I paused a while as I looked at the First Candle I placed in the middle of the cake in memory of the love of my parents.
The red candle looked strong as strong as the love I felt for my mother and father.
As I moved on to the placement of the next candle, another past event came to mind.
At twenty years old, I was already working as an executive secretary to a president of a financing company. A difficult moment came to the company when debtors could not meet their obligations, besides other reasons for the failing business.
I was instructed to head a group of secretaries to prepare a bunch of intimidating letters to be sent within a short day notice. I believed my boss got panicked or whatever. I had to convince, if not to beg, four secretaries more to help me type the letters on a Sunday.
Fortunately, I was able to get help. The five of us worked on a non-working day. We were able to finish typing letters, have them ready for signing and disposal for the next day, Monday.
Those were the days when offices were using electronic typewriters and correcting mistakes using paper correction tapes and liquids. The old days before the computers.
First office working day and my boss was already in a bad mood upon arriving at the office. Every time he came in such a mood, I never got afraid though he had always looked like a devil to me. Proving he was that day, he came straight to my table as he left the building elevator, to ask for the letters. I showed him the pile of two sets of letters totalling a hundred.
He picked up one and read it. I was sure he was checking keenly if the letter was perfect. It was. He was the kind of boss who would not accept a slight error nor correction in any of his letters. To some extent, I guessed it was my fault. I made him get used to my perfectionist way of working.
Then he checked one more and another.
I was praying deep inside me that he would stop, because I could not guarantee that the other secretaries would have not made any mistakes and obvious corrections. I sorted the letters out. I had checked on them one by one and made sure whatever mistake or correction would not be noticeable, otherwise, I myself had to retype them.
The other secretaries just worked short hours since it was Sunday. They came to lend me a hand. I worked the whole day till normal office hours ended which was five o'clock.
So, the following working day, Monday, I was a different person as I had worked seven days straight. I was not sure if I was a zombie, a freak or just a drugged cold bear coming into the office.
Suddenly my boss picked up the whole bunch of papers and threw them up into the air. He found a mistake! I was sure it was not a mistake, but an obvious correction fluid on a corrected letter. Not obvious enough for me as it slipped my scrutiny.
"Repeat them all!"
He shouted as the papers flew into the air with him giving a blank, serious face, but to my eyes was the devil himself. He did it in front of everyone in the small office we were in.
I was shocked, standing besides the table where the letters were placed. I felt as if he threw them to my face. Then he left as if nothing happened.
I could not move. It took others to shake me strong to wake me up from my worst dream. One even has to give me a slight slap on the face as I did not react.
"What happened?"
I asked everyone. Then I saw all the letters on the floor and splattered everywhere. I remembered then what had just happened.
Without a word to anyone, I went to grab my things and left the office, I did not come back again.
"Money. It was because of money that humans turned themselves into a devil."
I shook my head as I tried to whisk off that bad moment from my memory. I looked at the candles and settled my eyes to the yellow candle.
"Yes. You, yellow. Just like a mayonnaise. You are a mixture of sweetness, like my officemates in those days, saltiness like how office work is sometimes, and spicy, just like those fiery devilish bosses one can unfortunately find."
I laughed at my thoughts and placed the yellow candle beside the red to lessen it's strong impact on my memories as it is beside red which is but love.
To be continued...
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