The World As We Know It

Chapter 8: Seeing Through

Art Credit: question.my.art on instagram

A sigh escaped from Yelena's lips as she thumbed through a stack of papers; a ten-paged monstrosity filled with blocks of print front to back. She had to annotate the entire thing by tomorrow morning; which would have been fine by her, if it wasn't such a tedious task.

It was an easy enough job to be done by another employee, preferably someone with lesser work than she had; like Bianca's newest assistant, who had currently had an employed running streak of fifty-two days.

But beside Yelena, Bianca didn't trust anyone with classified information, even if her assistant was to be around her side for most of the day. Call it paranoia, but it was just a matter of protecting their company; as technology was the new booming business, having everybody and their mother coming out with models of telephones and computers.

Yelena had already made it through the first page, her messy handwriting filling up the margins with brief notes; the blue ink of her pen circling and underlining any portions of sentences she found interesting or noteworthy.

But as she flipped to the second page, Yelena found herself stalling, looking up to the clock in her office instead. She much rather be running the books and doing her usual math and budgeting, as dissecting pieces of text like this wasn't at all her forte; understanding numbers and their simple meanings, better than she ever could with words.

It was quarter past twelve; well into her lunch break, which didn't require her to be working on this now. Most people spent their day eagerly awaiting their break, but Yelena often chose to work through hers; only occasionally leaving the office for a coffee or sandwich, as she wasn't a big lunch person in general.

She could get more work done for the company when she persisted right through; so even if Yelena wasn't fond of what she was doing at the moment, she still forced herself to continue on.

Bringing her pen to her mouth, Yelena squinted down at rows of endless words; the font so tiny and jammed-packed, that it was practically blurry. She was only page through, and already deep into a headache.

Despite the painful strain on her eyes, Yelena had forced herself to read; trying to absorb all of the information at once so she did have to re-read for a second time. Subconsciously, the cap of her pen had found its way into Yelena mouth; teeth digging into the plastic, mangling the cap even further.

It was a bad habit she did without realizing it. Right now, if Yelena were to look to the front left of her desk, right where her stationary was located; she would find that most of her pens were covered in chew marks.

Not the most sanitary thing to do, but it wasn't like Yelena invited people into her office often.

Consumed with her work, another few minutes of her lunch break had passed; eventually pulling the pen from in between her teeth to scribble down some more notes, only for it to find its way back into her mouth.

With her train of thought noted and taken care of, it was back to reading; though this time she wouldn't be able fully to do so without being distracted.

The clear door and adjacent glass wall was her insight to the rest of the office; her way to keep an overall eye on everything without stepping foot out of own her private office. Her mind could usually block out the commotion; how employees swept up and down the cubicles, going from one place to another.

But something had caught her attention from her peripheral vision; how someone was heading towards her office, which was nowhere near the breakroom or printer amenities.

An angry noise came out the back of her throat as Yelena pushed her stack of papers aside, hoping that she wouldn't have to waste her time heckling an employee over potential raised wages or promotions. If they weren't already on her radar, it wasn't happening.