There has to be more to life . . .

Hello all.

Today is a miserable and grey Bank Holiday Monday. No such chance of going out for a walk with this weather. The only real amusement I've had today is that my mum and sister had to take part in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, and I was given the responsibility of pouring the water over their heads (sweet satisfaction for all those times I lost an arguement to them).

So as I felt the rain hitting me on the face, I thought it was about time to upload a new piece of my work.

I hope you enjoy this next piece, and as always, give me your views. I'd love to hear from you.


Title: There has to be more to life…

                Adam places his jacket on the back of his chair and drops his satchel off beside his table. He sits down quietly at his desk. It’s the same routine every single day, 5 days a week. A 9 to 5 office job, you know. The daily grind of filing this and copying that is tedious but this is just a slither of his day. Apart from the wage, he stays on because of the girl who sits opposite him; the most beautiful girl he has ever seen. He would say woman but he thinks it eludes to a forty something housewife with wrinkles and bright pink nail varnish. This is due to his lack of understanding of women; this he masks with false confidence.

                Neve is perfect in every way. Her big, brown eyes are like a deep reservoir; still and enchanting. Her carnation pink lips form like a crescent. How Adam longs to be able to brush those with his own and hold her close to his body.

                Society has told him he must be a man though. He must be macho and not leave himself vulnerable. Life has told him to withdraw his true emotions or face ridicule from other people. Adam constantly thinks about laying with Neve on the grass in a field, beneath a slowly darkening sky, as the thousands of stars push through the navy sheet of night and eventually glitter as far as they could possibly see. He wants to stroke her soft face with the back of his hand and tell her she is epitome of perfection. Instead, he feels pressure to boast about her physical features; the size of her breasts, the tightness of her ass just to gain his friends’ approval. He feels the institution wants him to talk about how best he could seduce her and make her toes curl. As much as Adam wants to be intimate, he also wants to make her laugh, hold her when she cries, tell her all of his thoughts so she knows everything about him. He has nothing to hide from her and wants to bare his inner most desires.

                She is wearing a white vest top which hugs her petit midriff. Her arms are covered by a knitted grey jumper. Along with her jeans, she sinks her feet into a pair of Ugg boots. She looks comfortable and warm and she drops herself into her chair. Another might not see her radiance beneath this unembellished outfit but it is clearly apparent to Adam.

                “Good morning,” she says to him. He stutters, she laughs at him. Her giggle makes him tingle; his hair raises on the back of his neck and arms. “Not talking to me today?” she adds, teasing him.

                “Sorry, good morning,” Adam replies. He mops his brow as he feels beads of sweat descend from the top of his head. She makes him so nervous. His eyes fall on a picture that is taped to his computer screen. It’s of a blonde woman, smiling with a flower; an orchid in her hairband. His fiancée, Sarah. A woman he loved once, but more as a best friend rather than a lover. His heart always belonged to Neve.

                Neve was also committed. She was married to some warehouse worker. They rarely talked about him but from what Adam knew, he seemed uninspiring. The type of guy who enjoyed always being ‘the social man’ rather than paying attention to his girlfriend.

                “Neve, can I ask you something?” Adam says, gazing at her pretty face.

                “Of course,” she says.

                Go on, ask her to go out tonight with you, he tells himself. She is looking at him with a raised eyebrow. The three other staff members on his hub are looking on, intrigued to see what he has to say, but none more so than Neve.

                “Did you process that invoice as Mark asked?” She nods but does not seem convinced by his question. She feels he has something else to tell her. As soon as she smiles and looks back at her screen, he sighs with dismay. Another chance wasted.

*

                Adam stands in the communal kitchen, waiting for his rice to cool. The beige painted walls and greasy kitchen tiles are far from stimulating his imagination. He stares unfocusedly into space. Just the colour of the wall, and that stain in the corner where somebody has spilled their soup; maybe their tea, is the only thing his mind can conjure up.

                “Whatcha doing?” comes the familiar voice behind him. As he spins around, Neve is standing beside him, ripping the lid from her carton of soup. He swallows hard. Adam smells her sweet perfume. It’s like a spell that has him feeling light headed. Her brown eyes fall on him, he looks deep into them and loses himself. They’re like an abyss of love; the deeper he goes, the more he yearns to have her forever.

                “Just making lunch.”

                “Anything good?” she enquires, punching in the time setting on the microwave.

                “Just some rice. Nothing exciting.”

                “My ex-husband used to eat rice like it was going out of fashion. I’m glad to be rid of him, tosser,” she explains. The warehouse worker took her for granted. He was now out of the picture.

                “Moron,” he says, trying to make her feel better.

                She gazes on at him as if trying to decipher his thoughts. Blinking, she does not. Breathing, she does not. She simply stands, still and quiet, and watches over him. The world seems to stop around them and only the gentle hum of the microwave and the growing smell of pea and ham soup have any reality at that moment.

                “You know what?” she speaks finally. Adam just holds his breath, waiting for the sentence he has always wanted to hear. What if, just what if, she says what he longs for her to say. More importantly, what would he say back to her? Would he reciprocate? Would he try to kiss her? All these thoughts are running through his mind as she removes her bowl from the microwave and turns back to face him. “There has to be more to life than Pea and Ham soup.”

                Without another word, she smiles at him, with her eyes relaxed and her lips pursed as she leaves the room clutching her bowl. He notices she has a distant look in her eyes; like she is somewhere else, far away.

*

                Adam places his coat on the back of his chair and drops his satchel off beside his table. He sits down quietly at his desk. It’s the same routine every single day, 5 days a week. A 9 to 5 office job, you know.

                He looks down at the heaps of paperwork on his desk. More reports to file; more sheets to sign off. His eyes are darker, his hair thinner and his finger nails worn. He strokes his overgrown stubble and pushes his paperwork to one side.

                Looking up at his computer screen, he can just see the adhesive mark from where the tape sat for a long time, holding up a picture. The picture is now long gone.

                Adam looks up, over to the desk opposite him. The chair is empty; just like his heart. The once occupied desk now sits desolate and untouched. The six months since it was last occupied seems like an eternity, and every day, 5 days a week, Adam has had to look at it. Every glance serves as a painful reminder of what he has lost. No-one else seems to notice, because to them, they have not lost something that meant everything to them. He never imagined that when Neve had made the statement about there being more to life, that she would leave him. He thought it would all work out differently.

                Every day, and not just the working week, but every day of the week, he has thought of Neve and where she is in the world. How he still longs to see her sit opposite him again. He can feel tears forming on his eyelids and the sensation of sadness, heavy on his chest.

                “Adam, what have you got for lunch today?” the colleague to his right asks. Her name is June. She is younger than him, with pallid skin and thick, dark brown hair. She wears a sweet perfume that reminds him of confectionary. She takes pride in her presentation. She sits and waits for his response, sipping her coffee from a custom made New York mug.

                Adam turns to her. He watches her for a few seconds and begins chuckling. This quickly fades but a smile of purpose remains etched on his face.

                “What’s funny?”

                “Just what I have for lunch today.”

                “Which is?” she asks.

                “Rice.”

                “What’s funny about that?” She always thought he was a little peculiar.

                “There has to be more to life than rice,” he says, with a distant look in his eyes.