Alright! So this is chapter 2, and the end to what I have on my old USB. That means that I need suggestions or demands or random plot points.

So far I’ve had:

“Put my name in it”

“Make fun of Kevin Costner”

and “Give someone a rash”.

Feel free to make it as mundane or dramatic as you like, or else I’ll crack out the zombies.

Jessica was not a manly man. You might call her a manly woman: and you might be able to see out of your left eye again in a couple of days. She had red hair that was actually sandy blonde hair trying to be special and a habit of thinking aloud without realising it. Many a person has walked by Jessica only to get caught up in a conversation that she is entirely unaware of. At the time of this story she was recently dumped from a long, unfortunate relationship with a long, unfortunate man called Mark. Oh, and she’s a writer.

She spends far too much time working at the newspaper ‘The Rise’ and far too much time thinking about spending far too much time working at the newspaper ‘The Rise’.

It is at this newspaper’s main offices where we meet our heroine.

No, with an ‘e’.

‘No, no, no! It’s all wrong! I can’t breathe! It’s too cruel! Karma, karma, karma! Oh Lord deliver me! Buddha, I’m a big fan! Somebody make it better! Bloody hell, which way’s Mecca?’

‘Look, I’m sure it’s not that ba—’

‘Woman! Do not try to placate me. I am beyond consolation! There is nothing for me now!’

Lilly’s eyes had glazed over in a mildly horrifying way when she had received the news. The espresso machine was broken. So was the vending machine. There was no caffeine in the building and she had to explain to her boss why Tom Anderson, the newspaper’s top sports reporter was on probation. Apparently repeated inappropriate sexual advances in the workplace came second to the coverage of the impending cricket season.

Lilly Brennan was an interesting person, that is, if by interesting you mean moderately insane and entirely dependant on caffeine. It wasn’t that she was a caffeine junkie, per se, it was just that she had been a junkie of a different kind a long time ago (before she Got Clean and became Responsible [This phrase is to be said with the same kind of reverence as, ‘But that’s a MEN’S bathroom.’]). There is a certain type of person who easily becomes addicted to things like playing solitaire during work or drinking heavily. These people are generally regarded in society as ‘bad eggs’. This declaration is handed down from a great height gained by moral superiority and accompanied by a general lofty air. It was in Lilly’s nature to find addictive vices, so one day she simply found vices more acceptable to society. She didn’t drink, she ran. She didn’t gamble, she read her credit card statements. She didn’t smoke, she worked. She didn’t shoot up, she drank Diet Coke. People like to talk about ‘coping mechanisms’. Lilly’s machine had been found to be unacceptable to society. So she had broken it and forcibly changed it until it was a better fit, held together with tight self control. However, like all tinkered-with machines, one wrong tap and…

Jessica had watched, fearfully, as Lilly had produced a wrench from somewhere about her person and headed in the direction of the kitchen area of the floor, ranting crazily.

 ‘Just put the wrench down! Where did you get that anyway?’ inquired Jessica of her friend and colleague, Lilly, in a slightly disturbed and morbidly curious voice. After all, that kind of trick could be useful. Several scenarios in which that kind of trick could be useful came to mind, all involving James McAvoy and a tub of peanut butter.

Lilly’s threats of retribution were becoming quite poetic, if mildly homicidal, by the time Megan, a sweet, bloodthirsty intern came running down the hall, a small silver treasure in her hand.

‘The –pant– bloody –pant– art department –pant– sent this,’ she gasped out, choking on her own generosity.

Jessica didn’t even see Lilly’s hand move, just saw the Coke (no, the soft drink) appear in Lilly’s hand, open and fizzing.

Megan and Jessica stood amazed as the caffeine entered Lilly’s blood system. Her eyes un-glazed, her face un-slacked and she stopped looking so un-dead. She was positively chipper.

‘Sorry about that, darlings, must be off,’ she announced, alarmingly cheerfully, and swiftly slithered away.

There was a startled, contemplative silence.

‘So, this is one of those things we’re never going to talk about again, right?’

‘Oh yeah.’

The pair greeted various individuals and some people too, on the way back to their respective cubicles.

