Sheep Go to Heaven

Cake

Sheep Go to Heaven // Prolonging the Magic

4:46

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Dwayne looked up from his desk as the sounds of whistling echoed down the hall. Sure enough, Mickey strode into sight, chest puffed out like a bird in mating season.

"Lunch! Today! On me!"

The rest of the office workers barely glanced up.

Mickey's face fell fractionally. Dwayne gulped and exchanged a meaningful look with Josh, who raised an eyebrow in return. It was his turn, Dwayne knew, to take the fall.

"I'll go with you, Mickey," he said, barely above a whisper.

"Excellent." Mickey's face lit back up.

Josh leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head. "Didn't you want to go golfing at lunch?"

"It was swimming!" Priscilla volunteered from around her computer, her grinning face popping into view.

Dwayne started to draw his finger across his throat in a panicked way, but then Aaron joined in with a sincere, raucous laugh. "Are you seriously going swimming? Cause I'm totally in."

In her sharp, squeaky little voice from her corner desk, Anna said, "I'm pretty sure you said skydiving."

Dwayne gave her a death glare. Bitch, he mouthed, and she gave him a humorless smile in return.

It sucked to have dated the most passive aggressive woman in the company.

Sighing, Dwayne pushed to his feet and faced Mickey, who looked so swollen with excitement he could have been punctured with a pin.

"Skydiving?" he said breathlessly.

"No," Dwayne said. Quickly, to stifle any potential tantrums, he added, "But we can go to the Y."

Mickey frowned.

"The YMCA," Josh said, tapping Mickey's arm with the back of his hand. "He wants to take you swimming where little kids get their first lessons blowing bubbles."

It was constant, this torment; Dwayne rolled his eyes towards the ceiling tiles and pleaded with the gods of business to drop a monumental sale on his lap. I'll even let Sammy have the commission, he added.

The phone didn't ring, even though he gathered his jacket as slowly as he could and inched towards the door, trying to distract Mickey with small talk. Mickey had none of it, however, and bounded ahead of Dwayne, followed by a whooping Aaron.

"Hey," Josh said softly, tugging on Dwayne's sleeve.

He turned and glared down into Josh's smug face. "This just makes your position worse. You're aware of this."

"Oh, of course." Josh frowned his acknowledgement. "Hey, listen. I clicked on my fortune this morning on Facebook and I thought you might want to hear it."

Dwayne's entire being reached out to cling to that measure of hope dangled before him.

Josh grinned and said, "Happiness really scars the soul."