Fear of flying

Romão

I stayed outside that man's office starched like a trapped donkey. People walked by and looked at me. They were whispering something to each other, looking at me. It seemed that my appearance intimidated them, but I didn't care, I never gave free rein to this kind of people, who thought they were better than others and I won't do it now.

A commercial that was playing on television caught my attention, the television screen was very thin, as I saw in Alexia's living room. It's the first time I've seen this type of television, it looked like a really big piece of paper.

Oh yes, the commercial. The ad that was running was about an almost naked woman driving a tractor. The woman, blonde, busty, wore a bikini, cap and high heels. There on the farm, to protect us from insects and the blazing sun and sticks that flew everywhere as we worked in the fields. We wear: long pants or overalls; long sleeve shirt; straw hat and leather boot. If we were almost naked for the field, we would come back covered in scratches and bites of muricoca.

"Is it serious that they do this kind of commercial?" I asked myself.

The commercial continued to run and I saw several things that would be very useful for my farm, but I didn't pay much attention because of the naked women.

"Let's go?" Alexia asked.

"Hi?" I asked a little disoriented.

"I asked if we can go."

"Ah yes!" We walked to the elevator and entered. "Are you really going to put that commercial on the air?"

"What commercial?"

"One that was on television, with a half-naked woman driving a tractor?"

"I haven't seen the commercials yet, they're still filming, next week I saw a reunion."

"I think you should see the commercial before the meeting."

“I have a lot of things to take care of, I'm going to do an assessment to see who is still working, or who will be fired. Don't judge a job before a presentation. If the commercial is bad in the presentation, I will have it remade, otherwise the commercial goes on air. "

“Um, got it. But I'm sure your boyfriend will stay with the company, regardless of the outcome of the commercial. "

"How are you? How do you know Conrado is my boyfriend?"

"I'm a great observer."

"You can be a great observer, but you don't know how I work."

"Would you fire your boyfriend if he wasn't so competent?"

"Without thinking twice," she replied without hesitation.

"I don't believe you," I said, taking her by surprise.

"It's because you don't know me yet."

We went from floor to floor, from department to department, finally, we went up to the roof of the building that gave access to the helipad. The view from up here was incredible, I could see the entire city, but I preferred the view of the countryside, the fresh mountain air, the crystal clear waters of the waterfall and the earth under my feet.

"What are we going to do? Are you going to get me out of here? I must say I don't know how to fly."

"It wouldn't be a bad idea to play it here." This Woman Is Cruel "But it would involve a lot of lawsuits and the company is not getting over that kind of scandal," she said in a mocking tone. "I want to show you the factory, we'll only get there faster if we go by helicopter."

"I'm not riding this thing."

"Why not? It's safe."

"The control breaks and we end up falling."

"That won't happen, I checked the system this morning, it's ready to fly," said a guy wearing an orange vest.

“Let's go! Nothing will happen, I promise,” Alexia said.

Strangely, I felt safe with her words, so I climbed on that monster. I saw Alexia putting something in her ear, maybe it's a earplug, because this helicopter must make a deafening noise. I also put the ear plugs in, then the pilot turned on that monster and as I imagined, it made a noise.

"Ready to fly?" I heard the pilot talking through the ear plugs, that's when I realized it was some kind of speaker.

"Go on, Rafael," Alexia said.

The helicopter began to rise and sway a little. I tried to hold onto the seat as tightly as possible, my heart was pounding and I started to feel cold.

"Relax! Enjoy the view," Alexia said.

"It's easy for you to say relax, you're used to flying in these things."

She smiled amused, she had a beautiful smile. I'm sure she was making fun of me.

"Is this his first time in a helicopter?" asked the pilot, looking back.

"Yeah, Rafael," Alexia replied. "Let's show him a bit of the city before we get to the factory."

"I'm sure you'll like the view from here," said the pilot, looking at me.

"Okay, but focus on the controls."

