“If he looks at me in that way again”, thought Vickie, “I’ll get the stapler and shut his eyes forever.”
Darren Pellet, the DM of World Office Supplies Inc., was a podgy faced, podgy bellied man in his early thirties who kept staring at Vickie’s breasts whenever he spoke to her. Spoke would be too much of a stretch for in reality, Darren Pellet patronised Vickie in every word he uttered.
She hated the job but as a newly graduated Fine Arts student, she hadn’t achieved success as quickly as her talent merited, or so she thought. So she was reduced to typing letters and to deal with the sweaty, asthmatic advances of Darren Pellet.
World Office Supplies Inc. was situated on a side street in Birmingham city centre, in between a lap dancing club and a Tesco Express. Despite its grand name, the company sold office supplies only to local businesses. In Vickie’s eyes, they sold cheap crap to businesses who sold cheap crap. She glanced at her watch. It would be lunchtime soon.
Vickie sat on the same bench at 1:10pm everyday from Monday to Friday. Even when it rained, she found solace in the little green area in the middle of concrete surroundings. It was neatly designed with neat flower beds and a prosaic arch stood at the entrance. That day was a Spring day but it was cool enough to keep most people away. It was busy enough for her to enjoy without feeling surrounded.
Vickie took a bite from her indifferent sandwich and chewed slowly. She looked at the young mums pushing their children in over-sized buggies. The children looked happy despite the worries on the faces of their mothers. An elderly couple sat on the bench opposite. They weren’t speaking to each other. They were comfortable just sitting together.
Vickie had a little sketch book in her bag which she took out. She began to draw the couple. She did it slowly, making sure her eyes didn’t look up too much so that they couldn’t know what she was doing. The pencil in her hand moved methodically and with precision. The couple’s features were soon on the paper in her lap. When she finished, she carefully tore the sketch from her book, walked over to the couple and gave it to the woman. The woman was surprised but a smile soon came to her face when she saw what it was. Vickie walked out of the park and turned left. Her office was on the right. She wasn’t going back.
This work by Leonardo Morgado is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
