Imaginary Smalltalk

He’s coming. Focus on your screen. Never waver. He’ll go past and talk to someone else as long as you look busy. Fuck. He’s slowing down. Quick! Type something. Anything, it doesn’t matter you just need to look…bollocks. Too late.

“Hey. How’s it going?”

I feel like my enthusiasm has been plundered, removed from its rightful home and stockpiled in a Swiss bank somewhere like a sack of Nazi gold. My ambition has been surgically removed without anaesthetic and my soul is currently hung up on a coat hook somewhere near the door. I’m tired, irritable, devoid of inspiration and yet all these things pale into insignificance in comparison to the enormous don’t-wanna-talk boulder I’m rolling between us in my mind right now. In fact, there’s a strong possibility that…

“Fine thanks. You?”

“Yeah. All good.”

If you look out of the windows on your left ladies and gentleman we’re coming up on the quaint seaside town of Uncomfortable Silence, the last inhabited area before we reach Thissis Torture On The Wold.

“You look fed up.”

Ah but did you notice that it’s only a recent state, possibly no more than the ten or fifteen agonised seconds we’ve been doing this pointless dance.

“No more than usual. Frustrated more than fed up.”

“Oh. That sucks. What’s frustrating you?”

“Everything. Anything. Something. The fact that my coffee mug has got a chip in it. The fact that I have fifty things to do but can’t get them into any logical sequence so that I can start to trim down the list. The fact that even if I could organise them, the minute I start to do something I’ll get interrupted. Not that it makes the slightest bit of difference because the only thing more tedious than not doing the tasks would be the actual doing of the tasks.”

“Sorry…I…”

Ah. You said that last bit out loud. External monologue. Oh well, better carry on with it now otherwise people might think you are weird.

“There’s nothing to be sorry about. It’s just the nature of the beast. I should be the one apologising to you for ruining your shoes.”

“My…shoes…?”

“Yes! Your shoes. Can’t you see the mess around me? I’ve reached frustration saturation and all the excess is now leaking out all over the floor, pooling itself around the empty soulless sack of my existence and now spreading over your shoes.”

“But…I…”

“Trust me. You’re paddling in the stuff. It’ll be up to your ankles before you can say holy-slippery-as-fuck-frustration-pool-Batman. And you may as well bin the shoes.”

“Look I’d better be…”

“Watch your step man! If you slip on that stuff health and safety will have a field day. The bastards might even fire me and then where would we be? I know it isn’t much but I really look forward to these moments of sheer futility that we share each day. Frankly I don’t know how I’d get through the morning without one of our little chats. You’re like the silver lining in my cloud. The impossible carrot in the puddle of my cider-based vomit. My beacon of wasted light guiding me from the rocks of productivity. My…wait…come back! Let’s do lunch!”

Now where was I…

 

Author’s note: This is in no way based on my daily life which is as rich and full as an affluent, portly badger after a particularly fine supper.