(Image is AI generated using Prompt Hunt)
“Here’s your last pay.” The bald- wrinkly guy handed some paper bills to Olivander whose eyes were droopy, not because of staying up late all night but because it was how he was.
“But I’ve been working to the bones in this factory. Why am I being fired now?” he asked, clutching his ragged black fedora. He would often wear it because it made him feel invincible like some super detectives like Gadget Boy.
“See those moving steels?” The old man pointed towards the small machines that are slicing the long and twisted candies. “They work five times faster than you and can produce five times more products than you. Plus, I don’t have to pay them wages. I just need to feed them oil and electricity, which you know I always get free of charge.” He then pointed at the electricity and oil powerhouse owned by another factory. The stingy man had secretly wire-tapped to the power source of its rival to save up.
“That’s stealing!” Olivander slammed his palm on the table and balled it into a fist. He hated the fact that his former boss had been cheating to earn. He knew about it all along but chose to shut his mouth not to get involved with the potential conflict.
“No one knows and would know. Right, Vander?” The boss raised his eyebrows as a sign of threat and confirmation. "By the way, I also have found a new driver to deliver my clouds and candies. You don't have to drive for me anymore."
Olivander gave him a side glance after grabbing his last pay. “You’ll pay for this,” he whispered.
“You saying something?”
He did not respond. He only gave the old man a menacing grin.
**
“Now, what do we do?” Olivander sighed as he glanced at the job vacancy fliers scattered on his glass table. He gave his fedora a somber glance. “Being human is tough, right?”
“Achoo!” his fedora sneezed. Thick dust flew off the table.
“Yeah, right! And you’re stuck that way, and me this way for how long? For the next few days?”
“Sorry, bud. If only I listened to the Boss, we shouldn’t have been wandering this place with mere mortals.”
“I bet he’s happy with what’s happening to us. If only we could lift his curse.”
“You know the only way to be uncursed. I have to be a lowly ‘human’, and you, my loyal sidekick. No matter what form you take.”
“It has been two hundred years,” the fedora mumbled. If it had eyes, one would see its welling tears and runny nose. “I told you not to mess with humans, but you didn’t listen!”
“I know. I’m sorry, bud.” Olivander gently grabbed his fedora and bring it close to his heart. “I’ll make it up to you.”
He put his sidekick back on the table and kept reading and tossing ads.
“Alas!” he blurted when a flier caught his attention. He picked it up and excitedly showed it to his partner’s face—the front side of the fedora. “Can you read it, bud?”
“No, I can’t, you imbecile! How am I supposed to read in this state? Hats can’t read. Wait till I become a kid or a grandfather.” The fedora, simpered. Yeah, but only Olivander could see it.
“Sorry, I forgot. If you were a dog, you would be barking at me, right now.”
“What does it say?”
“WANTED CLOUD PHOTOGRAPHER. Piece of cake!”
“You don’t even know how to hold a camera.”
“Trust me, bud. It says there would be a training for amateurs.”
“The last time I trusted you, I went from being a cane to being a grocery bag, to being a sock, to being a blender, to being a pair of scissors, to this! And then what’s next? What would happen to me if I trust you again?”
“That’s what we have to find out,” Olivander teasingly grinned at his pal.
**
One week later...
“Who’s in the right mind to accept this job?!” the camera on Olivander’s neck clicked as it blurted the words. Yeah, his pal, Marcus, who was a fedora seven days ago, had transformed into a camera. “It’s really not a good idea to trust you. We’ve been doing weird non-human jobs for a while now.”
“We're not humans, remember? Easy, bud. Easy.”
“Easy? You want me to take it easy? Look at your surroundings! We’re surrounded by nimbus clouds for my life’s sake!”
“Tsk! Those are just clouds. Look how fluffy they are. Those nim-what clouds.”
“Nimbus clouds, imbecile!”
“Yeah, nimbus clouds. Cute, aren’t they?”
“Cute?! You call those cute? Can’t you see the lightning slicing the sky? Are you deaf not to hear the rumbling thunder, like rolling boulders in the heavens? Those clouds are thunderstorm clouds!”
“Oh, okay. So, what’re you worried about? We won’t die of the storm.”
“I. Am. Not. Afraid. Of. The. Storm! I don’t want to die in this state. I don’t want to die as a shattered digital camera when this parachute crashes! I want to die in my real form. A handsome guy, like Adonis in Greek mythology. A radiant man like Apollo. A masculine hunk like Ares, the God of War.”
“Relax, bud. We won’t die. We can’t die. Besides, we have an extra parachute in case we got struck by lightning. Look at the other photographer hanging on their parachutes. Aren’t they cute, too?” he teased Marcus.
“Every day of my life I’m dead when I’m by your side. When I was a cane, you would hit me on the rough, dusty street. And I hate that because it ruined my soft skin. When I was a fedora, I had to endure how sweaty and smelly your head was. I felt ewwy despite being handsome.”
Olivander laughed at Marcus’ complaints.
“You hate those, but you love me, so stop whining and just do your job. Do it fast so we could head home early.”
Marcus didn’t reply; instead, he flickered and shut as he took photos of the unwelcoming-mad sky.
“And we’re done!” Olivander clapped his hands, excited to go home. “Have you seen the extra chute?”
“The what?”
“The parachute.”
“Oh! It’s there at the corner of that cloud,” Marcus replied and sniffed.
“What’s wrong, bud?”
“I just felt tired.”
“Yeah, today’s tiring. But I hope we’ve done well—”
“That’s not what I meant. I’m tired of this curse. I’m tired of transforming into whatever form you want me to be. I used to have a life of my own, Vander.”
Silence ruled over them. Vander caressed his talking camera, absent-mindedly reminiscing their past lives.
“We won’t be like this if I hadn’t eaten that dessert prepared by a mortal and shared it with you. We wouldn't be like this if I didn't mess with the other mortals in the chamber. Who would’ve thought that the Boss would test us that day?”
“Look, pal. I’m not blaming you. I just said I’m exhausted. I wish we both could return to normal.”
“But I look normal.”
“Yeah, you do, at least physically. But dude, you’re two hundred years old now. No normal human would live that long.”
“You’re right!”
Both men sighed.
“Did I hear regret and being sorry just now?”
Olivander and Marcus were surprised to see their Boss’s silhouette standing in front of them.
“Boss?” they chorused.
“You finally have realized why being obedient is important,” the Boss said. “You were put to the test because I’ve noticed that you’ve been obnoxious and hard-headed. But now that you’ve had your realization, I will lift the curse.”
“Really?!" Vander jumped because of bliss. The clouds under his feet puff and huff as he did so. "Oh, by the way, Boss. Do you remember that old man? The owner of the factory?”
The Boss nodded.
“He fired Marcus and I. And he’s been cheating all along. What do we do with him?”
“I’ve sent someone to deal with him. He, too, has to learn his lesson.”