Short stories and poems

Fine, be like that.

"It's hard to stay kind when he acts like that — but I know I can keep going if God is on my side."

A moment of silence was all that was need to provoke the hitching of his breath and the realisation to drop and bleed like watercolour paint on a blank canvas, causing the personages occupying the room to bear witness to the almost immediate change in the man's demeanour — with the slip of his arrogant smirk and the grinding of ivory bones for teeth together.

The gleam in his eyes had dispersed like silken mist, and his mahogany-hued eyes widened with fear, the reflection of the others sitting around bearing expressions of growing confusion shifting restlessly within the pools of their own. Even the jovial and mocking curves of their liquorice lips that tasted of bitter coffee, were beginning to melt into a hesitant dryness. Furrowing of eyebrows all around as orbs honed in on the normally cheerful man who was inclining his body forwards in his desk chair, his neck bent further and dark tresses of hair slipping out of place, limp but quietly swaying inches before his face, casting shadows that came close to concealing those fearful eyes focused on the tiled floor beneath the soles of his shoes.

His means of propping his upper body up with elbows jammed and indenting the material cladding his thighs, didn't seem to help inundate the trembling.

Quivering gems for eyes, he averted them towards the door that the woman had only exited through several minutes ago, clutching the small number of papers he had requested her to photocopy for him with a grandiose gesture of his hands towards said pile.

He had, in fact, noticed her silently but diligently working at her own desk, the slight crease in her eyebrows and the thin line of her lips coming together to create a look of pure concentration that had rapidly seeped into the rest of her features with an outstanding speed after she hastened towards her work area with her mouse-like steps and almost threw herself into her desk chair. After which, she sent a cautious look around the room as if afraid that her unprofessional behaviour had caught the eyes of any of her seniors and would therefore be apprehended for her impudence early in the morning.

Delicate little hands were what belonged to her, and she used them practically and efficiently to type at a satisfying speed as the melody of her keyboard clacking away harmonised with the other instruments of the room, including the humming of the coffe machine, the chatter of colleagues — even if conversations weren't necessarily focused on their work — and the identical keyboards rattling and rocking at each jerk of a finger pressed against the keys.

Now and again, even when her eyes were relentlessly glued to her monitor's screen, her cracked, peach blossom lips would part to mouth the words illuminated before her. Whether this was intentional or not, it didn't matter. It was an amusing sight to observe from the other side of the office, in his opinion.

Besides, it wasn't unusual for the male to notice and watch her frequently throughout the day. It was a mixture of a humorous and curious sort of way, really, but it did distract him from the work piling up on his disheveled desk surface. The only thing he could muster up within his mind as a means to interact with the young woman — the reason being either to relieve the agitation bundled up within him each time he was aware of her presence close by or to remove her from his sight just for a while; he wasn't quite sure on which one to decide — was to call her over later that afternoon after he clutched the area of his clothes just above his heart when he accidentally met eyes with the intense glare flashing towards him from the stack of documents that could have almost been observed with a fine layer of dust as a result of neglection for an elongated period of time that was far longer than it should have taken for him to take care of the work load.

The utterance of her lovely little name, caused said female to abruptly lose focus and tilt her head to the side towards the direction of the voice, of which, she immediately recognised to have belonged to the young man that loved to tease the youthful women of the office with his renowned flirtatious character.