Grace Notes @ Snarkattack

This is some microfiction done in about 20 minutes in a local writers’ workshop I attend every Friday. This is only the second workshop class we’ve had and seeing as I had so much fun writing it, I thought meh, why not put it up on my blog for (at least, thankfully because they are so faithful!) friends and stuff to read.

This one is called ‘Chain’. We had a bunch of topics we could choose to write about and that was what I chose. There are supposed to be all sorts of different ‘chains’ in play in the story. Perhaps you can tell me if I was successful in getting that across or not? I edited it ever so slightly.

My life is not my own.

I wake up at seven in the morning, have breakfast, pack my briefcase and catch the train into work. Just another person stuck in one of many office jobs. I greet my secretary warmly to try and make the day more pleasant. It’s important to show your subordinates that they are valued.

My manager doesn’t feel quite the same way. Each day at eleven, he plonks a massive stack of client and account files on my desk and says “These need to be updated by the end of the day.” More entries for the database. More statistics for the shareholders. I need to get this done lest I create a chink in the chain.

By about three in the afternoon, I can relax as most of the files are processed. Like the workhorse I am, I dutifully place all the files in my manager’s ‘Done’ tray. There is little variation in the chain of events at the office - only when the boss is away on conferences or external meetings and such. I like to loosen the reins at these times as I’m usually put in charge. We still all function like a seamless unit - it makes me proud.

I leave at six in the evening and stop by the sushi bar by my train station to dine before returning home to the loneliness that is my personal life. They have a bottle of sake with my name on it so that I may drink from it each time I dine here. It is finally ten at night when I arrive home. I bathe before retiring, and dream of wonderful things as I sleep, before the next day arrives when I must again resume the existence that has thus enchained me.