One and a half arm-lengths

Writing prompt: "Write a story about a character who wakes up in space"

“…what the f**k?”

What lovely words to start your day with. Plain simple, straight-forward, really sets the tone for the rest of one’s morning.

Well, Vera didn’t know if this was morning, not really. There was a lovely starry sky. Just kind of all around her. This was not good. Vera had a presentation to give at 5. Her boss would be livid. And she didn’t suppose that she’d get some sort of doctor’s note to get out of the presentation. No, that was silly. She definitely wouldn’t get a, what, spontaneous-space-travel-note? Spontaneous-involuntary-space-travel-note? Absolutely not. She should just call her boss and say she got lady problems. That usually made him too uncomfortable to ask any more questions.

Vera saw her phone floating in front of her, just an arm-length away. She reached for it and corrected herself. One and a half arm-lengths. She tried swimming-motions, violently flailing her arms around and some sort of worm-like wiggling, but the goddamned phone didn’t come any closer.

Oh, whatever, she wanted to quit her job anyway. Her boss still didn’t know her name (no, Verena was not the same as Vera) and tried hiding it by calling her disgusting nicknames (she was one “sweetheart” away from vandalizing his “world’s best boss” mug.).

Maybe she could just stay here? Not that her attempts at floating in any direction amounted to anything. Would she still have to pay her rent? Probably. She couldn’t reach her phone to tell her landlady that she had moved out. Well, had been moved out. Somehow.

Oh god, how was she going to pay her taxes? She once forgot to pay 1 cent of taxes on her 2-cent interest on the deposits from her bank. The finance police had broken down her door. Twice. She only had one door. She still didn’t know how that worked out.
But she supposed that if she couldn’t move, they couldn’t get to her either? She wouldn’t put it past them to launch a year-long space mission to claim her money, though. At least no one would bother her about her car’s extended warranty here, hopefully. She didn’t have a car. Never did. But these people wouldn’t stop sending her sketchy emails and phoning her at the worst times. Like that one time, when the elevator in her apartment broke (again) and she had to carry a newly purchased philodendron up 6 flights of stairs (also again, weirdly enough).

Her poor houseplants. She completely forgot about them! Who would water Walter, her trusty cactus? Or Minnie the monstera? Or Gunther, her… what kind of plant was Gunther even? She was a terrible, no, the worst plant-mom in the world. Thank god she didn’t have a cat… But who would feed her neighbour’s dog, Toffee, when he went on one of his summer holidays? It would crush her if Gretchen, the vile old woman that lived down the hall, got that job. Gretchen didn’t even like dogs! No, she could absolutely not let that happen.

This train of thought induced a new attempt of a worm-wiggle-arm-flailing-crossover. But the phone was still an inconvenient one and a half arm-lengths away and Vera was frustrated. She crossed her arms.

She had worked hard on that presentation! What a waste to not hold it after she spent two hours researching how to put citations into PowerPoint slides. Not that her boss cared about any of that, but she liked to be thorough. What if someone used the unfinished version of her presentation that she left on her USB-stick? There weren’t any sources cited in there! And her name was on the cover… Oh good god, she would get sued for plagiarism. And for theft of intellectual property! And for using pictures off of Google without checking if they were creative commons! Or would all of that be only one charge? She couldn’t live with three charges, really couldn’t. Four if she counted the tax fraud she would inadvertently commit if she didn’t get back home in time for tax season. Or her rent…

The oven. Had Vera turned off the oven before her trip? The entire house would burn down, and she would be charged not only for tax fraud, plagiarism and theft of intellectual property, but also arson. No, now she was pretty sure that it was the same thing. Not arson and plagiarism, of course, just plagiarism and theft of intellectual property.

…but someone must have been the first person to commit arson, right? Would she have to pay that person’s family for the use of their invention? Anyway, she had to call her neighbour and tell him to get Toffee out of the house.

The phone was now one and three quarters of an arm-length away.

She hated stupid space. And these stupid stars and the stupid zero-gravity void that forced her to try stupid swimming-motions to get to her stupid phone once again.

But suddenly, an idea popped into Vera’s head. One and three quarters of an arm-length were just about one leg-length, right? Finally, four years of incredibly inconsistent yoga classes would pay off. She stretched her leg toward the phone, kicked it toward her with her foot and triumphantly caught it in her left hand. That would probably be more impressive if she was right-handed, though.

The signal in space was not great, but good enough to send four messages.
To her boss: “Hi Matt. I can’t do the presentation today, I encountered some… lady problems. Don’t use my USB-stick, it will self-destruct and blow up the whole desk. See you.” Best to play it safe.

To her landlady: “Dear Mrs Blake, please excuse any delay in this month’s rent payment. Though it is just the 5th, I might not be able to flag down a ride back home until then. Warm regards, Vera.” Mrs Blake was not one to cause a scene. She would be okay. Hopefully.

To her neighbour: “Hi, get Toffee out of the apartment as fast as you can. Thanks!” And after a minute of consideration: “PS: Tell me when you need me to watch her on your holiday!”

And finally, to Gretchen: “Now listen up, you old prune: If you think you can take my job as Toffee’s dog-sitter, you have another thing coming. I do not believe your schtick of offering the entire hall cookies every week and watering our communal lawn in the summer for one f*****g second. I know exactly what you are. Warm regards (hoping they warm up your cold, almost-dead heart), your worst nightmare.” Vera smiled to herself. Yeah, that would do it.

Now all that was left to do was to wait for either the police to pick her up or for a non-government-issued ride she could hitch. Stupid space.

Author's Note

Hi! thank you for reading my story :)
English is not my first language & I'm pretty new to writing, so any constructive criticism would be very much appreciated <3

Reviews

[Franky]

First off, I love it! It was creatively funny, and easy to follow. I'm impressed. You're not boring that's for sure.