Jarrod
Jarrod’s typing had slowed to Neil-like pedantry. His
blood vessels had lost the will to pump, and his muscles were resisting every
urge to provide the necessary pressure to depress the keys they rested sleepily
upon. On the screen before him, the word count read ‘14’, a word for each
minute he had been sat at his seat that morning, as Monday’s malaise struck
harder than ever before.
His eyes returned to the ceiling above. There were still
only eight lights, which was a profound disappointment, for Jarrod, as the even
nature of the number prevented there being a middle light that he could
identify and focus on. The windows opposite offered slight comfort, as the
third across from the left could also be considered the third across from the
right. Middles were important and he was pleased that his work station was
almost directly in line with the middle window, nestled in between Neil and
Pam, whose slowness provided the perfect contrast to highlight his proficiency.
Not today, however. Not after Friday. Not now that she had tortured him with her
tantalising absence, leaving any potential future trip to reprographics in
ruins as the prospect of another day in this meaningless drudgery of a job bore
away at his inward being with merciless-
‘Jarrod? Jarrod, is that all you’ve done?’
It was Gavin. Or Gareth. He’d forgotten who was real. It
made little difference now, he supposed. He’d settle for ‘Gaveth’, the perfect
middle-ground.
‘Is that what you call a morning’s work?’ he persisted.
‘It’s 9.15.’
‘Exactly! You bet it is. And, if you want to make it in
this business, you’ll have a morning’s work done by 9 o’clock, let alone 9.15.
What exactly do you call that?’ He
was now pointing at the screen, his yellowed-fingers vibrating slightly, as if
this really did matter to him, as if this was actually important, life-saving
work. Few lives would be improved, let alone saved, if Jarrod’s typing hit
Pam’s 10 words a minute speed, whose eyes seemed permanently fixed on her
hovering fingers, searching for the right keys as if she were reading Braille,
scared to make the slip that would require a renewed hunt for the delete key.
Even his usual 40 words a minute did little to educate children or heal the
sick, although if he could somehow find a way in which they could then he would
surely be only minutes away from stardom.
‘I’ve had a slow start,’ he confessed, with a sigh,
wondering how he could now drop the words cigarette
or smoke into the conversation to
subtly compel Gaveth away from the increasingly irritating position he occupied
behind his back. Jarrod could feel his neck-hairs quiver, as Gaveth breathed
heavily and rapidly, slightly wheezing as he grew in anxiety at Jarrod’s
failure to crumble. ‘I’m just lacking a little puff,’ he lied, using the word puff for the first time ever in a
day-to-day conversation, ‘but, don’t worry, I’ll be smoking before you know it.’
‘Yeah? Well, just you make sure you are. We don’t take
kindly to slackers here,’ he responded, withdrawing his finger before sniffing
forcibly and hurriedly shuffling away, casting a disgusted glance in Neil’s
direction as he strode towards the door, the word ‘faster’ being mumbled
through agitated teeth. Both Neil and Pam fluttered their eye-lids nervously
and instantly returned to following every movement of their fingers with their
panicky eyes. Jarrod looked to the window ahead and smiled, whilst his lungs
took a generous gulp of fresh air-conditioned air.
If you want to make
it in this business. Gaveth’s words echoed through his mind. He wasn’t sure
he wanted to make it in any business,
and he certainly wasn’t sure what it meant to make it in this business. Had Gaveth made it? If so then he could
have it, whatever it was.
A whole weekend had passed but little had changed in
Jarrod’s response to Janine’s devastating absence. He had, of course,
considered every conceivable explanation for her delay, and eventual permanent
absence, throughout the evening, his fantasies becoming increasingly
less-favourable towards her as the minutes passed. Punctuality was important, a
sign that you were valued, and so with every passing second Jarrod’s sense of
self-worth faded like a wilting flower, Janine’s lateness sapping his energy
with naive brutality.
He cast his eyes back over his impeccable memory of the
slip of paper he had passed to her that Thursday, offering the crushing reassurance
that he certainly had provided every possible means of communication and had
taken particular care to maintain the highest degree of accuracy; he had made
no error, provided no opportunity for anything other than the perfect
fulfilment of his plans. The fault was purely hers, yet it was he who would
suffer.
He had tried to replay their conversation in his head,
this time observing himself at a distance – a handsome, well-dressed holder of
salmon-coloured paper – in a vain attempt to scrutinise the tone in which every
word was said, to identify a slight head-tilt or a pursed lip that originally
masked her intentions. Perhaps he could, in fact, find a justifiable excuse to
borrow the recording of the CCTV camera, just in case his memory had not quite captured
every detail. Surely the reprographics room had CCTV; there were so many
temptations that required the reproachful hand of recording equipment. He
could, perhaps, claim to have had something stolen that he inadvertently laid
on the desk the last time he was in there, insisting that every camera be
checked to catch the perpetrator. In fact, simply the prospect of using the
word perpetrator in daily
conversation made the idea highly appealing.
Without warning, the canteen was now out of bounds. There
would be no more bagel-moments, he would make sure of that, and, besides, the
improved weather had made the prospect of eating home-made sandwiches on the
park bench 50 yards from the office block more tantalising than before. He was
still unsure whether making his own sandwiches would ultimately work out
cheaper – it surely depended largely on the quality of the fillings – but
avoiding the inevitably awkward glances across the canteen at a slightly
flushed Janine would be a price worth paying.
He stared at the words before him. Any interest he had
previously faked in the data he was entering had now evaporated completely.
His fingers typed two words: I quit.
An exclamation mark found its way onto the screen,
replacing the less-dramatic full stop. Perhaps he could actually do it; just
leave it like that and walk out. It was a chapter ending if ever there was one.
Who would be the first to read his words? Would anyone take them seriously at
first? How would Neil and Pam react? He was bursting with questions.
He had never been keen on the word ‘quit’. It suggested
he was incapable of doing the job, that it had become too much for him. What
was the right word for suggesting that the job had become too little for him?
I advance. I
progress. I overcome.
Unfortunately, if he left any of these words on the
screen, Gaveth would probably still expect him to be back the next day,
expressing his relief that Jarrod’s therapy was clearly going so well. In
seeking a moment of triumph, he would be find himself being encouraged to join
Gaveth for a ‘quick one’, forced to listen through the smoke to the first
instalment of How I Overcame and Became
what I am Today, which roughly amounted to a string of profanities aimed
largely in the direction of a lady named Nicole who apparently didn’t take his
work seriously enough. He would be told to ‘keep a look out, Jarrod’, to ‘never
give in, Jarrod’, to ‘put yourself first, Jarrod’. Even Jarrod would grow sick
of his name, as Gaveth spat it through increasingly-yellowing teeth, like a father
passing on wisdom to his prodigal son. Unwittingly, he would have become
Gaveth’s protégé, the man he would train up to become the man he’d become, to
take on the reins one day, to be a leader and not a follower. It was some way
from the intention of the original ‘I quit’.
It was 9.20. Even preparing to quit seemed to take so
little time.
Jarrod typed another six words onto the screen, ensuring
he maintained his new lowest-ever record of one word a minute.
I am going for a
coffee.
---------
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