OK, I'm disappointed with it, but it is really short.
Tom Tenson sat staring at the ceiling in the small, dirty break room. He sat staring at the two-inch piece of dusty tinsel still stuck to the ceiling of the break room with a torn piece of beige masking tape. His sadness of looking at this was only amplified by the fact that it was July. Five days a week for seven months, that tinsel has been there. It had long since stopped reminding him of Christmas. It had long since stopped reminding him of the fact that no one took the time to put up decorations nicely or bother taking them down properly. It only served as a reminder of the passage of time in this empty job. He took another sip from his third cup of coffee of the day.
He figured it out once. There are 8,760 hours in a year. He subtracted 2,920 hours for 8 hours of sleep a day leaving him with 5,840 hours of waking life. He decided to use 10 hours a day for work. It took him half an hour to and from work, two fifteen minute breaks and a half-hour lunch. Not able to leave for these breaks, Tom figured that they should be added in as time spent at work. That calculated out to be 2,600 hours a year working, not including the 40 hours of vacation he was never allowed to take. With all of this information, he discovered that 45% of his waking life was spent at work. It seemed like a horrendously large chunk of time to spend doing something he had a hard time finding any remote amount of enjoyment doing. Time spent waiting until the time when he could come into the break room and stare blankly at the unsentimental piece of tinsel.
Amber strolled in with her disconnected headset on. Her skin looked slightly green under the cheap florescent lights. “Oh hi Tom,” she chirped. “Ignore me. I’m just getting some coffee.” Tom took her at her word and didn’t respond. Not concerned with his lack of attention, she continued talking. “My, my…people certainly leave this place a mess.” She brushed spilled sugar from the crowded countertop onto her palm and into the large garbage. “It makes you wonder what these people’s houses look like.” It only made Tom wonder what Amber’s house looked like. Amber had appointed herself in charge of the Christmas decorations last year.
“Oh, that poor, poor plant.” Amber shook her head at the dead stick sitting in a pot of dirt in the middle of the round gray formica table. She put some water in a styrofoam cup and poured it into the soil.
Tom spoke up, “What idiot thought that a plant could live in here without sunlight?”
“Well, the guy in the store said it would be fine.” She said as water and soil started to collect under the plastic pot.
“Oh, sorry,” Tom already knew it was probably her. “It was nice and vibrant for a while.”
“Well, no, you’re right. It’s just…this place is so drab and depressing. We need something to cheer it up.”
Tom felt embarrassed for implying indirectly that she was an idiot. “You’re right. It was a nice try and I hate to tell you this, but this plant isn’t going to make it.” She let out a soft laugh as she poured her coffee. Tom continued, “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Do you like your job?”
“You’re funny.” Amber smiled as she added cream to her coffee, “Nobody likes their job. It’s just something that you have to do.”
Tom leaned back in his chair, “Surely, there are people that like their jobs.”
“Well, I want one of their jobs then.” She strolled out saying, “Let me know if you find any openings.”
Tom finished off his coffee and stood up to return to work. He was stopped by the realization that he had drunk too much coffee. He had the vague sensation of feeling psychic, a feeling that usually accompanied the over-consumption of caffeine for him. It was an odd sensation. He always felt psychic from too much coffee, but never had a premonition, just a feeling that a premonition was possible. He sat back down admiring the odd tricks of his mind.
He let his mind wander in this state, until he spoke aloud, startling himself, “I need to form a plan to get out of here,” He made a promise to himself not to rot in this job.
He stood up, grabbed the plant and threw it in the garbage. He stopped himself, having one more task to complete. He stood on top of a chair and ripped the tinsel from the ceiling.
He smiled, a plan was hatching.
What I like about this story is that the ending is so open to interpretation. Either he's made a plan to do something positive with his life, or he's decided that it's futile and is going to kill himself. (For me, the latter interpretation is suggested by him standing on the chair -- whenever I read about a character standing on a chair, it always makes me think he's going to throw a rope over a beam and off himself. That may be a very personal reaction, I dunno.) So if that's the ambiguity you were going for, you achieved it.
ReplyDeleteIf, on the other hand, you weren't trying to achieve that ambiguity, and you wanted the reader left with a positive feeling about Tom's future, you might want to give us a few more hints about the plan he's hatching. An interesting twist could be, earlier in the story, he could be thinking of the life of a garbage man, and how it pays well, and there's fresh air, and you get to ride on a big truck ... and then, at the end of the story, he starts cleaning up and throwing the pot away and stuff, and without having to say anything, you could make the reader feel that he'd made the decision to move toward his dream of being a garbage man.
