E-assignment 1

It seemed like any other morning, really. The cacophonic racket of the alarm, a drizzly grey dawn outside the window, and Danny in the bed, rolling over, trying to pretend reality wasn’t happening. But, of course, it was. Eventually he managed to drag himself upright, and groaned like a zombie when he saw that it was ten past seven already. Great. Late again.

Like any other morning he opted to forgo breakfast, focusing on getting dressed and brushing his teeth before running to the bus stop. He caught the bus with about two seconds to spare, but found it to be packed (as usual), and had to spend the long journey into the city standing next to a dumpy woman who smelled like old cheese.

Danny stared out through the window, at the grey clouds, grey buildings, and the long line of grey cars the bus was trundling past. After a while all the greyness blurred together, and he returned to the dream he’d been having before the alarm went off. It had been a good one. He’d been driving an orange convertible, an insanely fast one, like a Lamborghini or a Koenigsegg. The road was twisting along a beautiful, possibly Mediterranean coastline, bathed in the light of a golden sunset. And there’d been some simply gorgeous bird in the passenger seat, although now he couldn’t really remember what she’d looked like. That was the kind of life he’d expected to be living at 25, not this rubbish, dreary pile of utter misery –

The bus jolted, and Danny realised with a start that he’d missed his stop. Fan-fucking-tastic. He got off at the next one, and jogged through the heavy rain towards the office. He walked into the lobby out of breath, fifteen minutes late, and completely soaked. His boss, Mrs Wilman, saw him come in, but as usual she didn’t say anything. She just pursed her thin, dark lips, raised a razor-sharp eyebrow, and that was that. She’d make her move at the end of the day, giving Danny some dreadfully dull and above all slow job to sort out before he went home. And since he’d been late he wouldn’t get paid for the overtime either, even if he wound up staying at the office until nine or ten in the evening. Such was her way.

Danny headed for the coffee machine, trying to put the inevitable future out of mind, but then a memory from the recent past popped up. His wallet. It had been on the kitchen counter, and it was still there, because he hadn’t grabbed it on the way out. He groaned. Here he was, facing what could be a ten hour workday, on an empty stomach, with no means of buying breakfast, lunch, or even a tiny paper cup of what the machine pretended was coffee.

"Out of order?" came a voice from behind him, and Danny turned around.

"Hey, Mitch. No, it’s working, it’s just… Can I borrow a tenner? Or a fiver? I left my wallet at home, and I haven’t had any breakfast. I’ll give it back tomorrow, I promise."

He knew it was hopeless when Mitch raised the blond, male equivalent of Mrs Wilman’s Eyebrow of Death. Bloody smug Mitch with his Hollywood looks, six-figure salary, and pointless Range Rover that had never been outside the city or carried anything heavier than his supermodel wife’s chihuahua! He was precisely everything Danny wasn’t, and Danny resented him for it. When had he ever had to struggle for anything? When had he every been stuck with a rotten job, knowing that he was capable of so much more, if only he ever got the chance to show it?

"Never mind, I’ll get – I’ll ask someone else." Danny mumbled, and slunk away to the relative safety of his cubicle. Yeah, right. Like he could ask anyone else. Pretty much everyone at Initech saw him as the company’s resident oddball loner, and the ones that didn’t… He owed Luke twenty quid since last month, and Mari-Lou, the receptionist he’d been dating, and thought about one day proposing to, had left the week before. To sail around the Caribbean with her newfound girlfriend, who apparently was The Love of Her Life. C’est la vie, bitch. Ignoring the beginning rumbles of his stomach, Danny settled down, and started working.

As five o’clock drew near he was dizzy with hunger. He’d been drinking loads of water, but that meant he’d had to visit the loo every five minutes or so, which had earned him another disapproving look from Mrs Wilman. The numbers on the computer screen flickered and blurred like a horizon in a heat wave, and as he did the last few sums he knew he couldn’t do any more that day. He looked at the clock: four forty-two. Mrs Wilman was a punctual creature – if she had extra work for someone to do, she always handed it to the sorry screw at 4:45 PM, sharp. And sure enough, he could hear the click-click of her lethal heels as she approached.

