Sunday Escape: belated More Joy
It is bitterly cold here in the subtropics, and, well... I've felt a bit guilty about doing a Richard III drabble as a response to heron_pose's More Joy request for a ficlet about escape.
So please accept this as a belated More Joy effort. A beleaguered administrative assistant has to work on a Sunday afternoon, except... well, maybe we can find a little magic.
"Sunday Escape."
Brenna Cortez, both hands wrapped around a rapidly cooling coffee mug, thought with some bitterness that she had discovered the only thing worse than having to come into the office on a Sunday afternoon.
Having to come into the office on a Sunday afternoon, when the heat was turned off.
It was old-bones cold here in the executive suite, here at the edge of dusk. Even the computer - now displaying the last spreadsheet of the ten she had to prepare before eight am tomorrow, which had been dumped on her desk at 4:58 pm on Friday, thanks, boss - wasn't giving off any warmth.
Appropriate for the frosty Ms Mitcheson's office, Brenna thought, and took another sip of Americano, hard-roasted, shitty. (Ms Mitcheson kept the good Keurig locked away in a cabinet in her office. It was too good for the plebs, Ms Mitcheson said. Ms Mitcheson was a real prize.)
Sighing, Brenna bent her head and fixed her attention on the last ROI figures she had to input. But a shiver took her, then another, then another....
“I've got to get warm,” she said. Her words fell heavy in the cold and silence. She swallowed, then said without meaning to, “I've got to get out of here.”
These words echoed playfully, like good sunlight from a better day slanting into her prison.
You've got to get out of here. That was what the temp had said Friday, right after Ms Mitcheson had dumped the job on Brenna's desk and then breezed out of the office on those immaculate Jimmy Choos, her Prada coat floating behind her like a flag of better-than-you.
The temp....Brenna frowned unseeing at the numbers on her screen. The temp had been an odd one - an older woman, white hair, strange folds in her face, her fingers laden with silver ring upon silver ring. She'd been very pleasant, and she'd answered the phones professionally enough, but Brenna had caught her drumming her fingers on the desk whenever Ms Mitcheson's voice came through on speaker. The drumming had sounded mildly aggressive at first. By the end of the day, it had been weirdly peremptory.
You've got to get out of here. This is not a good place.
Brenna found herself looking at the receptionist's desk where the temp had sat. (What had been her name? Something like Mrs Nuy. No - Nuit, that was it.) On the desk still gleamed the little china cat Mrs Nuit had brought with her. The cat was grey, shiny, with one paw frozen in the act of reaching for something unseen.
And on the receptionist's chair was a grey coat. It was soft, plush, a long graceful fall of cashmere to the floor.
Another shiver took Brenna. “Surely,” she said, “surely Mrs Nuit wouldn't mind if I borrowed it.”
No echo, good or bad, as if the words had disappeared into the coat.
Brenna stood. For a second she thought the china cat's eyes gleamed, but then it was just this office, this old-bones cold and dead office. The coat was right there.
Without hesitating she went to the receptionist's desk and lifted the coat free. It was warm to the touch even before she put it on, and it smelled of -
It smelled like she imagined the old cottage garden did in the photograph she used as her computer wallpaper on her private laptop. Good earth, long-cultivated flowers, a sweet hint of citrus blooms: Brenna had never been to a place like that, but oh, she wanted to, she wanted to.
You've got to get out of here.
Put it on.
Without hesitating, she did. And the world grew warm, the dead office walls became stone, the rich blue sky of an evening without clouds blew over acoustic tile and fluorescent buzz. At her feet were long-cultivated flowers, a profusion of whites and blues and pinks -
“Shall we?” said the china cat, real now. It didn't wait for an answer but leapt down from the desk and wound itself - no, himself, it was a boy - around her ankles.
“Shall we what?” Brenna said, even as she stood taller, caught the folds of the coat in her fist, pulled it tight over her heart.
“Go home,” said the cat, and from somewhere on the other side of the flowers, Mrs Nuit said, “Come home.”
Brenna looked at the only thing left of the office - her desk, with cold computer hum, cold coffee, spreadsheets all but done.
