Well, maybe it does not seem like much. But trying to do NaNiWriMo and having work drive me insane and having completely incompetent colleagues does not really seem to help.
I blew my top at one of my colleagues today who is supposed to be in charge of clinical scheduling. She constantly complains that she has way too much to do but still has the ability to leave work early. And take 5 day weekends. In an event today, we were booked to the gills and we had to slave our hearts out and she had the GALL to complain about how packed the schedule was. She did not need to be surprised. And yet, here she was yapping away at it. One of those things that got me a bit riled up.
I'm this close to marching into the back office and demanding a greatly raised salary or else I'm quitting. Yep. You heard me.
***
I'm a pretty big quitter in terms of a lot of things I do. Being introverted also gives me a good excuse to stop doing a lot of things.
Like quitting NaNoWriMo for example. I'm not sure if its the right time to do this. I would love to and I would be thrilled if I could keep up the word count. I know, I know, its all about priorities and if I set some time aside, I would be able to get the word counts up and through the roof. When I'm caught in the right mood, my fingers practically fly over the keys and I'm up and away. But at the moments, my ideas have stagnated way too often and I am often caught in the position in front of the laptop, my fingers dangling over the keys, typing out a few words or sentences and then having to erase everything because it does not make sense.
The thing about NaNoWriMo is all about writing first and editing later. Trouble is, I can't even write right now.
I'm trying to give it a go. And I'm trying to find a few minutes or hours that I can sit down, do some decent writing, get a few ideas down. I even contemplated writing in my notebook when I get the chance to do so but at the moment, life itself is getting in the way.
Anyway, here's Chapter 1. I'll be updating as the days go by.
DISAPPEAR by Poet
Chapter 1
On the 8th of June, 2046, at 6.30p.m., Stefan set down at his desk in a tiny office crowded with stacks of paper and assignments that he had yet to complete and wrote down for 2 hours and 41 minutes precisely how he would disappear in 60 days time.
He did not really think too seriously about disappearing prior to this day and time. He was always more of the laid-back sort who was more than happy to go with the flow and cruise along as he saw fit. Nothing he had ever done was out of the ordinary. He had a few good moments back in the day when he was younger but then again, youth always breeds foolishness and Lady Luck would now and again bless him in his stupidity. But he was older now. More seasoned. Worn out, as his friend fondly commented. He had to go. Where? He did not really know. But all he knew was that if the Grim Reaper had anything to do with it, to hell if he was going to go quietly. Tended to believe in the "live fast, die young" philosophy.
He sighed. Specks of grey ran through his hair and his face was lined with deep furrows. His hands trembled slightly as his fingers hovered over the keyboard. Brow creased as he bit his lip, wondering what he should write next.
After all, disappearing was tiring work. You had to make sure every single detail was covered. If not, there would be a whole lot of hell to deal with. And if you are dead, you cannot possibly do that job very well.
The twilight sun streamed in gently, arcing lower and lower as the dying rays ran over the sheet of paper now covered in a shaky cursive scrawl. His fingers ached from clenching onto the pen. He felt like he was back in secondary school, scribbling out another essay furiously while his classmates sat and watched him enviously as his English teacher stood in front of his desk and monotonously replied, "Now, now, Stefan. I've given you more than 10 minutes to finish your story so can you please hand in your paper already!"
"Yes, yes, Teacher." The ballpoint pen flew across the page, burning its lines in blue, slightly fading ink as he wrote the epilogue to another (top marks, he was sure) story. The pen snagged on an errant crease and breathed its last.
"Damn." He looked up.
Mrs Lau looked at him with one eyebrow raised, a palm extended under his nose, fingers beckoning for his exam answer sheet.
"Um...can I borrow your pen, Teacher?"
The class erupted into laughter.
And Mrs Lau tried to hide a smile as she handed over her pen and he finished off the last two sentences.
He turned on his desk lamp and the incandescent bulb gleamed to life. The sun had died behind the horizon of the two HDB flats in the distance and the echoes of children laughing and shrieking in the playground had faded away to choruses of mothers yelling to their kids to come into the house for dinner.
He got up slowly, rubbing his back that had become stiff from 2 hours of being physically fixed in one position. Trouble with growing old, he chided himself quietly. Once you get old, the body breaks down and then its just a waiting game until the mind breaks down as well.
No, he did not want to think of what would happen when that day arrived.
He leaned his pudgy frame against the window sill as he looked out 19 stories above the chaos of the city below. The long suffering wood bearing his weight groaned as if in agony and then quietened down as it cushioned his girth. He sighed.
A mildly chilly breeze whispered away, playfully tossing the muslin curtains in the air before dying on his cheeks. He rubbed his arms, cold from the lack of sunshine. Bothersome, he thought. The body starts feeling everything when it gets cold. Joints get creaky. I need to live in Cuba, thought Stefan. Where the sun is always hot and there's always a good cigar and a glass of ice cold rum to keep the sweat away.
Rumbling in his stomach reminded him that it was night time and that he had yet to eat. He wondered what else lay in his bare cupboards that he had forgotten about that he could eat cold.
"Hm."
Baked beans. Half a loaf of crusty bread, bordering on stale, may possibly be moldy. Fumbling in the dark shadows barely lit by the desk lamp on his study table, he failed to notice the open cupboard door above his head as he reached low on the bottom cabinet for a plate.
Head met the sharp wooden edge of the cupboard door. Pain flashed like lightning through his skull and he fell onto his back. The back of his head connected with the linoleum and the last thing he felt was crusty crumbs on the floor in the space between his neck and shirt collar and tomato sauce oozing out of the can of half opened baked beans onto his cold fingers. His vision receded to the edges of his memory.
His last thoughts?
Oh. Fuck.
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