Day 44 Writing Short Stories

Repeat

The lines between the office windows were melting into one. The light that got through the glass turned gray, dulling his skin. The numbers on his screen flashed and flashed. They had no meaning. He was to sort them again and again. He had been sorting them the day before and the day before that. If he had had access to books, he would have known it was something Dostoevsky proposed as the ultimate punishment, but he didn’t have access to books. No one had had in years, in decades. There had been the stories he had been watching as a child on the teleprompter, like all workers in the office had.

There was no world beyond the windows and his computer screen. They gave him money at the end of the day. He used it on things he was told to buy, not on rent or on food. Those were given by the government to equalize luck. Last night he bought a new sweater. It now sat in his closet with the others, seeing use on rare occasions or none at all.

The numbers flashed again. He circled the zeros in the lines. His hand knew what to do in automation. A message popped up in the lower corner, asking him to fill in the timetable for his supervisor. She wanted to know the exact time of his lunch break, the time of his visit to the toilet, and how long it took him to get back to his desk. He was to send an evaluation of his mental state, also to rate his mood and state the best thing that happened in his work. He always wrote down the newfound efficiency, and they added more numbers to his rotation every week.

He saw the manager every Wednesday during the remote staff meetings. He didn’t remember the last time he had seen the manager face-to-face. She lived in a different district entirely and was authorized to work remotely, unlike him. She had one of those bigger houses because of the burden of her responsibilities, and she got a bigger salary, too. A sneaking thought crept into his head, and he swallowed, pushing unwanted thoughts away as he had been taught. He ordered another sweater. This one had a funny text on it that he could use at the next sanctioned office team-building day. After completing the order, he answered the manager’s questionnaire.

—

I’m reading a book about Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber. It is wonderful. I’m in awe of how well he writes about the state of things and, from there, postulates what it means on a societal level. I highly recommend the book if you haven’t already read it. It even made me ask about fantasy bullshit jobs on r/Fantasy. Let’s see what kind of responses I will get.

The book inspired today’s prompt. No surprise there. I was lucky with what I got today: voice-driven, dystopian, rebirth, and third-person narrative. It all fit so well into the concept. Mind you, I wasn’t set to write today’s story. It was a happy accident.

Thank you for reading! Have a day of happy accidents ❤