It Wants you!

One-minute life can be good, and the next we pass into history.

Death is a certainty, and life, just a valuable finite commodity, one which most of us take for granted, as just seconds from now, you dear reader, or I, could pass into history. None of us know, or even want to know, the precise time and date of our last moment. We just hope that our demise will be quick, painless and a good death.

As she shut the door behind her, a satisfied and almost smug smile spread across her face. It had been a good year in every way. She was happy with the life-changing decision she'd made nearly eighteen months before, and how things were now unfolding, and her possibilities were many.

The decision to go out on her own had been a good one, as she recognised that her career was going nowhere. Working for her old accountancy company, and staying loyal to them for so many years, had been a grave mistake. She was just an Indian and had realised that she would never become a chief, not with that company, anyway.

Carmel was a modern girl who wanted to embrace the future and help her clients so much more than her present company would allow her to do. She had spent and wasted eight years working for them.

Upon reflection, Carmel felt bitter at trading too much of her valuable time in return for too little financial remuneration, or advancement in her career. It was also clear that the partners didn't expect her to leave either, and so when she handed in her resignation, it came as a very inconvenient shock to them.

Carmel had had enough of the almost three-hour daily mind-numbing commute to and from work, and the associated cost, and every day the traffic got worse. Boredom was the catalyst which prompted her to draft her letter of resignation there and then.

Her decision became much more comfortable after calculating that her commute time amounted to approximately eighteen unpaid working weeks each year! WHAT!!!

Worst of all, she only had another thirty-six years of this to look forward to before retirement!

No, thank you, and she happily submitted her resignation. She quickly arrived at a fair price for her services and the minimum yearly sum she wanted to earn. At which point she realised if she could do only fill those eighteen weeks she presently spent commuting, this would almost double her present net income, without travelling. Resigning became a simple decision to make. All she had to do now was find the work.

She needn't have worried because as soon as word got out that she was now independent. Within just days, many of the companies who she advised and did the accounts for quickly sort her and her services out. 

Her old company didn't like it one bit, although they had never drafted a clause or agreement to avoid such problems. In their frustration, they threatened her with prosecution! For what? They were now ex-clients and had sought her out, not the other way around. She had acted with integrity, discretion and given four weeks' notice as stipulated by her contract and then taken her outstanding three-week annual holiday as most of this period.

Within weeks, she had more new clients than she needed, and the phone continued to ring with further enquiries. Business was good, so good in fact that she and her husband afforded the increased mortgage for their small dream house by the sea. 

She embraced most days with an early start. Carmel would be up before the lark and hard at work in her little spare bedroom office, well before the winter sun appeared in the sky. Because of her diligent work ethic, she had usually finished her working day by lunchtime or mid-afternoon at the latest, and today wasn't any different.