“How could they? I was careful as hell except for when I had clocked in and called in sick,” I said. “What do you think I should do?”

“What can you do?”

Just then Cathy entered my cubicle.

“Stratton, you mind coming into my office for a minute?”

“Sure,” I said.

She turned. I stood and flashed Linda a frightened face. She frowned in response. Then I followed Cathy. The second I entered her office, I knew I was up shit creek without a paddle. There were two others waiting for us: Stan, the executive editor, who was Cathy’s boss, and another person I knew to be the head of human resources.

“Have a seat,” Stan said.

I sat across from them feeling like a parolee in front of the board.

“Care to explain these?” Stan asked, reaching across the desk with my two time cards. I took them.

“No.”

“No, what?”

“No, I don’t care to explain them.”

“Well, I’m a little confused as to why you have two cards instead of just one.”

I could feel my legs shaking. My heart was racing and I’m not entirely sure why I felt so uneasy. There was nothing I could do but sit there and eat the shit sandwich they were serving. I had to let them fire me because if I got up and left, it would be considered quitting, and if I quit, I’d be ineligible to collect unemployment. I’d been through this process before, but that didn’t make it any easier.

“Well, I’m a little confused as to why you went through my desk without my permission,” I replied, intentionally using his own phrasing to piss him off.

“MDI’s desk, you mean.”

“No, my desk.”

“The desk you’re privileged to use that is owned by MDI.”

“Now we’re just splitting hairs, sir. And I wouldn’t call it a privilege.”

“No, you wouldn’t, would you?” Stan said.

“No, I wouldn’t. That’s why I just said that.”

Stan smiled. “There’s also this,” he said, and handed me a sheet of paper. “It’s a list of everything you’ve printed here. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t believe there are any MDI documents titled As Far as the Eye Can See?”

“No, I wouldn’t think there would be,” I said. As Far as the Eye Can See was the title of my novel, and I had printed it using MDI’s printer more times than I could count on the sheet Stan had given me. Each instance was listed, and the title repeated itself about a hundred times, maybe more. I wasn’t surprised, seeing as I only ever printed small sections at a time, and sometimes just a page or two.

“You do know it’s against company policy to print anything that isn’t for company use?”