I have really been enjoying these fiction challenges with Ron, and he’s chucked us another doozy this week! Check it out here.

Prompt for Challenge #9

FIRST OF ALL: Please remember, this is NOT a race. Take your time. Friday is only a part of the title, not a deadline.

Ticks and tocks of essential time, sink the spirits lower than wine.

1. Include the above sentence somewhere in your work of fiction. (Required.)
2. Keep your word count at no more than 500 words this week. (Suggested.) Do NOT let your story suffer because of the word count limit. Remember, it is a suggested part of the prompt.

So here is my attempt… Any feedback is welcomed 🙂

Waiting…

I looked up at the clock. It was 3.23pm.

Two hours and seven minutes left until freedom.

But I still had to suffer those one hundred and twenty-seven minutes.

I glanced around and saw my colleagues, all looking very industrious, eyes trained to the screens, fingers tapping away at the keyboard, whispering into their headset microphones, responding to the voices being transmitted into their ears by the earphones.

But I had definitely had enough. This really wasn’t for me.

I knew what I really wanted to do, and this most definitely wasn’t it.

I shouldn’t really be sat here, apologising for the mistakes of others. It was nothing to do with me, what that stupid company had done to so many of their customers, yet I was sat here, alongside a team of around 20 others, fielding calls from irate customers, cooing false apologies and making unrealistic promises.

3.46pm. Only a few moments had passed, I had spoken to yet another disappointed customer, and I had parroted the standard response as we had been instructed to do.

But this job was a means to an end. I needed to work to pay my rent. My other ‘job’ hadn’t quite taken off as I had hoped, yet, but it would. Of that I was sure.

Not long until I could sign out of here, and wave goodbye, forever, to this place.

Maybe tonight would be the night I’d be discovered. I had another gig at the local club, a half hour set as a warm up act for the main event. I couldn’t wait to grip that microphone in my hand and belt out a few classic songs. That half an hour is never long enough…

It’s true you know, that saying, time flies when you’re having fun. But it sure as heck drags when you aren’t.

I remember reading somewhere ‘Ticks and tocks of essential time, sink the spirits lower than wine.’

I think now, I finally understood what it meant.

My phone buzzed again, and I sighed as I connected the call. “Good afternoon. You’re through to Coldpoint, how may I assist you?”

The clock said 3.52pm…

Ritu 2016

It was hard to get that sentence into anything, but I have to say my recent experiences with a certain multinational company were a little added inspiration for this piece too!

(You can read about that here, here, here and today’s update here!)