Dreaming Overtime

Elena looked up at the clock. 10:00 PM, and she was still in the office. She sighed.

It was another long day of work, but for some reason or other, she still didn’t seem to get to the bottom of it. She looked at the paperwork stacked on her desk, then at the screen in front of her. Her email inbox was open, and it shone with a looming unread count and bright red notifications that all read “Urgent!”

She put the laptop cover down and crossed her arms over it. With another sigh, she laid her head on her arms and looked at the gray cubicle wall before her.

She had filled her little space with plenty of printed photos and magazine cutouts. Bright colors shone from images of places she had never been to but dreamed of visiting, dulled only by the dreary walls that surrounded her every day. Her eyes then fell on a selfie she took when she was at Nevada. She touched the Polaroid, remembering how she doodled the shadow of an imaginary lover by her side. She giggled.

A few moments later, there was a hurried footstep at the door. “Hey Elena, here’s your coffee!” A young man, carrying two cups of coffee from the nearby coffee shop, stepped inside the office. “They didn’t have brown sugar, so I grabbed…”

He tapered off as soon as he saw Elena lying with her head on her laptop, fast asleep. He smiled softly and turned away, carrying the coffee with him.

–

For StraightOuttaEurope.

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Image source: morningcoffeewithdee.com/create-vision-board/
First written February 12, 2018.
#133