I mean, not like you have to do that specifically. Just an idea of how you might tie the beginning and the ending together. If you worked on it some more, I have some short-short markets you could submit it to. Let me know if you're interested.
M
It's true, I do like open-ended stories, but that was not what I was going for here. I was just trying to write a story quickly because I had been putting it off for so long. I also, as you know, handicapped myself with the title. I knew it had to be in an office (at least in my mind), because of the coffee break. I toyed with the idea of him observing nidifigous birds outside the break room window. The problem with that was the nidifigous birds are able to walk after hatching, like quails and much to my disapointment they don't leave their mother's care. The metaphor would be lost.
ReplyDeleteI then decided to have him "hatch" a plan. What plan? I don't know and I didn't care. The idea that I failed to put across though is that his change in thinking of that there might be another future caused him to take positive steps in his present atmosphere. (Actually, take down the stupid tinsel and throw away the plant). So, in that way, the nest he was leaving was the nest he created for himself in his mind.
Keep in mind, I did write this quickly and had no idea where the story was going to go when I wrote it.
I like the garbage man idea. Of course, it is genius, but it wasn't what I was going for. I don't know how to achieve what I was going for. I would love to submit it, of course, with work. That would be fun...or would it?
Well, for me submitting is half the fun because I'm so intensely competitive that just writing something I like isn't enough. I have to submit it and either 1) get slapped down, which satisfies my appetite for soggy self-pity or 2) get accepted, which fuels the massive bonfire of my ego.
ReplyDeleteWithout the intellectual S & M of submitting, I don't think I'd find writing half as much fun as I do.
M
So, what do you recommend that I do? One thing, I might do is add a definition at the beginning, working it in cleverly. Or I can just put a plain old dictionary definition at the beginning.
ReplyDeleteAs for your writing exercise, poo on that! For one thing, I don't like barns and I'm allergic to most barn animals. And another thing, yuck...too hard.
Well, it depends on what you want. If you are interested in working on it some more, I would do something like have the main character actually think about the word. If it's a word that obscure, you pretty much have to do something with it in the story, have the character define it or a supporting character mention it. I don't know if I'd put a dictionary definition in front of a story this short ... maybe too heavy handed.
ReplyDeleteYeah, that writing exercise sounds like a pain, doesn't it?
M
It's true, I do like open-ended stories, but that was not what I was going for here. I was just trying to write a story quickly because I had been putting it off for so long. I also, as you know, handicapped myself with the title. I knew it had to be in an office (at least in my mind), because of the coffee break. I toyed with the idea of him observing nidifigous birds outside the break room window. The problem with that was the nidifigous birds are able to walk after hatching, like quails and much to my disapointment they don't leave their mother's care. The metaphor would be lost.
ReplyDeleteI then decided to have him "hatch" a plan. What plan? I don't know and I didn't care. The idea that I failed to put across though is that his change in thinking of that there might be another future caused him to take positive steps in his present atmosphere. (Actually, take down the stupid tinsel and throw away the plant). So, in that way, the nest he was leaving was the nest he created for himself in his mind.
Keep in mind, I did write this quickly and had no idea where the story was going to go when I wrote it.
I like the garbage man idea. Of course, it is genius, but it wasn't what I was going for. I don't know how to achieve what I was going for. I would love to submit it, of course, with work. That would be fun...or would it?
What I like about this story is that the ending is so open to interpretation. Either he's made a plan to do something positive with his life, or he's decided that it's futile and is going to kill himself. (For me, the latter interpretation is suggested by him standing on the chair -- whenever I read about a character standing on a chair, it always makes me think he's going to throw a rope over a beam and off himself. That may be a very personal reaction, I dunno.) So if that's the ambiguity you were going for, you achieved it.
ReplyDeleteIf, on the other hand, you weren't trying to achieve that ambiguity, and you wanted the reader left with a positive feeling about Tom's future, you might want to give us a few more hints about the plan he's hatching. An interesting twist could be, earlier in the story, he could be thinking of the life of a garbage man, and how it pays well, and there's fresh air, and you get to ride on a big truck ... and then, at the end of the story, he starts cleaning up and throwing the pot away and stuff, and without having to say anything, you could make the reader feel that he'd made the decision to move toward his dream of being a garbage man.
I mean, not like you have to do that specifically. Just an idea of how you might tie the beginning and the ending together. If you worked on it some more, I have some short-short markets you could submit it to. Let me know if you're interested.
M