Martoons

Thomas breaks the ice with Oddball.

Cast of characters

Thomas

Oddball – the mysterious eavesdropper

*

* What is Oddball’s message to Thomas? *

Later that day Thomas passed Go’s office and noticed Oddball in there talking again.

They made brief eye contact but Thomas continued down the hall.

His stomach had resumed growling and he was on another instant noodle mission.

Oddball excused himself and stepped out of Go’s office.

Thomas was down near reception and just disappearing around the corner.

“How ya doin’ buddy!” Oddball called out.

Thomas was surprised by the guy’s perfect, no-accent English but didn’t return the greeting.

There was something about him.

He didn’t seem legit; the kind of guy that would talk to you only because he wanted something.

Oddball rushed down to reception and stuck his head around the corner.

Thomas was going into the staff room.

Oddball: “So how you likin’ it here so far?”

“Who wants to know?” Without turning around, Thomas got to his chair in the otherwise un-peopled room and sat down.

He rummaged through a desk drawer looking for a half-opened package of ramyon.

Oddball approached the doorway but didn’t enter.

“I might as well come right out and tell you: You shouldn’t be here. It’s all a mistake.”

“That’s an understatement,” Thomas said, still without making eye contact.

He didn’t know who this guy was and didn’t want to.

Some people just rub you the wrong way right from the beginning.

“Okay, let me state that more accurately then. You stole my sister’s job.”

* Thomas bluffs Oddball *

Thomas scoffed skeptically as he located his ramyon. “Nice talking to you. You can go now.”

“Okay, maybe it’s not your fault. I’m just giving you a head’s up. Don’t expect to be here much longer.”

“Just as I was acquiring a taste for this place,” Thomas added sarcastically. “Korea grows on you – like a cancer.”

Oddball turned to walk away. “Consider yourself warned. You’re here on borrowed time. Somebody screwed up …”

He paced down the hall a couple of steps then turned his head back. “But don’t listen to me…”

“I wasn’t, believe me. Tell you what – whoever you are – since you’re so interested in my welfare, I’ll make you a deal.

“If somebody coughs up some cash for all the hard work I’ve done here so far, I’ll go down right away and get a train ticket to Seoul and then catch the first flight out of here.

“You can have this steaming cauldron of repressed emotion-of-a-place all to yourself.”

Thomas was bluffing.

Korea was growing on him, but his morale was rock-bottom.

However, he was sure it was just a mindset attributed mostly to poor nutrition.

Nevertheless, this Oddball guy – whoever he was – was just a little too sure of himself.

Nothing worse than somebody who shows up on your turf, doesn’t even introduce himself, and starts acting like he owns the place.

What made Oddball extra annoying was that he seemed to be a foreigner, not even from Korea.

Their brief encounter had eaten up a few minutes’ valuable time so Thomas resolved to eat his noodles raw, as Korean students often did.

He got up to close the staff room door, but before he did shouted: “Where are you from anyway? No, let’s backtrack.”

“Who the hell are you? And where the hell do you get off divining my future? You read tarot cards or something?”

* Thomas deciphers where Oddball is from *

“Don’t shoot me,” Oddball shouted back. “I’m only the messenger.” He got to the end of the hallway. “Take it easy, eh?”

Ah ha! The guy’s Canadian.

“I’ll take it any way I can get it,” Thomas shot back. “And if that fails, I’ll take it by force.”

That got Thomas thinking.

He really should go and talk to that attractive woman over at the coffee house just down the street.

He’d vowed to stay away from the fairer sex for at least a few months when he got to Korea.

He wanted to focus on work, save money and get settled in preparation for his daughter coming over.

She was the most important female in his life.

But as the weeks went by without pay, he found his interest in work waning and other needs coming to the fore – like companionship.

He’d been over to that coffee shop a few times and aside from the place’s thick cigarette smoke along with Coffee Lady’s heavy perfume and makeup, he found it like a sanctuary; kind of seamy – almost sleazy and underworldish.

And romantic.

Nobody from work ever went there so he could just be himself.

And hey, even if the Coffee Lady didn’t have much time to flirt with him, the coffee there was thick and black; like drugs.

Buzzed him out for hours.

*

Tomorrow: Thomas is struggling and Go shows him some compassion.