I've never had a proper co-worker cause I've only ever been paid for work twice and that was when I babysat lol
is this how the workplace works
Every day, at work or at home, it's the little things that really get to you. Whether good or bad, those tiny niggling tasks or happenings have the ability to either made or break a day for you: especially in the early hours.
Pin had been employed at the block for six years. Here the little things reigned as kings. Nothing big and interesting ever happened where she sat on a daily basis updating figures and occasionally designing a few new features for the ever-expanding universe of the company website, nor did it at home, where she lived alone with her two senior kitties. Feed them in the mornings. Drive to work. Occasionally maybe she would cycle or take the underground when fuel got too expensive to afford, which was often. Clock in. Work. Clock out. Get a coffee. Go home. Feed the cats again. Watch TV. Sleep. Repeat.
She didn't bother finding new interests. This constant drab cycle of events always screamed at her to demand it remained unbroken and unchallenged, with the little things breaking out in mutinies every now and then to be crushed easily underfoot. But it was those micro-events that made her life worth living. Funny, how she could skip a meal and still survive off the little things.
Leafy had been working there only a month. Still full of the pride of her first job straight out of university, she was bright and sparkling; full of ambition. Pin had seen these people come and go. Some of them stayed and became carbon shells of their original selves, others had left in search of other pursuits. Pin had once been one of these fresh faces that decayed over time. By now she was certain that their life and spirit was being drained to power the corporation along.
Leafy, however, seemed different. Her life centred around joy and happiness, particularly that of others, and her smile seemed to conjure others like it across the whole block. Every time she entered a room, it shone a little bit brighter than before, and when she left, the offices would still smell of lemon zest and rose petals for the rest of the day. Everybody had become that slight bit lighter in their day to day lives, maybe even stopping off in spring to smell the blossoms, or gaze in childish wonder at a beetle or bee. Pure and wise wonder worked within the walls of the office block.
Pin wasn't friends with Leafy. She didn't think she wanted to be.
Leafy was the sort of person whose good humour had a tendency to spoil, and perhaps if she got to know her better, she would find her rotten on the inside. Either that, or she'd trap her in her gorgeous web of love forever after, drunk on the Prozac of life's simple pleasures. That outlook, fun as it may have seemed, was not conducive to good work.
This morning, money was scant. Pin had just come in a cloak of earl grey and rainclouds to dock at the bicycle sheds, and removed her black and white helmet, when she appeared behind her a few seconds later on her rose-gold bike.
"Hey Pin! How are you this morning?"
The sunny voice cut through the weather like butter, parting the clouds into shine. A few strong rays punched through the brewing storm and sparkled all around the bike shelter, illuminating the droplets suspended in mid air by spider silk. The gilded leaves and late- blooming flowers glittered with the fire of a supernova. Pin was jealous.
"Oh, good morning." she answered professionally, straightening out her blouse and unloading her work satchel from where it was strapped above the back wheel.
"Isn't it wonderful? I love it when the weather is like this. It's bad, but with the promise of better things to come."
The young girl, for that's who she really seemed to be inside, threw her bike into the stands ecstatically, and looked up to shield her eyes against the peeping sun through the peppering of shade beneath the beech tree.
"You just gotta find something tall enough to stand on so you can reach out and touch it."
She smiled widely, almost as if she was checking whether her words had had any exterior effect on Pin. They hadn't. She didn't seem to notice.
"Anyway, it was nice talking to you!"
With a flash of her thin, green cardigan, she was gone. The odour of spring that she left behind was overpowering, and the uncharacteristic warmth in the air and inside Pin's chest almost made her want to be sick. Yet she couldn't help but grin as she slung her bag over her shoulder and twirled her lanyard around one finger, walking out to the front of the building.
The next day was the same, and the one after that, and the one after that. Money got better, but Pin didn't drive to work anymore. In fact, her car stood in the driveway for months, stationary, gently rusting at the corners. Pin pedalled a little harder every morning, shouting in shock and joy every time the wheel of her bike carelessly struck a puddle, sending water flying everywhere. Leafy always came by just after her, and a mirror image of her smile was always there to meet her.
Both of them arrived early, and were always late for work.
