Payday Solomen Holmes There’s nothing disappoints me more than payday. Staring at that excruciatingly low number long enough, so that I can maybe attain some sort of psychic powers to alter the figures. Just one digit, one single minute digit to help me attain something. Another month passes and my response stays the same. Just one digit. One minute figure would signify a whole paradigm change: I could get that new sofa; I could get my apartment renovated, new drapes, new trousers. The possibilities would be endless. But alas another month passes and there’s no luck in the psychic abilities department. Maybe I should consider asking for a raise. But of course I won’t, not even I could argue a point for myself which justifies such a cause. I earn a horrible wage, for a low paying job. I work horribly, so fair is fair. Another month passes and still no change. I’m slowly losing the will to live and swiftly turning to nihilism. I’ve been reading up a lot about psychics and ‘The Power of the Subconscious’. Apparently, you can read a person inside out just from their hands. You can identify tiny details about their personality just from the look in their eyes. Some claim that they can speak to the dead; that they can discover who they were in a past life. But there’s nothing about digits; just one little digit. The months continue to go by with each day of the calendar year mocking me. Mocking me with the way that the digits rise every day. Then reminding me at the end of the month when the number reverts to zero that payday has arrived. I’ve still attained no progression. I continue to think about asking for a raise but whilst still being ordinary I can’t possibly follow through with that. That fact echoes repeatedly around my head as another month passes me by. Still no supernatural powers, and no bloody digits. Absolutely nothing of note to report, as per usual other than this ongoing hindrance that keeps itching at my sanity. So as I stand at the photocopier minding my own business (as I’m the only one who really cares to mind it) I notice Peter waltzing down the corridor like it’s everybody’s business (as it’s really quite hard not to). “Steve, would you mind quickly copying these?” He holds out an ungodly amount of paperwork and I struggle to fend off a look of disgust. -‘Sure’, I say monotonous. He gives an assured one-sided grin, clicks with both fingers and points to me as if I’m The Man.
172
