Post for 9th November
She stumbled towards the bathroom shortly after her alarm clock had woken her from a night of nightmares, tossing about and lying awake, staring into the darkness with her mind racing. She was certain that she had slept, partly due to being able to remember some of the bad dreams - she hardly ever dreamed those kind of dreams while awake.
She tried showering cold to make it easier to wake up but could not stand the water for longer than one short moment and thus turned up the heat to her normal temperature.
“You look horrible,” Ruaridh informed her when she was preparing breakfast.
“Thanks, Rory, that is what I needed to hear,” she muttered. The creature blinked at her in surprise.
“Really?” he asked her. “I did not expect that.”
“Sarcasm, Ruaridh,” she told him. “You normally catch it - but rarely this early in the morning.”
“Sarcasm is a weird thing,” the little creature mused and jumped up onto the table. “Are you sure, the likes of me should eat ... fruit?”
“There are not exactly guide books and you did not come with a manual,” she retorted and poured herself a big mug of dark steaming liquid.
“More sarcasm?” Ruaridh asked and watched her carefully. “You did not catch much sleep, did you?”
Nia gave a grunt and sat down. She ignored that the little creature grumbled a little while nosing around in its bowl. Spoon full by spoon full she emptied her own bowl and then drank her tea in small sips.
“Anything I should put out for you?” she asked when she had finished.
“I am good,” he told her. “You just go to work. I will keep busy studying.”
Nia felt as if all the neighbours watched her walking down the stairs through the spy holes in their apartment doors. It was much more likely that none of them were home as most of them were like her single and worked for their living.
She hurried through the streets towards the building of the company she was working for. Like normally she let herself in through the back door by punching her personal identification code into the number lock next to the door. The door did the little beep meaning everything was fine and clicked open. She entered and took care that the door closed completely, before walking on. She dropped her jacket and bag off at her locker and then went looking for her direct superior.
“Morning, Miss Pryce,” the middle aged woman greeted her. “You look as if you had had a bad night. Anything I should know?”
“Good morning, Mrs. Mostyn,” Nia replied and smiled a little sheepish. “It is that easy to see that I did not manage much sleep?”
Her boss chuckled and shrugged.
“I have had enough employees for a sufficiently long time to be able to spot something like that - in my sleep,” she replied and winked. “I repeat: anything I should know?”
“Actually: yes,” Nia confessed and shuffled her feet. “You had suggested that I should take my year’s days off and I guess it would be better.
“You see, the guy who thinks that he is my boyfriend made a pretty ugly scene yesterday evening and I guess it would be better for me to leave town for a while until he cools off.
“That is also why I would ask you, if I could just do background work today. I would do anything: telephone duty, storage clean up, sorting paper work - whatever needs doing.”
The older woman looked at Nia over the rims of her reading glasses.
“The whole two weeks?” she asked after a long pause. Now Nia shrugged and finally nodded.
“If possible,” she answered.
“There is not much going on, so why not?” the woman said. “I will advice the whole crew to say you are not here, if the big oaf shows up.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Mostyn,” Nia said relieved and gave an embarrassed laugh. “I had never considered that I would need a favour like this.”
... to be continued
Copyright by M. Huchzermeyer 2013