Creative Non-Fiction - Three-Hour Incarceration

So this week is a study of form and language when talking about an activity or job which has a routine and which (probably) is tedious/boring/soul-crushing (this applied to me after a few months at it....) I worked for an antique company which is, in itself, pretty interesting but when your role is primarily data entry it does start to dull over time.

9.30am (or thereabouts – you never leave the house exactly on time) you stand and knock…several times, on the flaky lion door-knocker, to be admitted into the cosy establishment which houses your cell.

9.35, you sit in the dank little office, lit by one, sometimes two, of the three lightbulbs in the fixture overhead, the familiar smell of musty books mingling with cat litter and whatever is cooking in the kitchen down the hall. The first item is in your hand from the pile of magazines, books, postcards, beer mats, theatre programmes, comics, clippings, or newspapers sitting beside you. You and your voluminous warden. The jolly bespectacled grandfather anyone would feel comfortable around, but with a face that after several months you’d be happy to never see again.

With time, and diminishing errors, his visits become less frequent, leaving you alone to your own hopefully productive devices.

9.50, the piles just don’t seem to get any smaller, especially when you’re dealing with wafer-thin beer mats and scores of 3-page pamphlets, the life history of which must undergo your scrutiny and documentation on the screen of a decrepit blinking box to convert it into cash.

9.55, this one probably never saw the light of a pub interior so it’ll sell for two quid…

9.57 …this one is identical but with a sloppy ring mark right in the middle, knocking fifty pence off…

10.10 …this play features a prominent celebrity at the start of their acting career so, of course, it’ll sell for more than a printed copy of some local school rendition of Bugsy Malone – until you spot a stain five pages deep where someone had been careless with their popcorn. There goes another fifty pence.

10.20. There’s a fly. In here. Somewhere. It buzzes so close to your ear as if on purpose. As if it knows you’re already watching the neon digits in despair (it hasn’t even been an hour yet?) and that the last thing you want is to spend another two hours feeling your already chilly skin crawl (why can’t he just turn the heating up a fraction?) You flinch with every fly-by until it goes silent. A momentary relief.

10.30 brings another relief in a standard issue mug with the same cheerful cat pattern on it, but without biscuits because you’re ‘on a diet’.

11.00, you somehow make it to the halfway point – without needing to use the toilet either (although saying that now might be a good time). You feel your efforts deserve a reward, so you dedicate a little more than the required time to the next colour-filled superhero comic until…

11.30 …one becomes several and you suddenly realise that that pile isn’t getting any smaller, but time is getting on and you only have one hour left.

11.50, okay, you just about save yourself (not that he’d notice when those comics seem to go on for weeks!) You finish the icy dregs of your tea, tensing when a faint buzz sounds from behind the curtain in front of the desk.

Beyond the window, you see people going by: driving, walking (with or without a dog), jogging. Today is December so it’s pretty cold outside, which makes you wonder at the dedication of some people…and the stubbornness of others (is it too much to ask to bring the temperature a little closer to twenty?)

12.10, you secretly thank your stars this job isn’t all typing or your fingers would have atrophied from being glued to the keys and mouse for so long. The same can’t be said for your eyes which have been losing focus every fifteen seconds, staring back and forth between page and screen trying to correctly spell the twenty-letter title of a German book.

12.20, it’s watching the clock time. You can almost hear the chains sliding loose and hurry to get extra done to lighten the load tomorrow (knowing full well there’d always be more even if you did finish early).

12.23. The fly’s back. Come to wish you goodbye - until tomorrow.

12.25, you debate taking a toilet break so you can stop now (it’ll be a half hour wait otherwise)

12.28. You wait too long. Perfectionism can be a bitch when there are so many things to consider with a magazine of sewing patterns.

12.32, you put on your scarf, coat, hat, gloves, bag, and wait for your release to be effected. With a full bladder, empty stomach, and a dying mp3 battery, you hurry on your way homeward.