The Chosen One - Page 2

It'd probably be born in the factory where they manufacture paper clips. Unless you say that the metal itself has life, in which case you could say it was born in the elements they mixed to make the metal that they then made into paper clips. So anyway, a million paper clips just like the one we're interested in were made that day, and about 196 others joined it in the box of 200 that was put in a larger box that was put in a truck that was driven to a warehouse. The manufacturer had just recently allowed customers to buy online. Some office outlet store bought 1000 boxes of the kind with a 100 boxes of 200 each. Of course, most of those boxes with 200 each had less than 200. There wasn't anything anyone can do about that.

The box with our paper clip was opened in one of the stores for the workers in the store to use. The manager could use it too, if she felt like it. Our paper clip, that from now on will be referred to as "the Chosen One" because out of all those other millions, billions of paper clips, it is the only one whose life story is being told. So anyway, the Chosen One was used by one of the checkout people to paperclip the bill onto something else for a customer that bought a large purchase. It was a computer. The checkout person had run out of staples, and he didn't feel like making the woman that bought the computer wait any longer because her whiny daughter was impatient to get home and get on that new computer. It was a nice computer. The woman stuffed the receipt into her purse, and forgot about it because she never had to return that computer.

The next morning, which was a Monday, the woman dug around in her purse for a paper clip because her boss needed one. They were standing outside the conference room. She had quit her safe, well-paying job as a newspaper assistant editor to join a company her friend started, and now her throat was dry with nervousness because the two of them were standing outside a room, the room that once entered, the future of their company would be decided. And her friend, her boss, never stapled the proposal. What an idiot! Oh, there's a paper clip, thank god! She handed it to him, straightened her hair, took in a deep breath, and walked in behind him.

The proposal was handed to the big fat balding guy. He flipped through it, yanking off the Chosen One, and throwing it on the ground. The meeting itself was all for show because it had already been decided that the proposal would be ratified, but the company liked to let the CEO think that he still had power. The woman was so happy that she threw her arms around her friend/boss after the CEO had left the room. They went out for dinner to celebrate, and the car broke down on the way home. It cost $800 to fix.

That evening, the janitor came into the conference room to vacuum. He noticed the Chosen One on the ground, and he pocketed it because he didn't want to accidentally run over it with his vacuum cleaner, and messing up the brush or anything. He spent almost 2 hours vacuuming and then he went home. It was nearly Christmas, and he'd wanted to get home early so that he could help his daughter make ornaments for their tree. They'd been going through some rough times. His wife ran away and she took all the money and went around the house destroying everything in sight. She even went to the attic and stomped on the decorations and the big ugly lamp nobody bought at the garage sale last summer.