well. Grumbling as she got to her feet, she started a very feeble attempt at scraping her noodles from her shirt into her hand, just knowing that the sauce wouldn't come out in laundry. With her luck, it'd probably gotten into her hair, too, and knowing cafeteria food, it might just get her to sprout another nub of a tail because of it's radioactive nature.
It just wasn't her day, was it?
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Posted: Fri Jan 26, 2007 7:26 pm
At the sound of a crash, Newt jumped under his hiding spot, hitting his head on the underside with a loud thunk. The table itself was bounced off of the floor for just long enough to come crashing down again with a scuffle scrape. "Ah-!" Oh no! His bucket! He hadn't put out any cones or anything! Did they see that slip up? Did they notice him abandon his post? He wanted to decidedly officially quit, not be actually honest-to-goodness... whatever came next after this. Would they serve him up in the cafeteria? Would they try to find medicinal properties in his amphibian skin? Would they kick him out into the jungle to be hunted by the horrible tiger-man or even worse... It was a few long moments while he debated internally since bumping the table before he suddenly leaped out to land beside her heavily in a froggish crouch and a thick throated, "KrrKIT! Ah... I... I'm s-so so sorry! L-let me help you..!"
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Posted: Fri Jan 26, 2007 7:35 pm
Sophie had been jumpy at any rate, but when she saw the green thing just appear into her peripheral vision, she panicked again, and stumbled backwards, landing solidly on her bottom as she looked up at the strange creature with wide, startled eyes. For a moment, staring was all she did: she took in every little detail of the pattern of it's glossy skin, the bulging eyes, and odd physique. It took her a small while after that to realize that the thing was not a concocted monster from her imagination...it was a person.
"Oh! Uhm...i-it's okay..." She replied, shaking her head to refocus her thoughts as she stood. "You scared me for a second there...I, uh...you wouldn't happen to know where a mop is, would you...?" Her voice trailed off as she spied the mop at a bit of a distance away, and somehow put two and two together.
"Is that your mop? Can I use it?" She made a bit of a gesture to the mess on the floor, her hands still a bit shaky. "I really shouldn't leave it like this, after all."
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Posted: Fri Jan 26, 2007 7:40 pm
He seemed far too preoccupied with the horror of the puddle to begin with to let her horrified stare sink in, and perhaps it was for the best. "Ah... n-nuh-no," He croaked, glancing to the mess and then to his mop. As he hopped towards it in an easy two heavy but lengthy bounds, he continued, "No, I'll g-get it! Ah... j-just... d-don't w-worry, I'll... I'll ah..." He returned, dragging the thing behind him awkwardly.
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Posted: Fri Jan 26, 2007 7:45 pm
Sophie didn't know why, but the hopping creeped her out just a tad. The whole frogginess of it all wasn't lost on her, and her skin crawled as she thought of the possibility of herself being that way. What if she started turning into a frog? It was highly unlikely, seeing as how frogs didn't have tails, but lots of other yicky things did, and Sophie did her best not to think about it.
"Oh, you don't have to get it: it was my fault," she insisted, feeling awful for even makng the poor guy feel obligated. "I really don't mind cleaning up a little spill." To at least say that she'd done something, she picked up the tray from the ground and discarded it on a nearby table, leaving only the macaroni on the ground to be easily swept up.
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Posted: Fri Jan 26, 2007 7:57 pm
He'd have none of it, though, hopping over to inspect the damage before he wobbled and rocked up to stand all the way upright. It turns out he was a very tall man, strangely proportioned without any real differentiation where his head became his neck. When not huddled over like a frog, it was far easier to see his Feral Labs Blue jumper and the ID badge with a distinctly ungreen face in the tiny photo on it. "N-no, it's m-my job." That said and now in a far better position for mopping, he began to try to push it all into a pile to start with.
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Posted: Fri Jan 26, 2007 8:01 pm
"Your...job?"
Now Sophie was confused: he worked here, but he was changing as well? She risked a glance at the cafeteria lady: she looked pretty human. So had any other staff she'd seen. She looked at his badge, and also saw a human face, nothing like the frog she saw wearing it, and compared the two images for a moment as she looked back and forth from the amphibian's face to the man's. She certainly didn't see any resemblance.
"You work here?"
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Posted: Fri Jan 26, 2007 8:11 pm
Whether I like it or not, He wanted to grumble, but instead gave a shy sort of, "Y-yes, m-miss." He kept his bulbous eyes locked down on his work, clumsily stepping around the pile. He lifted the cheesy mop, his shoulders slumped as he concentrated on walking back to his cart for his dustpan to scoop the noodles up. His toes weren't quite built for bipedal walking, even if his legs didn't quite mind if he could keep the spring from sproinging. He stumbled only once, though, and managed to catch himself at his cart.
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Posted: Fri Jan 26, 2007 8:15 pm
Sophie watched the strange frog man work for a while, but couldn't help noticing that he was having problems with standing up straight. To her knowledge, frogs couldn't stand up like that, and it was probably hurting him.
"You sure you don't need any help?" she asked, tilting her head as she gave him a confused look. "I mean, even if you do work here, it doesn't mean I can't help out, does it?"
She took the tray back to it's proper place, then brought back some paper towels, not quite sure what to do with them, but figuring that they were good for cleaning stuff. Call her sensitive, but she felt sorry for the poor guy.
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Posted: Fri Jan 26, 2007 8:25 pm
"Ah... ah n-no! No, I have it!" Newt stammered pointedly, but ultimately snatched the towels from her hand and pushed his mop into it instead for her to hold while he worked. He dropped back down into his more comfortable crouch, throat trembling where it rolled out from over the wide-open collar of his jumper and he began to shove the macaroni into the dustpan in jerky, weary movements.
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Posted: Fri Jan 26, 2007 8:33 pm
"Oh, uhm, okay..."
Sophie gently clutched the mop as she watched Newt work, somehow feeling there was something more she could be doing. She scanned the room out of slightly boredom and considered whistling to herself...no, that'd be rude. So, she just looked back to Newt, her fingers rapping against the wooden handle of the cleaning instrument she held.
It was then that something clicked into place, and she remembered a piece of information that she'd lost when she fell. "Not to be rude or anything, but were you crying in here before?" she asked, a sympathetic look on her face. It certainly would explain his demeanor, if being a giant frog hadn't been the excuse.
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Posted: Fri Jan 26, 2007 9:00 pm
He flinched at the comment, not bothering to stand to hop over to his cart to empty the pan, "I... I... n-no, th-that... it w-wasn't... I d-don't know what you're t-talking about! KrrKIT!"
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Posted: Fri Jan 26, 2007 9:03 pm
"Oh, okay..." Sophie's voice slowly trailed away as she lost focus of her thought, putting her hands in her pockets. "I just think, y'know, that talking about stuff makes it better. It might work for you..." She ran a hand through her hair for cathardic purposes, then sighed, shaking her head.
"For example...I just had a really bad nightmare. Really scary. I don't even want to go back to my duplex right now, I'm so scared." She hoped that opening up to him would allow for him to open up a little as well. Awkward silence was a bit more than she could handle.
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Posted: Fri Jan 26, 2007 9:12 pm
It seemed to make him uncomfortable as well, and he quietly hopped back to her to retrieve his mop, "Wh-what... what s-sort of nightmare?" It would be okay for him to just talk to someone for a little while while he worked, right? His eyes darted to one of the closer cameras for a moment before he straightened to mop up the left over cheese and glanced over to her with a wobbling sort of smile. He needed to get his mind off of things, if anything. "Wh-what happened?"
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