Reiner – An Impossible Task

In this day and age that most things were electronic and no longer paper-based, it was surprising to see so many documents gather and well arranged all in one place. I bet whatever Reiner was looking for must be quite old. Perhaps it was some documents from the time when computers and everything digital wasn’t popular yet.

“Excuse me. I’m Knight’s secretary. He told me that you have some documents for him…” I said to the muscular old man who was seated behind a counter.

The old man peered at me through his thick-lens glasses as he squinted his eyes. I wondered if it was a requirement to be this muscular to guard an archive. I smiled at him a little nervously as he continued to stare at my face. Finally, he seemed satisfied enough and nodded at me in acknowledgement.

Without saying a word to me, he slowly got up from his seat and waved his hand at me for me to follow after him.

He led me a little further into the archive and the smell of old paper and books filled my nostrils. It wasn’t an unpleasant smell, but I wouldn’t want to spend an entire day down here either. After a little while the man came to a stop in front of a large pile of documents. Documents in folders was piled up almost as high as my waist.

“All of this is for Knight?” I asked.

I eyed the tall pile of documents in front of me. Did Reiner request for all this? I couldn’t imagine how I can possibly carry this many documents back to his office. Did he expect me to carry all this back on my own? Really?

As I stood there in shock, the old man stood silently to the side and watched me as if he was waiting to see what I was going to do. Effort, Natalia, perseverance, and endless effort. I flexed my fingers and bent down to gather as many documents and folders as I could carry into my arms. If I can’t carry all of them back at once, I’ll just make multiple trips.

“Thank you!” I called out to the old man as I started walking out of the archive with a large pile of documents in my arms.

After just making it out of the archive, I quickly realized that I must have bitten off more than I could chew. The documents in my arms rose up higher than my chin and it felt so heavy in my arms that my arms started feeling numb. It was also a little hard for me to balance myself and walk straight.

Miraculously, I made it back to the elevator that connected the underground archive to the first floor.

Back at the lobby, I had to change elevator to the one that would go up to Reiner’s office.

I must have looked quite funny struggling with all those documents because many people who walked by gave me weird looks. Of course, I decided to ignore them completely. I mean, if they had time to judge me, they could have offered this poor young pretty lady a hand. Seriously!

To make matters worse, the elevator was crowded. I couldn’t wait for the next elevator though. The papers in my arms felt like it was getting heavier with each second. I need to get them to Reiner’s office as soon as possible. It felt like an eternity before the elevator reached my floor.

“Excuse me…so sorry…” I said as I squeezed myself out of the crowded elevator.

Either I wasn’t watching where I was going, or I wasn’t paying enough attention to my surroundings.

Perhaps, it was both. After exiting the elevator, I walked right into someone.

“I’m so sorry!” I quickly apologized as I tried to balance the pile of documents in my arms.

It would be a disaster if I dropped these now. The old man probably arranged these documents in order so dropping them wasn’t exactly an option. Suddenly, the weight in my arms completely disappeared.

“What do you think you’re doing?” a familiar voice asked sternly from above my head.

“Knight? Umm…why are you here?” I asked cluelessly.

Why is he here? Isn’t he supposed to be working his ass off in the office?

My arms were still hugging the weightless air when I realized that Reiner had taken all the documents that I had been holding into his arms instead. He looked at me sternly and I started to get the feeling that I had done something wrong.

“You were gone for so long, so I came looking for you…and the documents,” Reiner replied.

The sentence would have sounded so perfect if he hadn’t added in the last part.

“Sorry…that it took so long,” I mumbled apologetically.

“What do you think you’re doing? Why are you carrying all this heavy stuff all by yourself?” he asked with a slight scold on his face.

Umm…because you told me to?

“You told me to go get the documents for you…” I replied in confusion.

Reiner sighed before turning to walk away from me in the direction of his office. I had no idea what he was thinking at all. We entered his office, and he dumped the large pile of documents on his table before turning to face me.

“I asked you to ask the guy in the archive to bring me the documents that I asked for. I didn’t ask you to bring them to me because I know that it’s too much for you to carry,” Reiner said followed with an exasperated sigh.

Oh…I guess he did say something like that…

“I see. There’re still some documents left in the archive because I couldn’t carry them all…” I mumbled.

“Of course, you couldn’t carry them all…” Reiner replied.

“I’m sorry. Just wait here, I’ll go get them for you now,” I quickly said before turning to the door.

“No need. I’ll get someone else to grab it later,” Reiner said to stop me.

“Ok…” I mumbled softly.

Reiner sat down in his chair and began going through the documents from the archive and I found myself wondering what he was looking at. I still haven’t figured out what Reiner’s job was, and it became my mission for the day to figure that out.

--To be continued…