Story: Rainy Season

Maureen sat at her desk and counted the minutes until she could leave. It was 8 AM, so there were 8 hours left, which was 480 minutes. She had just arrived, but before she could start up her computer (which took 2 minutes out of her 480 remaining), and then put sugar in her coffee (another 3 minutes), she noticed that Darren was making his morning walk through the office.

“Hey, Maureen, we need that story today. Have you edited it yet?” Her boss had tried to use a fake happy tone, something that Maureen sometimes appreciated since everyone else in the office was so serious and cutthroat all the time.

“Yeah, it’ll just be another 2 hours,” she said as Darren smiled back and kept walking among the cubicles. Maureen had never thought writing could ever be a chore, but since she started working at the newspaper two months ago, she had been miserable. She thought moving to the big city and working for an elite news company was a good move for her career, but she missed seeing her husband, Luke, and her son, Aidan, who were back home in the Midwest. Writing news stories used to give her a high. Her husband would often have to force her to stop writing a particularly exciting piece to eat dinner, because she would write and edit for hours straight. She had followed her dream, but now was stuck in this terrible cubicle with serious people and dim lighting. Back at her old job, people would walk out together and make plans to get dinner or set up play dates. Here, it was different. A line of business suits paraded out of the doors and went straight home. She’d go back to the apartment she rented and call Luke.

“Hey, how’s work?” he would ask. He sounded so encouraging so Maureen couldn’t tell him how miserable she was without him.

Only 2 hours left now. She had finished the story, sat in the dingy break room at lunch and now was back at her desk, absentmindedly finishing up another edit, while glancing up at the pictures of Aidan. Only 4 hours until she could take the plane back home. Her friends back home would be oohing over his newest pictures, but here, nobody cared. It was all about the work, and the place reflected that attitude. Nobody else had pictures on their desks. Instead there were stacks of papers.

3 minutes left.

People bustled around the office, not realizing that one of their own co-workers was leaving. Maureen had her desk cleaned off and sat at her desk as she was at the beginning of the day except now she would never have to stare at the clock again. She was now leaving the gloomy, white-walled room.

Upon turning in her badge and leaving the building for the last time, Maureen felt the clouds part and the sun shine down on her. For the first time the daisies blooming in front of the building didn’t seem fake or remind her of a hospital. She noticed the vibrant yellow was the same shade of their kitchen walls. The gray buildings in the city seemed to shrink, and she could finally see the whole of the sky.

A/N

My inspiration for this week was the story of Rama during the rainy season. Narayan describes how dark and depressing the months were, and I tried to create a modern version of that in the form of a gloomy workplace. It is described in the Ramayana that all animals disappeared and the land seemed lifeless. Similarly, Maureen’s co-workers were robotic and emotionless. Rama was thinking about what his plan was to find his wife, Sita (who was taken by Ravana), during the months, so I created a parallel with Maureen and her husband. However, there is an end to the rainy season in the Ramayana. The animals returned to the land and the flowers bloomed and the sun came out. In my story, once Maureen leaves her workplace, the same thing happens. The world is now beautiful and there is hope that she will return to her husband and Aidan. 

Image: Wikimedia Commons