Code Name: Pencil Pusher

By Joy Bernardo

My job? Pencil-pusher. Filing Professional Extraordinaire. My duties include filing, pushing, typing, daydreaming, and sleeping. Daydreaming is my specialty though. Lately, I have been spending my "production time" in my novel life. My novel life would be exciting. I would be a secret agent with my own theme song. If I could steal a theme song, it would be the theme to Hawaii Five-O or the very beginning of the song "Superfly" by Curtis Mayfield. But if I had to make one up (because of copyright infringement), I think it would go something like:
"Dun dun, dun dun, doo doo doot, dun dun, dun dun, doo doo doot…"

I would travel the world and solve exciting crimes that have to do with large sums of money and big, burly men with big, burly guns. I would be mysterious, stealthy, and my code name would be "Panther". My personal life would be filled with handsome men but I would feel lonely because I couldn't connect with any of them (because of my inability to share the fact that I am a secret agent and because my life is so hectic). Until one man comes into my life. A hot man. Who used to be a hot firefighter (until he had a horrible accident while he was saving some children from a burning orphanage). He would be handsome, smart, witty, and incredibly charming. However, he would be slightly distant. It would seem as though he is keeping some kind of secret from me. What could it be?


Perhaps, it's just that he wants to remain mysterious in my eyes? I would brush it off as paranoia because of my inability to connect with people who want to be close to me. He would sweep me off my feet and I would think that he is the perfect man until [dun dun dun] I found out that he is a part of a drug-smuggling, money-laundering, crime ring. I would be heartbroken! Would I choose true love over my career? Or would I give up the only man that I have ever loved for something that has always been there for me: my career?

Or I could be a mysterious woman in need of some help from a handsome detective. "My husband is missing," I would say. I would walk swiftly into his life, turning it upside down. I would always look stunning, in a slinky, black dress or a long red one. Every time that I appear at his door, you would first see my silhouette in the doorway and he would stop whatever it was that he was doing. The handsome detective would help me find my husband but he would secretly be harboring feelings for me. When we do find my husband, he would be dead in an alleyway. [gasp] The search would now be for my husband's killer. And, now, I would be grieving and the handsome detective would be there so that I could cry on his shoulder. He would devote himself to finding the killer. But in his search for the killer, he would find out that I have a horrible secret! [A twist in the plot!] What would the secret be? What could be so terrible that I feel as though I have to keep it from the people closest to me? Would this secret make him rethink his feelings for me?

But, of course, I am brought back to reality by my boss asking me what's taking so long with the latest numbers. "Come on, how long does it take to add some numbers together???" Little does he know… "Dun dun, dun dun, doo doo doot, dun dun, dun dun, doo doo doot…"