REMEMBER?

A short story by Naomi Williams

- Naomi Williams

Water gushed from the tap, hit the basin and splashed upwards, speckling Petra's shirt.

She closed her eyes and silently roared the very worst words she could think of. She wasn't proud of it, but since learning she was being expelled from the job she'd given 30 good years to, her internal monologue was mainly made up of expletives.

"All ready?" Belle's smiling face appeared around the door of the ladies' room. Petra wasn't ready. She never would be. She nodded and dabbed at her shirt with a chemical-scented paper towel. "Just wanted to make sure you know where we're meeting," Belle singsonged, as if she was talking to a four-year-old, not an erstwhile senior social worker.

"Yep, on my way." She matched Belle's cheerful tone, despite her bubbling rage. Of course she knew where they were heading. She'd worked in that building since Belle was in nappies.

She gave her shirt one last rub, then followed Belle out into the corridor, struggling to keep up with the younger woman's brisk walk, feeling like a toddler being led by an overenthusiastic nursery school teacher.

"What's going on here?" Belle came to a stop behind a group of people huddled around a computer in the open plan space their colleagues used for hot-desking. Petra hated the phrase hot-desking. It was probably meant to sound dynamic, but it just made her think of seats warmed by someone else's bottom. And it smacked of impermanence.

Petra disliked impermanence. She liked routine and purpose. That's why losing her job, aged 57, was so distressing. She saw her future self floating around in the empty hours of the day, like a discarded party balloon, untethered from the usual list of tasks that couldn't wait.