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
