It wasn't a very easy gig
to get. In Bonnie's office, for instance, there were no other Cupids. There was
her boss and all the usual support staff that the art of matchmaking would
require. In Bonnie's industry they were mostly referred to as 'interferers' for
the simple reason that their entire role was to run interference and ensure
that outcomes were exactly the way as the were handed down from above, or
really, exactly the way that Bonnie wanted them to play out. For Bonnie that
meant a team of three people of whom she couldn't stand to be in the room with
any of them. There was also her boss, and Richard who basically functioned in
the role of Bonnie's PA, even though she refused to give orders and refused to
have someone dependent on her to do their job. In the ten years they'd worked
together Richard had never complained, it was part of the reason she felt
something akin to affection towards him. The orders came, Bonnie devised a
plan, relayed the information to Richard, and he instructed the interferers on
how to make it work.
The idea of 'fate' had long
pissed Bonnie off because fate had very little to do with what she did. Every
single move was perfectly coordinated. There was no pushing together or couples
or ensuring that paths did or didn't meet. There was simply two people who met,
at which point Bonnie stepped in, assessed the situation, and then decided
whether or not to fire an arrow.
And yes, they were very
real arrows. The diaper was entirely the work of some overactive imagination
though, and Bonnie had never been seen in anything that didn't look like it had
just stepped off a runway in Milan.
This was no Buffy gig
though. Bonnie didn't have supernatural levels of strength or any other type of
superpower. What she had was a gift, the truth of which had been lost hundreds
of generations before, so that now all that existed was myths and housewives
tales. It wasn't exactly a religious thing, she couldn't say for sure that
there was a deity behind it, but it also was completely removed from any sort
of Government 'big brother' type of act. This was just the universe at play.
Cupids existed simply because they did.
There was only a specific
type of person who could do the role, and over the years, particularly the
twentieth century when two world wars had wiped out over half the Cupid
population and in many instances also decimated the bloodline, the rules had
been relaxed to allow in what were only demi-Cupids just to get the numbers up.
They did a satisfactory job, but possessing only fifty percent of the necessary
DNA to carry out a job where no amount of training could up-skill you meant the
divorce rate had lately been sky rocketing. Bonnie was of a more pure
bloodline. Her parents hailed from very different corners of the world, but
both being Cupids had decided to marry in order to do their part to reverse the
possible extinction of true love.
Even so, given there were a
million of them working all over the world at any one time, full-Cupid or not,
it hardly made Bonnie feel special to be part of such a gigantic
workforce.
Her catchment, the area in
which she was responsible for the entire populations matchmaking, contained 200
000 people. It was a comparatively smaller area than a lot of Cupid's were
responsible for and often noses were turned up in disgust at her success rate,
dismissing it as the result of someone with much less work to do.
Sitting there in the cafe,
Bonnie's eyes greyed as she stared out at the water and thought back over her
journey to that point in time.
It was her 16th birthday
when she'd been approached by the man in the trench-coat. The whole thing had
reeked of an abduction or a B grade Hollywood film and Bonnie had been quick to
assess her options at the bus stop on that rainy day, in case a quick exit was
needed.
'Hello, Bonnie.'
She'd looked up with the
same level of sass and attitude that sixteen years later she was still known
for. 'Hi, creepy weird guy. I don't know you, but if you continue to bother me
without a really good reason, I'm going to introduce you to my exceptional
ability to call rape."
He guffawed and took a step
back. No other cupid had ever addressed him in that manner. 'I assure you I'm
not here to hurt you.'
'Then why are you dressed
like someone who spends his free time masturbating in cinemas and flashing
women on hiking trails?' she had said coolly, without a blink or a hint of
concern.
He had composed himself and
then launched into a lengthy explanation of how she was one of the few in the
world who possessed the personality set and the DNA structure to carry out the
work. Only an hour earlier though the hottie she'd been crushing on for two
months had asked out her best friend, and Bonnie was in no mood for listening
to creepy old men tell fairy tales. Especially not on her birthday when both
her parents would be working late and she would be forced to argue with her
brother over whether they were having pizza or toasties for dinner.
Over the next few weeks the
creepy weird guy had followed her around town, somehow managing to evade the
restraining order she had her parents take out against him and also the police
that were apparently ruthlessly hunting him for harassing a minor (although she
later found out that her parents had mislead her on both accounts as they were
well aware who he was and that his interest in her was genuine and purely
employment-related). Eventually Bonnie's curiosity had won out and after their
third consensual meeting Bonnie had agreed to start her training, and committed
to it like any sixteen year old would an after school job. Which is to say that
Bonnie regularly called in sick, prioritised parties over extra weekend shifts,
and generally resented having to take orders from an adult when she knew for a
fact that adults were stupid. Through all this her parents had beamed at her
with pride, knowing their daughter was going to be a star, in that way that all
parents thought their children were exceptional until they were jailed or
institutionalised.
Bonnie's views really
hadn't changed that much over the years. She still refused to engage with men
who wore trench coats and she still resented having to work when she had a life
to live. The only exceptions were that she'd developed a strong disdain towards
parties and didn't tolerate people having sick days unless Death himself was
knocking on the door and prepared to write a sick note.
That had actually happened
once and Bonnie, much to Richard's distress, had gotten in an argument with
him.
Now, after two years of
training and fourteen official years in the biz, Bonnie was at a crossroads.
She had signed a document saying that she was willing to hand over her life to
play the role of Cupid, and agreed to do so forever, which now left her
resentful that eighteen-year old Bonnie had been tricked into thinking that
this was an occupation that would keep her entertained till the end of her
days.
It didn't matter that she
was considered the greatest living Cupid, or that she single-handedly dealt out
relationships and marriages to over 200 000 people without breaking a sweat,
Bonnie had resisted all opportunities to further her career, and had stayed in
the same location for that entire period. After sixteen years though, Bonnie
was bored and in need of a reason, something, anything, to help her move
on.
In short, Bonnie Martin was
sick of playing matchmaker.
No comments:
Post a Comment