The Stick (by C Hazell)

I had been at work for three hours.

The engine was ticking over nicely.

Strip lights stripping their omnipresent glare onto all that is sentient and all inanimate beneath. Temperate stale air – revolved and recycled so no persons should ever need open a window. BBC News playing on the flat screen with the volume down low – providing a soothing background hum of world affairs. The frisson of technology in the air!

I, a now fairly well oiled cog in this machine dutifully perform my tasks with a quiet mind. It is better that way. To not think. To be at one with the machine. Shut the imagination down and silence desires – at least until home time anyway. Keeps one out of trouble.

...BLANK...BLANK...

...BLANK...

Then on this day, at this particular time I was asked for a stick.

The insulated bubble momentarily burst -

...BLANK...?

- A stick

Torn away from vacant contemplation my swivel chair stopped swivelling.

A stick?

[A crack of static]

A stick...I have not been rehearsed in this one. [Mouth goes dry as panic sets in]. Am not the best at thinking on my feet nor on my chair for that matter...

- A STICK?

[Autumn. A fire of leaves and sawn branches. The bite of the cold air complements the earth woody scent combusting in the amber glow. A stick to prod the fire. A stick to throw on the fire...a stick...]

[A machine somewhere bleets]

The cold air dissipates as I focus on to the enquiring face illuminated by strip lights.

A question mark lingers in the air, growing heavier with each millisecond... the cog is faltering and in danger of disturbing the equilibrium...

But! Suddenly a flash of comprehension!

A JOKE!

It is a joke! Strip light face is joking!

Word has got around about the occasional dirt underneath un-manicured fingernails! They can all see through the facade of vacant professionalism unto the feral unhinged individual underneath! There must be some sort of creepy crawly in the meeting room which needs to be banished with a stick and who better to ask than:

You are right!

I DO keep a stack on wood underneath my desk! You never know when you might need it. But also, between you and me

on the eve of company meetings when everyone has gone home I place all the sticks in the centre of the office take my clothes off and dance around an unlit fire shrieking loudly and leap from desk to desk and then roll around and rub myself against the synthetic carpet until all my hair stands on end...

I smile back knowingly – how wonderful to have pre-empted a joke about oneself! I am now in on it as well – the smelly hippy!

However, my self-satisfied smile encounters a slight change of expression beneath the strip lights. Soft focus enquiring has sharpened suddenly into hard lined questioning...

- A Memory Stick? Do you have a memory stick?

Oh...

Oh yes.

That kind of stick.

...BLANK...BLANK...

...BLANK...