Katie Jansen isn’t just a financial analyst – she is the wizened medicine woman of her office. And with that power has come great responsibility, which is why Jansen keeps a few helpful teas, medicines, and a trove of Emergen-C hidden in a hollowed out tree near her desk.
According to an anonymous source, last week, under the light of a waning crescent, Jansen found a magical tree hollow in the potted Ficus tree near her desk, which she stuffed with over 20 packets of Emergen-C Blueberry-Acai.
The opening is covered with leaves and is guarded by a troll doll, which she may have bewitched with some sort of protection spell.
“People were coming to me day and night,” the magical witch says of her most treasured potion. “They wanted everything I had. It’s like, quit stealing all of my shit, okay?”
Reports of Jansen’s healing power go back many years. Last winter, Jansen’s combination of a ginger peach gas relief tea and the health-positive mantra “all it takes is a little TLC” saved Rebecca the intern from having to go home sick on her last day. When a department manager got violently ill on sushi Friday, Jansen blended seltzer water with a packet of Alka Seltzer and a clove of garlic foraged from her lunch leftovers.
The path to Jansen’s sanctuary of pills, Band-aids and rumored potions is well known by her work acquaintances, but the location of the Emergen-C remains a mystery to all. Even her coworkers with desks near the kitchen, who bring offerings of instant coffee and bruised apples, are kept completely in the dark.
It is unknown what larger plan Jansen has for her hidden Emergen-C, if any. Perhaps she is saving it for the office’s annual flu epidemic, predicted to occur after the holidays when everyone’s kids go back to school. During those dark first days of January, Jansen may shock everyone with the reveal of this new and unprecedented level of witchcraft.
Or she may realize, too late, that our anonymous source has taken to stealing the Emergen-C packets one-by-one from the tree hollow.