“You know, I think I will,” Brenna said, and stepped into a better place.
..........
May you be just where you need to be today!
So please accept this as a belated More Joy effort. A beleaguered administrative assistant has to work on a Sunday afternoon, except... well, maybe we can find a little magic.
"Sunday Escape."
Brenna Cortez, both hands wrapped around a rapidly cooling coffee mug, thought with some bitterness that she had discovered the only thing worse than having to come into the office on a Sunday afternoon.
Having to come into the office on a Sunday afternoon, when the heat was turned off.
It was old-bones cold here in the executive suite, here at the edge of dusk. Even the computer - now displaying the last spreadsheet of the ten she had to prepare before eight am tomorrow, which had been dumped on her desk at 4:58 pm on Friday, thanks, boss - wasn't giving off any warmth.
Appropriate for the frosty Ms Mitcheson's office, Brenna thought, and took another sip of Americano, hard-roasted, shitty. (Ms Mitcheson kept the good Keurig locked away in a cabinet in her office. It was too good for the plebs, Ms Mitcheson said. Ms Mitcheson was a real prize.)
Sighing, Brenna bent her head and fixed her attention on the last ROI figures she had to input. But a shiver took her, then another, then another....
“I've got to get warm,” she said. Her words fell heavy in the cold and silence. She swallowed, then said without meaning to, “I've got to get out of here.”
These words echoed playfully, like good sunlight from a better day slanting into her prison.
You've got to get out of here. That was what the temp had said Friday, right after Ms Mitcheson had dumped the job on Brenna's desk and then breezed out of the office on those immaculate Jimmy Choos, her Prada coat floating behind her like a flag of better-than-you.
The temp....Brenna frowned unseeing at the numbers on her screen. The temp had been an odd one - an older woman, white hair, strange folds in her face, her fingers laden with silver ring upon silver ring. She'd been very pleasant, and she'd answered the phones professionally enough, but Brenna had caught her drumming her fingers on the desk whenever Ms Mitcheson's voice came through on speaker. The drumming had sounded mildly aggressive at first. By the end of the day, it had been weirdly peremptory.
You've got to get out of here. This is not a good place.
Brenna found herself looking at the receptionist's desk where the temp had sat. (What had been her name? Something like Mrs Nuy. No - Nuit, that was it.) On the desk still gleamed the little china cat Mrs Nuit had brought with her. The cat was grey, shiny, with one paw frozen in the act of reaching for something unseen.
And on the receptionist's chair was a grey coat. It was soft, plush, a long graceful fall of cashmere to the floor.
Another shiver took Brenna. “Surely,” she said, “surely Mrs Nuit wouldn't mind if I borrowed it.”
No echo, good or bad, as if the words had disappeared into the coat.
Brenna stood. For a second she thought the china cat's eyes gleamed, but then it was just this office, this old-bones cold and dead office. The coat was right there.
Without hesitating she went to the receptionist's desk and lifted the coat free. It was warm to the touch even before she put it on, and it smelled of -
It smelled like she imagined the old cottage garden did in the photograph she used as her computer wallpaper on her private laptop. Good earth, long-cultivated flowers, a sweet hint of citrus blooms: Brenna had never been to a place like that, but oh, she wanted to, she wanted to.
You've got to get out of here.
Put it on.
Without hesitating, she did. And the world grew warm, the dead office walls became stone, the rich blue sky of an evening without clouds blew over acoustic tile and fluorescent buzz. At her feet were long-cultivated flowers, a profusion of whites and blues and pinks -
“Shall we?” said the china cat, real now. It didn't wait for an answer but leapt down from the desk and wound itself - no, himself, it was a boy - around her ankles.
“Shall we what?” Brenna said, even as she stood taller, caught the folds of the coat in her fist, pulled it tight over her heart.
“Go home,” said the cat, and from somewhere on the other side of the flowers, Mrs Nuit said, “Come home.”
Brenna looked at the only thing left of the office - her desk, with cold computer hum, cold coffee, spreadsheets all but done.
“You know, I think I will,” Brenna said, and stepped into a better place.
..........
May you be just where you need to be today!