The Beemer

[sweety]

Sean O’Dwyer was a van driver for a cleaning company these past twelve years and was promised the position of manager in the very near future, as reward for his good service to the company, or so Sean thought.

His boss knew quite well that Sean was a fearful person, and easily intimidated. So he took advantage of this by devising a bigger workload than was necessary for him and in general treated him like a doormat. He had no intention of offering him the manager's job.
When the phone rang in his office and it was a cleaning woman looking for a box of paper towels, he said: ''I'll get Sean to collect a box from my home."

Sean was looking at his bosses house. A beautiful bungalow on the outskirts of town. And was hoping that one day he might be able to afford something like it.

Opening the garage door he picked up a box of paper towels and couldn’t resist sitting in the BMW, it was a beauty. Mavis would die for one of these, he thought, as he closed the garage door and carried the box of paper towels to the van and drove back to the depot.

Then one day he was summoned to the office. "This is it!" he thought, "they were finally going to offer him the manager's job." All sorts of things were running through his head. They must celebrate, so he phoned their favourite Indian restaurant and made a reservation for that very evening, Mavis will be ever so pleased.

After knocking at the office door he was told to enter. He was about to take a chair when his boss gestured for him to stay standing. ''Just talking to head-office, be with you in a jiffy''.

Putting the phone down he said: ''I'm afraid I have bad news for you Sean, we're going to have to let you go.''

Sean was devastated, he didn’t know which way to turn. It was as if he had entered the twilight zone, he felt weak in the knees and a sickling feeling at the pit of his stomach. He couldn’t remember driving home. And when he told Mavis what took place at the office she was very sympathetic.

He felt so sick, he made his excuses and threw up in the bathroom and after cancelling the reservation at the restaurant, he went to bed early with the feeling that he had just been buggered.

The following morning after breakfast he told Mavis he would go job hunting.
But gaining employment was no easy task especially at his age.

For the first time in his life Sean knew rage. And swore revenge on his ex boss.

He thought of nothing else, till the glimmer of an idea was born and broke into fruition that very night. "It's now or never", he thought, so he left the house. Making sure Mavis was asleep.
No point in bothering her with his plan. He drove their old banger to his ex bosses house.
Parked the car a few streets further up and walked back checking to see if any one was about.

Opening the garage door with the key his ex boss had given him to collect the box of towels, he went inside and crawled under the BMW.

With his boy scout penknife went to work on the brake fluid cable. He wasn't not sure how these things worked. But he saw it once on a crime-watch program. When he was finished he closed the garage door and left.


Back home he climbed into bed and gently aroused Mavis from her sleep.

''What’s come over you'' she said and started kissing him with a passion she didn’t know she possessed. Afterwards he slept like a baby.

Next day after a gruelling session at the unemployment office he was glad to be back home.

''How did it go? '' Mavis asked. ''It was distressing. And they had the audacity to tell me to find a job myself.''

''Well I never'' said Mavis. ''The cheeky beggars. Anyway dinner is ready, come and get it."

''Be right there honey''. During the meal she asked him if he liked the beefsteak and French dressing.

"Very gourmet" he said, forcing the rubbery meat down his throat. Even the dogs had difficulty chewing her steaks. After clearing the table and washing the dishes they settled in front of the television just in time for the lotto draw.

"We won!" Mavis screamed with excitement, "fifty thousand Euros!" Sean went over the lotto numbers again. She was right, they had the winning hand.

"O Sean"...... "Yes Mavis"....... "You look good enough to eat." Kissing him full on the lips, her hands sliding down his thighs. ''Can I buy a decent car and scrap that old banger?"
''Yes, anything, just don’t stop" he said groaning with pleasure.

After collecting their windfall, Mavis went on a shopping spree and ended up in a BMW car showroom and struck a deal for a second-hand top of the range model, she was delighted.

After sorting out the paper work with the sales rep, she hopped into the driver's seat, slipped the key into the ignition and fired up the powerful engine. After putting the safety belt on, she put the BMW into first gear, hit the accelerator and was off.

''Let's drive to the coast'' she said to Sean when she got home. ''It's not far and we can picnic by the cliffs." Sean nodded in agreement and off they went.
Once there, Mavis tried out the four-wheel drive on the rough terrain leading to the cliff.

''We must come here more often" shouted Sean above the roar of the mighty engine.
The car was fast closing the distance to the cliffs edge when Sean said: ''This BMW looks a lot like my ex bosses.''
Mavis decided it was time to apply the brakes. For a moment the BMW was airborne. Then it fell........:nopity:

[hillwalker]

Clever storyline - but a lot of the plot devices are hard to swallow.

1) Sean's reaction to being summoned to his boss's office
2) Sean keeping hold of the key to his boss's garage
3) Not only the coincidence of buying his ex-boss's car, but not recognizing it before being taken for a drive
4) and, of course, winning the lottery.

It's a little too coincidental to make any of it believeable, so we start doubting whether or not the characters themselves are real. And, again, they are not. A typical, uncaring boss, a slovenly wife, and a hard-done-by husband. A set of walking cliches.

You also do your story few favours by opening the way you do - spilling the beans about Sean's aspirations. Right away we know how this story will develop. Ok, the mechanics of his revenge and subsequent downfall are not so obvious, but there's not a shred of tension because the reader can see what's coming from the moment we read the title.

There's the basis for a better story here, but much of this is implausible; one event follows another like cars on a freeway without much in the way of character or plot development. I would suggest you expand your reading to discover what makes for good story-telling then consider a drastic rewrite.

H