1201

Day 298083

I am tired. As usual. But I wake up from my small bed and walk to the bathroom. I try to avoid looking in the mirror, because I am reminded of what I am. I look human. But I don't feel human. I cup my hands under the steady stream of cold water from the tap, splashing my face with water. Hopefully that might cure my tiredness. 

I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, however, and glance back. My dark hair is curled around my face and sticking up at sharp angles. My green eyes stare back at me, and I can clearly see the horror of my experiences reflected darkly in them. Dark bags hang under my eyes as if they were trying to reach the floor and my skin is as pale as someone who never gets any Vitamin D. I am perfectly healthy. At least, by my low standards.
I walk out of the bathroom, trying to forget what I saw. Once again, I stumble towards my office and check my laptop. 6,859,272,913 emails. As usual. I sigh, because I have a good idea for once. Caffeine would fix this.
Boiling the kettle, I make myself my usual black with two sugars, and settle down into my comfortable desk chair that I tend to live in. I'm surprised I haven't melted into the seat by now. The fabric has faded to an ugly grey and so worn you can see the stuffing through the fabric weave. Not a pleasant look. My desk is crowded with papers needing to be approved and forms needing to be stamped. My laptop is atop several papers and around it, papers are piled high, almost to the ceiling. I'm surprised that the desk hasn't collapsed so far.
You could always trust Moore & Sons for good quality, durable furniture. They always made smooth, oak furniture, glued and nailed correctly by experienced craftsmen. Sadly, they went out of business 50 years ago. No one would buy wood after chipboard and plastic laminate was invented, but there was nothing better than good quality oak as a furniture piece. This desk is almost an antique. Almost. But it's probably one of their first attempts at building a desk. There are scratch marks all over it, and the drawers don't fit right. But maybe that's just me. It's been under so much strain for the past 82 years, I wouldn't be surprised if it collapsed there and then.
But it held sturdy as I placed yet another pile of papers beside the teetering stacks near my laptop. I placed my coffee upon another mound of paper and continued to sift through my more important emails. You could see various round stains exactly the same size as my mug on files, documents, papers and the remaining spaces of the table top. That was the annoying thing about oak; the stains stayed.
I stared at my laptop with bored and bloodshot eyes. I sipped cold coffee and slumped into my worn, faded chair. The emails were as boring as a Swedish conference I once went to with a droning old coot who wouldn't close his mouth for four hours straight. I fell asleep three times and the conference still hadn't finished. As I downed the last, remaining dregs of my coffee, I closed my laptop gently and turned to paperwork. And when I say my desk was piled high, I mean it. Stacks of paper brushed my plastered ceiling, whilst piles stood on chairs around the room. Sighing, I opened an uneven desk drawer and pulled out several ink stamps. Ink stamps rescued me in my time of need. I used to have to seal everything with wax, and that took several hours. I am so glad that ink stamps are permanent and take barely a second to use. When I say they rescued me, they saved me from the more immense and tedious work I had to do. I owed my life to my laptop, also. I could actually downsize my letter box, for once. My laptop was a true life-saver, but it never meant that I didn't get over 10,000 emails daily. Most from grieving loved ones hoping to come into contact with someone, anyone. But that was not my job. So, I had to ignore those emails, and the people I have taken with me are not to have any contact with the living. It is forbidden, since their new lives begin here, and how they got here does not matter.
I stamped a couple of papers and sat back in my oak chair. The paper piles seemed to loom over me like skyscrapers in an imposing, foreign city. But I have travelled the world over, and I don't think there are any foreign cities I haven't been to. Besides the city the dead have created. I am not allowed to go there. For obvious reasons, of course, I don't belong. My heart still beats, my lungs still breathe and my mind still wanders. I looked back at the forms and papers and contracts, and began stamping vigorously with intensified determination. I need to purchase a shredder.

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