2 - 2780 - A Seed Sprouts

2 " Day 2780 (A Seed Sprouts)

 

Day 2780; Stuart did not know this, having not undergone that particular ritual this morning, the computer had been unusually quick to start up, but it was day 2780. Winter was drawing to a close, the mornings were getting lighter and some of the small pleasures which he associated with that season were fading away; the grass no longer crunched beneath his feet, he walked on the tarmac instead. The clear mornings were gone too, replaced with a predictable grey. Work went on though, the same people, the same arguments, the same tasks. His life at home continued in much the same way, except it was slightly less tiresome. It was on this day that he would stumble upon a realisation- one that had probably been maturing for some time- that he hated his job: despised it.

 

He looked at the in-tray, and frowned, it was a relatively small pile for the day, however it wasn’t the size of the pile of forms facing him which coaxed out the frown, but the consistency, the relentless march. Every day they were there. He worked on a different section each day, today was divorces, hence the smaller pile. He wondered why the pile was so small, as everyone seemed to be getting divorced these days. His job would be to process the paperwork from the respective lawyers of the pension holder and their spouse and facilitate the transfer of the pension fund, or whatever part was to be sent, to the appropriate spouse. Eight years doing this job, and a good proportion of them spent on ‘divorces’ (he often mused whether that could have contributed to the fact that he had spent most of the last eight years single, but he also often mused that the initial musing was just him trying to shift the blame for what was essentially just a character defect). He hadn’t used to have that much trouble with the opposite sex, however he had rarely maintained a relationship for long and before too much time had passed he had exhausted the various social circles with regards to potential mates. He wasn’t too good with women whilst drunk, and flat out refused to use internet dating. He had been single now for three years, and not ‘Casanova single’ either, in fact single was probably not the right word; he had been lonely. 

Stuart picked up the first case of the day and opened the relevant files on his browser. It was 8.30am and he had done nothing productive in the last hour, mainly scouring the websites which his work PC was permitted to visit. He would make up the quota with ease, he had mastered the job years ago, but his “bare minimum” approach meant he had never excelled and never seen chance of promotion. One of his friends had jokingly called him the Bear, in reference to his approach. Stuart had thought the nickname funny, until his friend had been promoted, twice. After that he had tried to forget it, yet he maintained the approach, it was easy. He typed on, oblivious. Oblivious to the little seed which had fallen sometime in the past few years, fallen on fertile ground and slowly germinated, mobilising the endosperm, drumming up energy, for now, the big push, to finally break the surface.

 

It broke through that very day, sometime after lunch, Stuart was not aware at first but the shoot had emerged, hungry for sunlight and well supplied by the roots which reached down into the bitter reservoirs below. He had just finished his quota for the day, with an hour to spare, there were more files in his tray but in the spirit of the Bear- although he never consciously used that metaphor anymore- he decided to relax for the remaining .39 hours. He sat back on his chair and then he glimpsed it, the little green shoot of only five words “I hate my f*****g job”. “Hear you mate” the reply came from Gary on the next desk over, one of the closest things he had to a work mate and someone who seemed genuinely happy, which grew the shoot a little more and made him whisper his next comment under his breath, this was no workplace banter; this was a revelation. “I hate my f*****g life.” That was much quieter and prompted no response from his colleague. He spent the remainder of his work day thinking of reasons why, why he hated his life.

 

This had gone on for the next few days at work, and for the first time in countless years he had failed to fulfill his quota of cases completed. It had been noticed, yet being such a rare event, not even his supervisor had mentioned anything, yet. He had spent a lot of time staring into thin air, his mind elsewhere, yet despite the myriad reasons he could find for his misery, he found it hard to find even a single solution, a cure. The job it seemed was the big one, the job would have to go, then everything else would fall into place. Or would it? Would everything else fall into place, or would it just fall apart, further? He didn’t really have any other skills, and he definitely needed the income, his savings wouldn’t last five minutes in this climate, that’s if the bank hadn’t lost them already. With that in mind he decided to catch up on the deficiencies of this week. He cracked his neck, stretched his hands, took a handful of files from his in tray and put them in front of him, then got up to make a coffee. He would start shortly.

 

He had been working solidly for an hour, there were still 3 hours left in the week and he had almost cleared the backlog. He had slacked off a little and was now simply browsing one of the files, out of interest rather than for any work purpose, he often did it when he was bored. A Mr D. Harrington, turns 56 this year, Associate Fund Manager, whatever that was. His wife, or soon to be ex-wife had filed for divorce a few months earlier and the proceedings were in their closing stages. Most of the juicy documents never made it this far, a simple “irreconcilable differences” was often the only reason cited on the forms he received. However he got all of the ‘outcome papers’:  so who would get what, the property, the savings, the debts, and the pension. Judging by this guy’s annual pension he was something of a big shot, the salary was into seven figures, the lump sum he would receive and the annual salary thereafter was disgusting. It was more than Stuart had earned insofar, and even after the ex-wife had taken her cut. In fact upon closer inspection it looked like her cut was a very lean one indeed, barely enough to live off, then again a seven figure salary could buy a good lawyer, and more. His musing was interrupted by movement aside of him, Gary was leaving. Stuart always left earlier than Gary, always, and it was a sign that he had gotten too involved in this file, it was 4:20pm. He had accidentally worked late, he would get the extra hours to spend another time, but the traffic would be a killer. Not that it mattered, it was Friday and he had no plans, most of his mates had wives and kids or something better to do that go and drink down the Bulls Head. He got up slowly, and put the file away. Something caught his eye though, this Harrington fellow, his address was one of the big houses in Worsley, it was not far from where Stuart lived, Millionaire’s Row they had called it when he was younger. He wasn’t about to write the address down or anything, that would be absurd, and quite illegal; but he read it through enough times that it was in his memory, and he fleetingly thought that he might know where the street was. Curious he thought, as he walked out of the office, nodding his feigned goodbyes to colleagues, how curious it would be to actually see one of the cases, he wondered what this man was really like, whether he could be the resounding prick that he seemed to be on paper. A couple of ideas trotted around his head whilst he walked to the car, at least until he saw Jenny from transfers, and they were pushed aside as he struggled to catch her attention. They were pushed aside, for a while at least.