Minefield of Mirrors

-2-

Iris felt the sweat on her hands as she walked towards the big French doors that were the entrance to the office of her boss. During the past year, she had only seen him once; when he put his signature next to hers to close the matter of the contract for her promotion. Other than that, she had never ever seen him again, let alone spoken to him.

Her boss was the kind of person everyone was tremendously scared of. Just one gaze from that specific man and you would already know you're done. The memory of how her other dear friend and colleague, well now ex-colleague, Tim got fired, danced in front of her eyes. It had seemed like just a normal day, until the moment mister Poken himself got out of his office and walked straight up to Tim's desk with this unreadable facial expression of his. Everyone had been holding their breath for the few metres their boss walked towards the desk and simply said the three words to Tim, 'You're fired.'

Was Mister Poken calling her in to fire her as well? Was there something she did wrong? Maybe he didn't like the way she approached the improvements of the organisation of Vivid? What else could he possibly want?

'He's waiting for you.' The assistant of her boss said without looking up from the different papers that were lying on top of her desk.

Iris nodded. 'Yes, thank you.'

She took a deep breath, brushed her hands against the black skirt she was wearing and knocked softly against one of the French doors. Her heart was beating heavily inside her chest as she waited for a reply, which came surprisingly quickly. Maybe a bit too quick, based on Iris' opinion.

The door handle felt heavy as she pushed it down and opened the door in front of her, revealing her boss' big office. She had forgotten how spacious it felt and how well-furnished it actually was.

'You wanted to speak to me, mister Poken?'

Her boss looked up from his laptop. 'Yes, please sit down Miss Jansen'.

Iris tried to find the confidence she had felt while walking into the office this morning, but it was nowhere to be found. Why did she even decide to wear high heels today? Couldn't she have gone for the other elegant boot that had just a tiny heel? That way, she wouldn't have to worry about tripping over her own feet while walking to the seat that was standing in front of her scary boss.

The tapping on the laptop's keyboard went on as her boss was wrapping up an email to one of their biggest clients. Nervously Iris sat down on the seat that was covered in black leather, complementing the other features that were standing in this office. Her eyes fell on top of a family picture that was standing on the little dresser behind her boss. She didn't even know he had two little children.

'Thank you for coming in.' Mister Poken closed his laptop in front of him and leaned back in his chair while he folded his hands. 

The sight of him sitting in front of Iris, reminded her of some of her childhood movies when the bad guy was making up his plan to conquer the world.

'Of course. No problem at all.' Her voice sounded a bit crackly as her heart was still pumping loudly in her chest, making her blood go around in her system at a high speed.

The short silence that followed, made Iris feel uncomfortable. What was going to happen? If he was indeed going to fire her, what was taking him so long? Why didn't he just say the exact same three words he said a couple of months ago to her dear colleague Tim? What was she even going to do after he fired her? She definitely couldn't move back to Holland to live with her parents again. No way she would ever do that after everything she had accomplished here in London. Besides, she would rather be homeless than live constantly under her mother's eyes.