Not Happening

Blech

Click-click-click, the typewriter’s tapping echoes off the stark white walls of my small cubicle, and rears its redundant head against my already sore one. This sound makes my temples pulse, and my eyes go red. It’s click-click-clicking over powers the ticking of the clock and it echoes in my skull, making my brain vibrate. A scruffy old man shuffles past my cubicle, with his cleaning utensils and, as he passes by he turns and gives me a sympathetic look. He feels sorry for me! The janitor feels sorry for me!

My thoughts raging with insults and my heart beat thumping in frustration I type harder. The clicking hits me, as if it were fighting back.  The squeaking of the janitor’s trolley fades, and the closing of a door on the far end of the room concludes the janitor’s day. Soon people begin bustling past me to the same door, to end their days at work too.  Expelling a sigh laced with weariness, and dripping with impatience, I continue to attack the dreaded typewriter.

Lost deep in my work, and my angry thoughts I almost don’t notice one of my coworkers coming up to my desk. I look up and smile at her. Her name is Anne, and she is a clerk here at the office. She tells me that a few of the workers here were getting together after work for drink, and asks if I could come. I tell her that as soon as I am done I will be there.  If I finish that is, I think quietly. As she walks away I sigh, and turn to the typewriter, ready to hack at it one last time.

Click-click-click, the typewriter fights back, the damned thing is laughing at me. I can feel it. I type and type, until my fingers are sore. An hour passes and, I stop typing then; the final click bestows a feeling of rejuvenation over me. I turn around in my chair to get something out of the filing cabinet, when I knock a few pens over. I bend over to pick it up, and when I look up she is there.

No, not Anne, this is Olga. My boss, my “anorexic” boss, who hides Twinkies in her top drawer. She glares down at me and lifts a pudgy hand to wave it around my cubicle “Where’s my paper work?!” She asks in a high-pitched voice that is screeching in my ear and clawing at my ear-drum. I plaster a sheepish smile over my face and explain that I am just about done. But she ignores me, leaning over the desk to hole punch a few papers she is holding. And then it isn’t just her screeching voice that violates and abused my senses anymore; it is her high-pitched-spoiled-brat voice, with the smell of sweat and oily food, not to mention the redundant sound that very effectively replaces the tapping of the type-writer.

The crunch-crunch-crunch of the hole puncher, penetrating the crisp papers, now stained with her oily skin, and littered left over crumbs. I’m going to kill her one day, I think to myself, if that gut she so proudly sticks out doesn’t first. Her ranting ends and she makes a sound that I’m sure she thought would sound dainty, but really sounded like a pig snorting mud, and walks off with a sway of her hips. Jiggle, I thought, with a jiggle of her… cellulite infested butt.

As she disappears into her office, probably to devour some more Twinkies,  I look up at the soft ticking of the large clock mounted on the far wall; I still have time to get home before… I let the excitement of an end to this long miserable day control me, and as I am taking out the frail carbon paper it ripped in half. Right across the centre, as if to mock me you can’t get away that easy… It’s laughing at me I think again, I can feel it.

Author's Note

Let me kow what you think

Reviews

[Dannie]

That crazy woman!
It was almost like I was in the story.
I was almost out!
D:

[Fuzzy_Poluzah]

...interesting write.....very funny...and random....yeah!

[Victoria]

This was very humorous. Great job

[Dutch Jr.]

This is quite a comical write. Human and machine... lol

[Corvus]

I love the man vs typewriter humor you've included in this piece. The way the narrator thinks and feels is very well described. You show his emotions clearly, and the sarcasm of the "typewriter's laughing" is interesting. Altogether, I love it.