Pin found Leafy more rotten on the outside than she was on the inside. Her centre was pure, and her heart golden, unlike what she had originally thought. Pin found herself caring a whole lot more. Her niece, obsessed completely by collecting little plastic animals, visited twice during the period in which she knew Leafy; the first time she had only exchanged cold, corporate conversation with her sister whilst the child arranged her toys on the wooden floor, but the second Pin had get interested in what her small relative had to tell her about them. The two people played on the floor for hours, and had the most fun either of them had had in years. The deep, playful spirit that Pin had forced herself to lock away as she grew up began to return, as Leafy drew it out with each passing day, coaxing it to frolic once again in the endless meadows of the mind.
Today was no different. Pin mounted her bike, patting the satchel to make sure it was secure, and pushing herself forwards into the warm breeze. Monday was her favourite day of the week. Working was no longer a chore: it was a joy, knowing that Leafy would be there to talk to her at the bike sheds and the beginning and end of each day. She propelled herself quicker. Darting through traffic jams and down the stoop of the hill, the block was in sight. She grinned. She'd missed her only true friend over the weekend. She should invite her out for coffee together sometime.
The bike sheds were dry. Autumn had folded into Winter, which had collapsed into Spring and then in turn to Summer. It was a desiccated month, and all the plants were parched and wilted from lack of rain. Pin wheeled her bike into the stand and sat back against the wall, out of breath from her rush to get here. She glanced at her watch, just as it ticked to the next hour. 8 am. She should be here within the next five minutes.
The sun was dull. The leaves were covered over with dust kicked up by cars pulling into the gravelled park.
Five past eight.
Ten past.
Quarter past.
Very nervous, Pin stayed. The sun rose in the sky, hazy, then suddenly blinding, almost as if mocking the fact that Leafy had not yet arrived. The realist within her urged her to go to work, but she was already late, and the shivering remnants of her childhood self begged her to stay. After all, she might still arrive.
9 am.
Still no sign of Leafy.
"Not everything is like a fairy tale." she muttered to herself. "Things will always go wrong. Nothing is perfect."
Leafy had never been late before. Pin's eyes began to slip shut.
5 pm.
Pin had a slow, guilty and dejected ride home through the rush hour traffic. Fumes fogged her lungs and her vision as she pushed herself gently through the gritty air of reality, slogging uphill into the darkness. She crawled through her front door at gone seven. Her cats were hungry. She fed them both twice their normal amount.
The TV droned on about the depressing facts of life, the deaths, the terrorism, the mistakes, people suffering and crying...
A bomb had gone off nearby, apparently. Nine people had died. She furrowed her brow in sympathy as the news reporter gave them the story live from the scene of the crime. He seemed distressed, despite his professional manner and persona. The wreckage of an old bank smouldered behind him, as police and rescue teams scurried frantically around like ants as if in a panic. A small flowery shape bloomed behind the news reporter, catching Pin's eye, as the report entered into the depressing scenes of the aftermath. A sick, depraved person planting a bomb. The explosion at 7 am. Video footage of it all caving in on the inside. And, most terrible of all, a huge chunk of rock and mortar, embedded in the pavement. The shot was from a certain angle, and below it you could see the twisted and mangled frame of a rose-gold bike.
The small instances in time. The ones you wish you could just pause to experience again and again, to love and to remember.
Time never seemed real when Pin visited the graveyard. It had an eerily peaceful atmosphere about it.
A ladybird bumbled over the gravestone that had been there for too long. A few pink roses trembled into the vase that always sat partially buried on her grave, preserving her, almost bringing back memories of her beautiful face.
Pin felt like, when she visited, Leafy visited too. She was there every time. Pin could only ever stay for a quarter of an hour or so and update the thin air about all the things that happened in her life. Her niece had grown up and was at university now, for example. It felt like they were still having their bike shed conversations, only this time somewhere different and more melancholy.
The leaves shone with the rays of sunlight, as the clouds burst open to illuminate Pin kneeling with her head bowed, and the shining gravestone that meant so much to her. She wondered whether Leafy would care that she came here so often, or whether she gave her flowers. She had had so many other friends who wept and wailed at the funeral. Yet, they never came. Pin smiled, as she remembered how excited Leafy was about everything in life. She would care.
After all, she was always about the little things.
Me writing a oneshot: points at Leafy alright, so I will kill you