Helianthus Annuus

She dreamt fields of moonlit soaked sunflowers, and flaxen fireflies specking the horizon. The air, moist, the night, cool. She lied in the middle of the field and gazed at the stars. If only she could caress the sky.

Alas, she was chained to computers and paper. The fluorescent bulbs burned her eyes as the horrendous buzzing from an unknown entity riled her mind. Ink from the printer scented the air, along with stale carpet, sour cologne, unwashed co-worker a cubicle over, and most likely (though she didn’t know where it would be) wet dog.

Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

She sighs

The monitor, a mirror that reflected her miserable existence, taunted her with a blinking cursor. She clicked and shook the mouse around the pad several times in hopes of fixing the stubborn thing. Clickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclick.

It isn’t working.

Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz….

She got down on her knees, crawled under the desk behind her computer, unplugged the mouse chord, then plugged it back in.

That didn’t work either.

She stood to her feet, brushed off her little yellow skirt and looked around the cubicle with a wandering mind. Unlike her other co-workers, who had pictures of their family, finger paintings from their youngest children, snow globes from New York, and odd plastic trinkets lining their desks, her gray box was lined with pictures of sunflowers. Large posters, small stamps, sunflowers in space and sunflowers under the moon. There were no pictures of family tacked on the walls, not even a frame on the desk.

She stood there with glass eyes.

Go fucking kill yourself. Shove the cold barrel in your mouth, taste the oil and pull the trigger, pussy.

Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz….

She hurried out the cubicle

Down the hall, past the drinking cooler, past the bosses office, past the sour cologne, away from the fluorescent bulbs, stale carpet, the unforgiving monitor and blinking cursor, wet dog, the buzzing. She stood in the barren company kitchen of linoleum floors, tables, microwaves, and a refrigerator in the dusty corner keeping day old potato salad cold. The lights went off, the door was closed, she sat in the dark.

She dreamt moonlit soaked sunflowers and willow trees mourning in the breeze.