3
"Yes, I'm on my way."
She wished she wasn't. As she started her car, she reflected on how things had changed since she had started her job. Work was now a chore for her, no longer enjoyable as it had once been. Everything seemed so banal and pointless, and her disenchantment with the position she was in was stamped clearly in her mind.
Her car, a dark, dirty shade of blue, swerved toward town as she left the apartment complex, and last night behind her. She drove onward, toward her unpredictable future, not entirely sure of where she was going.
Her drive was uneventful for the most part, until she had reached her destination. As she opened the door to her car, she narrowly missed a passing pedestrian. "Sorry, mister." The man didn’t respond, regarding her with a disgusted glance.
Muscles limp at her sides, they tensed, slamming the door shut with a loud thud that caused a few too many heads to turn. One was that of a patrolling police officer, and his eyes met hers for the briefest of all moments. Her vacant, tilted smile with a flash of white teeth caused him to look away.
An uncertain stride in her step, she moved forward, towards the building, soon to be consumed in its hugeness. She was a grain of sand at the beach, helpless and tiny, irrelevant. Another step towards the huge building, and her thoughts swirled. She didn't want to enter it any more than on any previous occurrence. The building was a tyrant, she thought to herself, hating it more each time she entered.
With a frozen expression of timeless enthusiasm on her face, she stood before the automatic doors, briefly waiting for them to open. It was already too long when she walked through the doors towards the closing elevator. The shiny doors taunted her, closing just as she saw them open.
Before long, the other elevator arrived and she stepped into it gingerly, trying to seem normal. Hitting the button for the twelfth floor, after the mechanical confirmation the elevator gave, she moved to the corner, crossing her arms and closing her eyes, her satchel bag wedged between her and the rear of the elevator.
The bell rang, and she lazily moved to the already closing doors. Emerging from the claustrophobic chamber that was the elevator, on this floor she recognized where she was. It was the right floor. The elevator hadn’t become sentient and whisked her off to another world, much to her dismay.
The billboard behind the administration area was brightly illuminated and read "Thompson Recordings" The secretary was well presented; talking in a friendly manner to who-ever was on the other end of the phone. The busy eyes of the black-haired woman behind the counter met hers.
She was startled. Behind her, she had heard a voice. "Hi Melanie!" Melanie did not bother to see who it was, knowing it was some guy in the PR department named Jack by the scratchy, upbeat voice. "Jack,” She acknowledged, as he shuffled past her and disappeared into an office.
The door clicked shut louder than it normally did.
"Melanie, Mr. Thompson wishes to see you in his office." In her mind, she thanked the secretary, but she was not yet quite lucid enough to acknowledge the woman behind the elaborate, carefully stained reception desk.
Melanie proceeded weave through various cubicles, all familiar to her, but like a labyrinth to the casual observer. She took care not to catch any of her clothes on the sharp, metal edges of the cubicles. She didn’t feel the same way about her limbs.
Melanie reached a door that in her mind had always seemed the door to another world, a portal to a higher level of sophistication and establishment than the rest of the office and studios. This was the Manager's Office; she thought to herself, with a smirk, barely concealed as the door opened, Mr. Thompson's personal secretary emerged, with a welcoming smile upon her face. "Melanie." She then turned away, her head disappearing into the office mumbling incomprehensible words into a wireless headset.
As Melanie stepped through the door, and the heavy, solid wooden door gently slammed shut behind her, Melanie knew that she was no longer in her world, but in Thompson's realm, a scary place even on the best of days. Today didn't seem to be one of them. "Please, sit down, we must talk."
"How are orders for my album looking?" Melanie spoke unselfishly about a selfish issue.
"That is why you are here." He smiled, a middle-aged man, face creased like the enjoyed pages of a classical novel. His hands interlocked on the table. "Both good news and bad news." He opened a folder containing a master CD. Melanie nodded, indicating that she understood. Thompson then continued in the same solid and confident voice: "You have made us aware on many occasions that you would be highly ecstatic should you be able to assist any talent younger than yourself."
Melanie was beginning to dislike what she was hearing. When would the guy just say it? She stopped thinking and just spoke: "Yes, I absolutely adore those younger than me – those aspiring young artists, there’s a lot of talent out there!" He smiled from behind the desk, knowing he had a loyal employee before him. "The orders for your debut album are looking quite good, and we have already ensured two local music stores three hundred copies each..." She no longer cared what he was saying. Cash registers whirred in her mind, as she frantically tried to figure out six hundred multiplied by twelve, the cut she received on each album sold.
Then there would be the local tours. Forty minute drives between venues, carrying her microphone and keyboard in tow.
Thompson's voice forced its way back into her mind, closing the empty cash registers before they were filled. "We have been forced to withdrawal these orders and..." The fireworks began in her mind. There was competition! She would surely make three times as much! He removed a cheque from the same folder as his voice, now pleasant music to her continued: "Your payment." He slid the cheque across the table face down. "That's all we can do for you, and I'm afraid you're going to have to find another studio."