"The good thing about life is when we realize we're not in full control of things."

Is he serious that he said that?

The chopper shook again and I dug my nails into the chopper seat. We flew all over the city and they explained to me where each tourist spot was. The fact is that I didn't even pay attention to what they said, I was more worried about what my mother would think when she saw my collection of magazines that I had in the back of my wardrobe after my imminent death. Finally, we arrived at the factory, "alive". As soon as we entered, we received helmets so that we could walk around the factory, the bad thing is that my helmet didn't fit, because of the volume of my hair, so I kept my hat anyway.

“We have the best mechanical engineers in town, our products tend to be efficient and unbreakable,” said a man in a smart suit, who didn't convince Alexia.

"What does it do?" I asked picking up a piece of stuff I don't know what it is.

“These are plates that receive sunlight, the application in this cell activates the plates wherever you have it in the world. Cell phones are also developed by our team, exclusively for those working in agriculture, they are waterproof and unbreakable.”

"Interesting! "

I put the sign in place but accidentally bumped the cell phone into the man's hand, which fell to the ground, breaking the screen and leaving a splinter.

"What did you do?" Alexia asked nervously.

"It wasn't intentional, I didn't bump into his hand on purpose," she said worriedly.

"Why do you have to go through things? You broke your cell phone."

"Wasn't it supposed to be unbreakable?"

Alexia looked at the man who suddenly looked terrified.

"It's... it's just a prototype," the man said.

"The introductory meeting is next week and you guys aren't ready yet?"

"We arrived a little late and the news of Mr. Roberto's death, we didn't know what to do."

"Now you know what you have to do, work. I want to see a satisfying performance."

"Yes ma'am!"

Alexia showed me the rest of the factory, we spent most of the day walking, the factory was huge. When it was late, we returned to the company. Watching the sunset from that height was spectacular, I even forgot my fear of walking through that section.

We went straight to the company cafeteria to have a snack, I was starving. I found it strange to have so few people in the cafeteria, only the council staff were having lunch. Huh! Don't the rest of the employees eat?

"Where are the other employees?" I asked curiously.

"They have their own cafeteria," Alexia replied nonchalantly.

"Why do you make that distinction?"

“We don't make a distinction,” said Alexia's boyfriend. "We just don't mix with other employees so they don't confuse work with friendship."

"And what's the problem with making friends?"

The starched one looked at me and smiled.

"I don't know what the custom is where you live, but here people have to know where they belong."

Alexia got between the two of us.

"What Conrado means is that sometimes we do business here, so nobody can listen."

I walked away a little and Alexia turned to Conrado. I don't know why, but I didn't like this guy. Suddenly, Alexia bumped into a young woman who spilled her coffee.

"Oh sorry, it was an accident."

She took a chain from her shirt and dried a pendant worriedly.

"Look what you've done! Talk to Cassandra from HR, because you're on the street." What?

"No one is on the street," I said, and she was surprised.

"How dare you mess with me in front of my employees."

"I also run the company, the girl will not be fired."

“It's the second time she's ruined my clothes and now my pendant. Do you know how much it costs? Definitely more than she can manage."

"Really? Near the farm where I live there's a lady who makes clothes and you can find a blouse like that for 10 contos." She looked at me. “She won't be fired, period.” Alexia narrowed her eyes. “And that's it…” I pointed to the pendant. "It's just a pendant, it can't be worth more than her work."

She widened her eyes full of fury, her face turned red, as if she was listening to the biggest nonsense of her life. Until she took a deep breath and walked over to me, pointing her finger in my face.

"That will not remain like this." She huffed out of the cafeteria.

"There! I'm screwed, how am I going to get out of a job?" asked the cleaning lady.

"Take it easy, you won't get fired," I assured him.

"Same?" She sighed in relief.

'Yes it's serious. I take care of it myself.'

'Thank you, young man. I do not know how to thank you."

"Just be more careful."

"He is fine."