It didn’t feel like a typical Wednesday, to be quite honest.
How the rhino had gained access to the building in the first place, let alone been allowed to run rampant through the HR department, was anybody’s guess. And all this hot on the heels of Donna, our chief sustainability officer, being flayed alive, anthrax disease sweeping the building, and Taylor Swift’s unscheduled appearance at the eight-thirty breakfast meeting. Whilst hardly conducive to a relaxed working environment, the morning’s peculiar events had certainly helped to pass the time, which usually seemed to slow-crawl backwards. Especially in Coventry.
I must admit, I didn’t care for the new office layout – not that my knowledge of interior design is extensive, you understand, but this felt a deliberate assault on the eyes. Gelatinous walls, sawdust littering floors, the central lagoon. Nothing – nothing – as it had been. But my husband was still dead, anyway; that hadn’t altered.
A gentle hand on my shoulder snaps me out of my reverie. “Away with the fairies there, looks like”, said Bryony, gesturing towards the telephone on my desk ringing itself hoarse, “completely understandable after, you know, everything.” She’s good-hearted. Tiresomely optimistic, on occasion, but good-hearted. “Didn’t sleep again”, I said, prodding under my eyes, “look at these bags – I could do my weekly shop with them.” Around us, colleagues move like besuited satellites: a slick-haired Mitchell paced outside the break room with his steaming tarka dhal, Harrison thumped the photocopier and clicked his teeth, Donna sprang from the lift with scarlet-raw cheeks, fingers anxiously twisting a fold in her blouse. A typical Wednesday. “Did they catch the rhino?” I asked Bryony. A soft smile played upon her lips, but she didn’t reply.
The telephone begins its nonsense yet again and so I put it – and my huffing co-workers – out of their misery. A tremulous voice rattles the receiver: “There were two police officers at reception asking to see you, Judith. I hope you don’t mind but, as you didn’t answer, I’ve sent them up.” I was about to inform her that she’d clearly got the wrong person, as my name was not – and had never been – Judith, when two uniformed figures materialised behind the glass partition. Some pen-pusher in the half-melting corridor points directly at me and they wander in, say they need to talk. “Well, it can’t be about my husband”, I said, “he’s dead.” The younger of the duo cocks her head, carefully nods. “Mmn, yes”, she says, bending slightly towards me, “he is, that’s correct.”
They ask me to fetch my coat from the rack and to bring my bag with me. I don’t think my supervisor will be too pleased but I comply. “Are you going to do anything about the anthrax?” I say, “or these bloody walls? And have they caught the rhino yet? You’re going to do something, surely?!” They tell me they are and not to concern myself. Huh. It’s alright for them to say that. My brain is stuffing. It’s been one hell of a Wednesday here. Not your typical Wednesday at all, really.
I catch Bryony as we all troop out, arm-in-arm. She lends me one of her kind smiles again but it doesn’t seem to reach her eyes somehow. She’s good-hearted.
© Adam Elms
September Contest