A long silver chain hangs around her neck, holding a cougar pendant carved from oak, details burnt into the grain. #creatureday- She habitually wears the necklace, half for her alma mater, half for the idea of the beautiful solitary beast. #creatureday
- On Tuesday a head cold creeps up on her. Sinuses throbbing, she's ambushed by a performance review with her leering manager. #creatureday
- The review goes poorly. Her manager pounces on laziness that doesn’t exist, lashes out at failures he’s imagined. #creatureday
- The day ends hazily, her mind in a dejected fog. The next day she calls in sick, though it won’t look good after that review. #creatureday
- She downs shots of cough syrup, wedges herself in a stack of pillows on the couch, and conks out to the sound of daytime TV. #creatureday
- When she returns to work (three days out, dead to the world) her manager is absent. “He never came in on Thursday.” #creatureday
- A handful of women share glances of relief. A few days free of comment, at least. Maybe he'd be fired for his absence. #creatureday
- Gossip turns wild during the day--a horrid illness, a torrid affair, a secret identity. She updates spreadsheets. Goes home. #creatureday
- He'll be back soon enough—a thought which fills her with bile, even as a part of her refuses to believe it. #creatureday
- Back at home, she grabs blankets off her couch-turned-sickbed, and finds a layer of short golden hair clinging to her couch. #creatureday
- There are new gouges in her wood floor, in groups. Rusty flecks of something are spattered by the door, more down the hall. #creatureday
- Humming to herself, she vacuums her couch. Shifts a rug over the gouge, scrubs at the flecks on her walls until they fade. #creatureday
- The setting sun streaming in her window, the wood of the cougar pendant is redder than she's ever seen. #creatureday
- (the end) #creatureday
sick day
For #CreatureDay, May 29, 2014
by
amcorbin30 Views
amcorbin30 Views