‘Hey Randy,’ Jessica greeted the man in the cubicle across from hers. 

Without taking his eyes off the papers he was craned over so studiously, Randy-self-explanatory-nickname replied ever so eloquently: ‘Uh huh sweetie, yeah.”

This response was confusing, coming from her normally upbeat friend. Jessica waited for a moment as his head twitched a little as the cogs fell into place, and he blinked heavily, turning to face her.

‘Sorry, sugar, I was just reading some papers HR sent over. How are you, honey?’ Randy queried chirpily, shaking off his earlier stiffness.

‘Pretty well, thanks,’ she responded, smiling at his sweet tone, still slightly concerned. He seemed preoccupied: maybe it was just her.

Randy was a feature articles writer alongside Jessica. He had been working at the paper for some 5 years before Jessica even applied, and was therefore, like all workers of a certain competency, painfully dissatisfied with almost everything. He was, though, a genuinely nice person, which made him a rare species within the journalism industry. A rare find, the fabled ‘good reporter’ is a person who, in a position as a journalist reports on ‘true things’ and writes astoundingly well written and beautifully constructed articles about these true things in an  ‘accurate’ and ‘unbiased’ way. This type of reporting is of course useless to all except people who actually read, so he was therefore continuously passed over for awards and promotions.

‘Did you get your mail yet, honey?’ Randy asked airily, as she swung her cardigan over the back of her chair and sat, throwing her handbag under her desk, where it clunked solidly and whimpered.

 She stared at it for a moment or two, but no other noises emerged. She shrugged it off and answered Randy over her shoulder.

‘Not yet; Megan’s grabbing it for me,’ she said and, reminded of the fact, she craned her neck back and glanced down the hall, where Megan was rapidly approaching. Unfortunately, she looked the wrong way down the hall. She started when Megan tapped her shoulder to get her attention, slamming her knee against the desk in the process. Her eyes looked to the heavens accusingly as she groaned the sound long, solid and aching. The sound was also loud which, as it so happens, is awkward in a large office. Around the room, many looked disturbed, amused and even occasionally jealous as the moan bounced from ear to ear. Megan looked pleased with herself, dropping the mail on Jessica’s desk.

On top of the short stack was a yellow note, instantly recognisable as a personal memo of doom from the HR representative for the floor, Ms. Samantha Crain.

Ms Samantha Crain was not a Miss, a Missus or a Ma’am. She was most stridently a Mizz. Notorious for her ‘succinct’ memos, Crain was in charge of, among other responsibilities, ensuring acceptable personal conduct from her staff, a duty she performed with relish. Each week, a memo was sent to the whole floor, detailing in precise terms exactly how the group as a whole failed at life that week.  Personal memos were a special treat. When a particular individual has misbehaved in some fashion, a yellow slip would appear in their mail, reminding them of their wrongdoing, and helpfully suggesting that they generally become a better person.

‘Yellow is a particularly offensive colour this early in the morning,’ Randy reflected, spinning to face her, smiling sweetly at Megan on his way around. ‘I have a sneaking suspicion she does it on purpose, to crush our souls.’

Jessica didn’t respond. She made no move to pick up the note: she just sat staring at it as it lay there, fluttering ominously. It wasn’t actually fluttering, to tell the truth. Stale office air isn’t really conducive to quality fluttering. It’s just in situations like this, one feels that paper should flutter and it should do so ominously. After a moment of this, her despicably short attention span won over and she plucked the memo from the stack the same way one opens that tub of something that has been in the fridge for 3 years.

Jessica read aloud: ‘Inappropriate language is not conducive to a happy working environment. Please try to improve–So, do you think she was born bitter, or is she just sexually unsatisfied?’

‘They’re mutually exclusive?’ Megan asked and through a smirk so large, there was a danger of permanent nerve damage, followed with: ‘Inappropriate language: do you think that’s because you yelled holy flying fuck in the foyer yesterday?’

‘No, I think it’s because you yelled holy flying fuck in the foyer yesterday and blamed it on me,’ Jessica replied, drily.

‘Oh yeah. Sorry. I’ll buy you a cupcake at lunch.’