I nodded again.

"Your journey today was to prove you are willing to work to break the curse, no matter what the penalty. You can't just sit back and wish a curse away. You have to earn the cure, strive hard for it."

Mr. Silverman took a large sheet of butcher paper from one of his drawers and spread it across his spotless desk. Spotless except for the collected items and the paper.

"The pens," he said and uncapped each of the five colors. "These represent the five communities that make up a successful company. The vision..."

He drew a black triangle on the butcher paper, and marked one corner with a symbol.

"The product..."

He drew a red triangle, touching one corner of the first triangle but at a slight angle, followed by another symbol on one of its corners.

"The leadership..."

He drew a blue triangle touching the red one and another symbol.

"The momentum..."

A purple triangle and symbol, touched the blue triangle.

"And, the customers."

The final triangle and symbol connected to both the purple and black triangles. The two corners connecting each of the triangles formed a multi-colored pentagon and the points revealed a star. A different symbol was scribbled at each peak of the star.

He recapped the pens, laid them down, and picked up the mug of water. He set the mug in the center of the star's pentagram.

"Water is a symbol of life. It was taken from the women's restroom, because females are the child bearers. To break the curse, we need to bring new life into your career path. Your work spirit needs to be reborn."

He took the dozen petals, some of which were crumpled from my pocket. He split the petals into four groups of three and placed each group at equal lengths around the mug.

"There are a dozen petals to represent the 12 months of the fiscal year, each consisting of three months throughout the four seasons of the year. The petals were plucked from a loved one's flowers in hopes that the company will bloom and grow, like the one who sent the flowers hopes the relationship will bloom and grow."

"The license agreement is the spell to bind the collected items into unity and harmony. It was translated into Pig Latin to aid the rhythm of the incantation."

He picked up the translated license agreement and began to read it aloud. It sounded like a legal document written by Dr. Seuss, the rhythm hypnotic. The petals tumbled around the coffee mug, as if caught in a circular draft. As he read, the mug of water bubbled softly and emitted the soft scent of vanilla.

It was an incredible experience to watch Mr. Silverman work his mojo. All the troubles of the quest seemed worth while.

Mr. Silverman set down the license agreement and picked up the mug. The water no longer bubbled, but still smelt of vanilla.

"Here. Drink this down and chase it with the donut."

He handed the mug and donut to me.

"What's the donut symbolic of?" I asked and gulped down the water from the coffee mug. At first, it had a light, smooth taste of the vanilla, but had a horrible aftertaste like burnt toast and grapefruit rinds. My mouth tried to turn itself inside out.

"To kill the flavor," he said.

I ate the donut, but the sweetness of all the powdered donuts in the world couldn't rid my mouth of that nasty aftertaste.

I composed myself as soon as my saliva glands started working again, and asked him, "Did it work? Is the curse broken?"

He smiled and said, "I think so."

Mr. Silverman lead me out of his office, down the hallway, and stopped at the door next to the Oracle room. He opened the door to a bare and narrow hallway beyond. A closed door stood at the opposite end with a red sign above it that read, "EXIT." I was relieved to see something spelled in a normal way. No mirror-imaged writing. No backwards signs. Only the red glow of an exit sign that might as well have read, "Welcome home."

Out of curiosity, I looked above the door Mr. Silverman opened for me. A similar sign above the door read "TIX3." Two, mirrored signs of an office hallway between two worlds.

Mr. Silverman instructed me to take the other door, follow the hallway back to Alice's desk, and take the revolving doors to get back to the other wing of the building.

"You did good," he said, "We'll see in time. Now get back to work. You've been goofing off all afternoon."

Now it's five years later.

Like my wife, I now take the occult more seriously. Especially curses.

Simucalc stock slowly, but steadily climbs. I was promoted to manager of my department two years ago. My wife is happy that work is steady and pays well to support our family of four.

Dorothy and I went to Joe's house last week for game night. His wife Allison told us Joe came home at lunchtime and told her, "Honey, I have some bad news..."

Joe lost his third job over the last five years.