He couldn’t think clearly. All he knew was that he couldn’t do any more sums that day, which meant he’d be stuck in the office till long after the last bus had left, and since he didn’t have his wallet with him, he couldn’t take a cab home. So he’d have to walk, which would take four hours, and the rain wasn’t showing any signs of letting up and moving on.

He couldn’t do it. The ominous clicking of the heels was all he could hear, and suddenly his mind was filled with a dread much stronger than anything he’d ever felt before. What if this is it? What if the whole point of my existence is to do meaningless sums for Initech, day in and day out, until I’m laid off, or retired with a pension that’s just enough to feed, say, a squirrel? It’s not going to change, is it? Nothing’s going to change for the better, unless I change it myself.

He stood up. Mrs Wilman had reached his cubicle, she was speaking to him, but he could only see her lips moving. He couldn’t hear anything except the rush of blood in his ears. He walked right past her, and when he felt her sharp fingers clutching at his arm he started to run. Through the cube farm, through the corridor, past the canteen, into the lobby. He was flying now. Through the front doors, into the pouring, cleansing rain. Some semi-subconscious part of him knew that he wouldn’t have a job to go to in the morning, but it didn’t matter. He was free! He could do whatever he wanted to, and if he found a job he really liked, he was going to get it!

He laughed as he ran, feeling so light-headed and invincible that he figured he’d better run along the bus route a bit before he got on, or he’d just explode with joy. This was it! A miniscule shuffle for mankind, a bloody great leap for the man! Who’d have thought that something so simple could be so hard, and that something so hard could be so simple? If he’d known how good it’d feel he would’ve left Initech many years a–

The world changes alignment, tilting sideways. He is flying, but not because he’s running, or because he’s leapt. His legs are going in a direction he never intended them to, looking all floppy, and then his face hits tarmac. Everything goes dark.

Wet. He’s all wet. Well, he’s been running in the rain, he should be wet. He’s lying down. Why? He’s not lying on anything soft, he’s lying on – tarmac? Now that’s a silly thing to do, isn’t it? He tries to sit up, but something pushes him back down. Someone. He opens his eyes. Well, one of them. The left one seems to be stuck, or covered, or something. There’s someone – who is that? – a girl. A pretty girl. I know her, he thinks. She’s crying. Why? She’s holding him down, holding him still, and she’s leaning on – orange. Very orange. With something black near the bottom. No, not black. Grey. Clear-coated carbon fibre. Car. Insanely fast car. He remembers.

"You…"

"Please, just lie still, the ambulance is on its way."

"I dreamt about you."

"What?"

"Last night. It was you, and me, in this… Lambo?"

"Koenigsegg."

"Yeah, that. We were driving on the Riviera, or – or someplace like that. Was nice."

"I’ll take you to the Riviera, okay? I promise, as soon as you’re out of the hospital, we can drive around the entire Mediterranean, if you want to."

"I’d like that. It’s what life is all about, you know. Enjoying it. I’ve just started."

His legs are coming online, bringing damage reports in little packages of pain. Then in bigger packages of pain. His head doesn’t feel right, either. He can hear sirens, but they’re light years away. He’s shaking all over, and the pain is increasing rapidly, but still he feels all right. He’s left the job he hated, he’s met the girl of his dreams (literally), and together they’re going to the Riviera in that awesome car. Really, apart from the whole needing medical attention bit, could life be any better? He takes a deep breath, relaxes, and smiles up at the girl when she starts to fret.

"What’s your name?"

"Elise."

"I’m Daniel. Nice to meet you, Elise."

"Oh, the same to you, I just wish the circumstances had been a bit different."

"Don’t worry, I’ll be fine."

"Promise?"

"I promise."

And the world was dark once more.

w00t!

Hokai, so this blog is a place for me to post the works done for the Crative Writing course at Karlstad University, here in the sommer of 2010*. I'll be updating it with short stories and other assignments as I go along, although before I do, there is one thing I should point out:

I don't have an internet at home, so the only time I have access to the web right now is when the university library is open, and I'm not staring at some naked person in my drawing class. So basically, I've got about 1 - 2 hours of internet on the weekdays, and none whatsoever on the weekends. Hooray. Just so you know.

And now I've got to run, 'cause the lunch is over, and it's back to the drawing board. Literally.



*Although it's not impossible that I'll keep posting bits o' fiction afterwards as well. We'll see.