February 6, 2012
Figment Daily Theme:
Set a scene inside an institution of some kind (a school, a hospital, a bank). Now take us to a room that only a few people normally have access to (a janitorial closet, the morgue, an executive suite). What happens when someone gets in who shouldn't be there?
Inside
Danna
I haven't been to my husband's office since his new assistant redecorated it for him. I'm surprised that it looks more den than office. This is where he spends almost every moment of his waking life, when he's not in his man cave talking in low tones. Two stuffed pheasants occupy the majority of his desk. His laptop looks like an afterthought. Both pheasants are male, no surprise here. I have a flash of scissoring the bright plumage from the stuffed forms and throwing it up and watching the feather confetti flit all over the drab Berber carpet. Instead I spit in his black leather chair. I thought I was past this.
I'm not supposed to be here. I don't care where I'm supposed to be anymore. I'm supposed to be one building over with the rest of his office and their significant others, getting kissed on both cheeks, making nice with the other wives,and not noticing how my husband and his tweedy assistant always seem to go missing at the same time. The expectation makes me imagine a technicolor scene where I set my hair afire and run for the nearest cliff. Instead I open his receipt file and finger through until I come to the receipts I knew would be there. I mark the place with a post it, strip a feather from the smaller male pheasant, then make two copies on the office copier. I walk back into my husband's office and return the receipts to the file folder. On my way out I paper clip a feather to one of the receipts and put it on top of my husband assistant's closed laptop.
Some people from my husband's office are outside smoking. They wave. I wave and head for the car.
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