Casual Heroing

Original Length: 1078 words.

Post Revision Length: 1338 words.

After saying that I have no class, they look at me as if I’m the biggest idiot they ever saw. Are they necessarily wrong? Maybe, or maybe not. If I am an idiot, I’m sure I could find more convincing reasons.

Well, I indeed have no idea what’s going on, how this world works, if Elves are, like, actual Elves or Humans with pointy ears.

We are nearing the Watch building, and they point it out for me. After following the big finger's trajectory, I rest my eyes on a massive construction. It resembles a small castle, with incredibly thick walls and little fortified walls all around it. It gives off the feeling that anyone who would be foolish enough to assault it would instantly die. And die a terrible death.

The houses around it are dwarfed by its presence, making it stick out like a sore thumb. Lucillus and Antoninus both look at the building with a neutral expression – I guess they have seen it enough times not to be surprised anymore.

There is quite the traffic in-and-out of that place. Do these Elves love their bureaucracy? God, I hope not.

I would like to sightsee some more, but my two guards are very interested in the latest statement about my unfortunate situation.

“No classes?” Lucillus narrows his eyes.

“No classes,” I smile with joy.

“You have no classes,” Lucillus reiterates to make sure.

“No classes at all!” the smile doesn’t leave my face for a second.

“He says he has no classes,” chimes in Antoninus, the illiterate brute.

“No classes at all!” I repeat once again in our little theatrics.

They both sigh and shrug.

“If you are in any weird cult, you will have to state so during the interview,” Lucillus warns me.

“Cult?”

Do they think I’m some kind of a nut because they live in a goddamn world with ‘classes,’ whatever they are, and I don’t have one? Well, that does sound about right. It’s probably like running around half-naked in the center of New York. Fewer people than you might think actually care, but they do treat you like a massive weirdo once you approach them.

I knew this guy on the subway who always wore tank tops, no matter what season. It could be freezing, and the guy would wear tank tops all year round. Funny guy, but I would indeed never hang out with him in any other place than the subway, where it could look like he struck up a conversation with me, and I was just being bothered by him.

In this case, I was the weirdo in the tank top, and the guards were me trying to escape such a company as soon as possible.

“Yeah, one of those people who doesn’t believe in classes and stuff like that.”

Here we go, I’m already ‘one of those people who does something something.’

Let me tell you, that’s the worst kind of person you can ever be to someone. Once you are ‘one of those people,’ society will relegate you to its darkest corners, with the rest of the misfits, degenerates, and French people.

When I enter the building, I find many more guards than I had imagined bustling around, some cleaning armor in the main hall, some chatting and waiting for their turns, and others just, well, guarding. Plus, there’s a massive desk with a whole lot of clerks behind it and many queues right in front of it.

Lucillus puts a hand on my shoulder and starts steering me toward the said desk, to a particular section where no one seems to be queueing. I look at a sign right above those three clerks there, and it says ‘Watch-only.’

My brain, still shell-shocked about the change of worlds, finally realizes something. I’m going to interact with one of the most hellish races who have been plaguing Earth since time immemorial. This time their name snakes around my ears with all the hate, the spite, and the horror of their profession.

Clerks.

The bane of society, the reason we cannot become better people. They slow down the progress of humanity as a whole with their incompetence, irritability, and irrational responses.

And the forms, oh boy, the forms.

I like to think that the only reason I ever let my mother come to work with me was that I didn’t have to read anything pertaining to legal stuff, technicalities, and so on. I delegated every single legal matter to my mother. For all I knew, I didn’t have a house or a business, and she owned everything. But I’d rather find out one day that my mother sold everything and moved to Mexico with a toy-boy than having to go through the endless queues, forms, inspections, and so on.

If someone asked whether I would rather be bitten by a venomous snake or entertain a conversation with a clerk about which modules I needed to perform whatever legal thing I wanted to do, I’d be already jumping in the Indiana Jones snake pit, even before the person had finished formulating the question.

“Oh, are we getting in the queue?” horror and despair seep through my tone, and both guards look at me, then at each other.

“No, we have the rooms for these interviews in the back. Antoninus will start on the forms needed for us to take you here. It will help expedite the process. Antoninus,” the tall, green-eyed guard speaks to the burlier one for a second before the latter goes off to the counter reserved for Watch employees.

I almost vomit as a form of relief.

My mother told me I needed to see a therapist about this thing with clerks, but I swear to God, again, I’d rather jump from the Brooklyn Bridge on a cold night than talk to a clerk.

Head-first.

Yeah, ma’, I know I have some problem. Possibly psychiatric. Will that make me go to a therapist and confront my anxiety issues about paperwork, or will I simply keep avoiding paperwork forever?

Guess the answer.

“But you will need to get in the civilians’ queue on your own if the interview reveals that you do not pose a danger for the city.”

I look at him and nod, trying to find the most rational response.

“Can I be put in prison, instead?”

“Huh?” Antoninus stops midway and goes back to us, looks at Lucillus, maybe thinking there was a joke he didn’t get.

“What?” Lucillus asks.

“Prison, I’d like to be put in prison. I’m not going through forms or documents or, God forbid, and Jesus forgive me for saying their hellish name, a lawyer.”

My mother once had to come to pick me up from the Police station because I had a car accident and refused to even look at the insurance forms. When she appeared with a lawyer, I almost flipped. An officer tackled me while I tried to run away. Don’t get me wrong, I had already signed everything after my mother had read the documents, but I was not spending one more second in the company of one of those devilish creatures.

Turns out that trying to sprint in a Police station is not a smart move and that a 240-pound officer can, and will, bruise your ribs with a tackle.

When my mother explained why I was running, half the station started laughing so hard that a couple of peeps almost managed to escape.

But I’m digressing.

So, I state my intentions with the utmost calm and rationality.

“I would rather get thrown in prison for a month than have to go through that queue with forms at the end. I invoke my rights as a citizen, and I beg you, throw me in jail.”

Hopefully, they would listen.

Also, I hoped that they had some books in prison.

I wonder if I can read whatever language they write in. Wait, I can read the book’s cover. Then, it should be the same, I think.