Hannah ~ The Letters

Letter for Tomorrow

Hannah pushed through the revolving doors to her office building. She walked past Bernadette the security guard with a good morning wave. At the elevators she pulled out the envelope addressed to Emmalia Darlington. Earlier that morning she had scribbled a brief letter to the peculiar author. Then appalled by her handwriting she re-wrote the same letter cleanly and legibly on good stationary bought on a whim ages ago.

Now standing in front of the elevator she felt somewhat embarrassed by her morning melt down. She looked at the first class stamp that was a fixed to the blue envelope. The elevator pinged announcing its opening. People behind shuffled closer to be the first one on the elevator. As the doors opened she stuffed the envelope in the mail slot and rushed in with the others just as the elevator doors closed. She rode up to the 11th floor packed like sardines.

Hannah’s sneakers squeaked a crossed the 11th floor tiles. She smiled her good morning to Annslie the front desk operator. Hannah swiped her key card to clock-in. Then maneuvered through the long hall till she reached her cubicle.

Setting her bag under the desk she kicked off her sneakers and turned on her computer. She slipped on her heels and checked her hair and make-up on the small mirror of her cork board.

The day rattled on with confused Bianca asking where the back-up files were for the Marker group. Hannah’s supervisor Shelly stopped by to give her an update about the re-order contract to Smithson & Felding Construction. She ran to a 11am meeting, and back at her desk for a late lunch.

In the afternoon Irina her cubicle mate leaned over the wall and tossed her some candy. Then informed her the spread sheet she updated were wrong and she needed to show the receipts for last month not this month.

Hannah nodded and opened last month’s data file. She scrolled to the end and found her errors and pulled down last month’s binders with all the customers’ purchase orders.

John stopped by and dropped off a packet of new purchase orders. Hannah thanked him and sighed as she leafed through the pile.

Bianca came back with Wendy in tow. The two aggressively discussed the correct procedure for entering a previously cancelled but now re-instated order. Hannah wanted to sigh as she listened to their voices grow louder.

When 6pm arrived she was still not done updating John’s new purchase orders into their filing system. Both Bianca and Wendy had drained all her energy. Irina already had her jacket under one arm and purse in hand.

"See you tomorrow girlie." She whispered.

"Bye." Hannah replied. Her stomach growled as she continued typing.

At 6:48 Hannah shut off her computer and turned off her desk light. There were still others in the office so she was not the last to go. But she had had enough for a Monday.

Hannah’s bed was warm this morning. She rolled over into her husbands back and pressed her cheek against his shirt. She knew his alarm was going to wake him up soon, but she wished they could just lay together and be sleepy lions.

Her alarm went off. She frowned. Then turned to look at her nightstand. She gasped realizing this was already her third back-up alarm.

"James!" She nudged him. "We’re late for work!"

"What? Oh shit…" He groaned sitting up. "I’m up, I’m up."

"I’m shower first!" She yelled as she stumbled out of bed and into the bathroom.

"Yup." She heard her husband say as he flopped back onto the bed.

It was 35minutes later when both Hannah and her husband were out the door. In his car James drove Hannah to the station as she sat in the passenger seat frantically scrolling through her blackberry. She could not pull up an recent emails.