The Sunglasses

    Heavy rain poured endlessly onto the Earth’s surface, making the roads slick and slippery while streaks of lightning continued to dance about in the dark night sky. Two cars, driving in opposite directions on the vacant road, were miles away from passing each other. One of the cars belonged to a female employee named Jeanette. She was known to be the “guardian angel” to some of the employees at the banking job she used to work at; she understood, reliable, and could help get anyone out of any situation. She was always recognized by the thick-rimmed sunglasses that covered her eyes. She was the most perfect human being that had ever existed. Unfortunately, her perfect record was finally broken that morning after a small slip up happened—it’s the reason why she was crying in her car. She felt fortunate that these sunglasses were able to hide the tears and shame she displayed in her eyes, but it was a perfect cover up to hide her true desire…she wanted revenge.

   Jeanette sniffed and went to grab some tissues beside her until she noticed a car just a mile away from passing her; she straightened herself up and tried to look though the storm to see who was driving that vehicle. After a few squints, she recognized the driver and her depressed look turned into a face of insanity—she had a feeling that she would see him on this empty highway; she knew that this road was the only route he would take after a long night at work. Jeanette laughed maniacally as she took her wheel and turned it, swerving off her side of the road and crashing directly at the car opposite of her, not realizing another employee was witnessing the entire event.

    Jasper was walking down the side of the roadway with his hands in his pockets as he solemnly stared down at his feet not caring about the amount of water that was soaking onto his brownish-blond hair and thin trench coat. He let out a heavy sigh, not believing he was once again close to losing a job that actually is paying him quite well. He knew that he was always full pranks and would rather get others to do the work for him than do it himself, but he never realized that his stupidity almost got him a one way trip to job searching.

    He felt like going to a bar and drinking his troubles away—he figured alcohol is the best medicine for such a downer moment, but he then figured that drinking, along with his pranks, is what got him into this mess.

‘If the boss found out about the money I’ve been sneaking out for the job to pay for the amount of alcohol I’ve been buying, then I’d be fired for sure,’ Jasper thought, ‘Heck, no one would want to hire me if that was put on my record.’

    Ever since he was a kid, he was also the clown of the class; making jokes, causing trouble and mayhem, everyone thought of him as the best amount of entertainment in the school, but the continuous amounts of it slowly made him from likeable to annoying. Even his own parents didn’t like the snobbish attitude and lack of responsibility he was displaying—they worried that if his acts continued, he might not get far in life.
    Now he was really regretting all the things he’s done in his previous jobs—ignoring orders, forcing others to do his bidding, stealing money out for liquor, and even causing so much distrust and irresponsibility that his boss had to give him a day off whenever other company members would come for a meeting, fearing one look at Jasper could cause his company to fall into disaster.  

‘What am I doing? No one wants an irresponsible idiot running their company, I’m just making things worse for them and for myself,’ Jasper thought, ‘I have to make a change if I want to prove I am worth something, that I can be trusted and depended on. I have to man up, otherwise it’ll be too late.’

   His thoughts were quickly interrupted as stood in his tracks, watching a large fire erupt from the two engines, covering the air with the smell of oil and gasoline. He trembled as he took a small step forward and saw Jeanette climb out of her car with a sadistic look on her face. The flame’s light reflected off of her glasses as the other driver coughed and sputtered as he climbed his way out of the wreckage only to be kicked by that psychotic woman.

 “Jeanette! Are you crazy?!” Jasper shouted, “He doesn’t deserve this!”

 “Shut up Jasper! This had to be done—for the sake of keeping my reputation and my perfect record.” Jeanette hissed.

    For ten long years, Jeanette had been the best employee. She worked hard to keep the company from going bankrupt and managed to keep everyone in the industry organized and in control. She was even promoted three times for such an incredible effort. Then she tried to sneak a bit of money from the company’s pockets, and suddenly she became the enemy and lost every single thing she earned.
   Jeanette knew the risks she was taking as soon as she got the third promotion! She knew that as long as she continued to secretly make some money trading deals behind her boss’s back, he wouldn’t suspect a thing and business would go on as usual.

   Jasper retaliated, “But you were the one that slipped up! As soon as you saw me witnessing what you were doing, you had to pull every trick in the hat to try and prevent anything from being out and in the open; but you ended up doing that to yourself…”

“Shut up!”

He shook his head. “No! You messed up when you made the deal right in front of a hidden security camera! How stupid can you get?!”

“You don’t know anything about me or my life!” She turned towards him with fire in her eyes, “I am the perfect being! I have the perfect record! Nothing can stop me from getting what I want!”

   Jeanette turned her direction back at her boss, watching him cower and squirm—she quietly gripped the gun in her back pocket, snarling at him; she blamed the boss for her life going into ruins.

“Jeanette, it doesn’t have to be this way. You don’t need to go all psycho and hurt every single person you believe done you wrong.” He took another cautious step forward, seeing his boss trying to crawl away from her, “All you need to do is forgive and forget. Nothing is lost, you just need to start a new beginning is all.”

   Jeanette went from a slight snicker to an insane laughter—it lasted for about 30 seconds before she turned towards Jasper and spoke, “You know what I find very humorous? It’s the fact that you…the man that everyone wishes that can beat the living crap out of, is talking all kind and “Good Deeds” towards me. Well, save your bull for someone that cares…cause I sure hell as don’t!”

“Jeanette, don’t do this!” Jasper pleaded.

“It was fun spending all that time with you …” Jeanette smirked, pointing her gun at her boss’ forehead, “But like I said, I must obtain a perfect record at all cost.”

    Jasper couldn’t let Jeanette get her way and fail again just like he failed to prove himself to everyone—his body shook, knowing this was the moment for him to show that he is worth counting on, that he is someone you can trust. He rushed forward with every bit of energy he had and tackled Jeanette from behind, causing her to lose the grip of her gun as it scrolled across the pavement. The two wrestled each other through the mud that was caused by the stormy weather; both of them were drawing blood, developing wounds, black eyes and other injuries.
    Soon Jeanette lifted her leg and kicked Jasper right in the stomach, causing him to tumble backwards onto the ground in pain while she got up and laughed at him. Jasper coughed up a bit of blood, struggling to get himself back onto his feet despite the amount of pain that surged through his body.

“I’m not going to give up Jeanette,” Jasper panted, “I’m going to get you some help.”

“I don’t need any help from you or anyone else!” Jeanette sneered,  “I’m capable of handling things however I please! And there is nothing you can do to stop me!”

    Jeanette cackled as she limped towards her gun, just inches away from grabbing it when one of the cars engines exploded a few inches in front of her—feeling the sudden shock and heat of the explosion not only caused her to lose her balance, but caused her to tumble backwards off the highway’s railing and into a cliff! Jasper shielded his eyes from the bright explosion that unleashed, but when he finally uncovered them, all he saw left of her was cracked sunglasses they laid so peacefully on the pavement as the fire continued to flicker from the destruction she caused.