Deadline

CW: Themes of death***

My dog died last night, my 16-year-old daughter wants emancipation, and Sonja just looked up at me from her desk, and with a realised clarity whispered; “I quit”. My Scotch Finger breaks in my coffee. 

“You freakin’-what?”. Mufasa’s claws lose their grip on the cliff in my brain. A sparkler ignites in Sonja's eyes and the universal lenses zooms in. A 200kg weighted barbell seems to drop from her shoulders and she loosens a held breath, while I take in a sharp one. Her phone locks and drops like an anchor.

“No, you’re kidding. You are, right?!”, I scramble. I search her face for a sign, for a crinkle in her crows feet, a curl of a lip, and a flop of a hand that would say “Ha! Yeah, gotcha”. Classic Sonja, loves a good laugh. We have been each other’s rock in the 12 years at this job, though the sun in this high-rise may try to fade us, we make a solid team.

She doesn’t laugh. She rises from her chair like a balloon filling with helium, if I don’t grab her she will hit the ceiling. I lean over, stabbing my pelvis with a blue pen, and seize her wrist, holding her down. 

“Sonja, did you hear anything I told you this morning? I need you here, not today, c’mon!”. Some kind of newfound knowledge has lit her face up like a beacon, she’s far away, so comical that a laugh curdles in my stomach. The adrenaline has turned the soft skin of her wrist to ice. I don’t register that it is smaller than it used to be; the temperature is too close to the body of fur I discovered at the foot of the stairs just this morning. The laugh quickly turns to horror and hurls a fresh pain streaming down my face. When it rains it pours.

Sonja loosens my grip and wraps her fingers around mine, as free as an angel she circles around to my side of the desk, and pulls me up. As we walk out of the office we lean on each other, as we always have, and tuck into a quiet nook out of earshot. A tissue wipes away the dampness and is pressed into my hand before she curls my fingers under hers. The sister I never had. 

“I hate this job”, I puff, before she can say what I don’t want to hear again. Not today. “But I hate it more without you”.

“I’m sorry Betty, I was looking forward to the day we could walk out of here together. I never want to add more stress on you, but it has to be today, Bet”.

I yank my hand from hers.

“Why? Why is today any different than when we said this a week ago? A month ago? I’m pretty sure 12 years ago!”. My jaw clenches as I imagine an empty desk in front of mine. The “B+S” etched into the cheap tabletop would be the only evidence left behind. Fatigued sucks my eyeballs into their sockets, so I miss the flicker of shame that crosses Sonja’s pale cheekbones. Silence. It pings off of the walls and ricochets its shots into my shoulders. My chest caves. Betrayal.  Or was I particularly emotional today? No, she’s being a selfish bitch. My mind revs from 0-100 uncontrollably.

“Teddy is still wrapped up in a sheet in my garage, probably stiff as a surfboard, and you can’t wait one more week? Bloody Chelsea, thinks I’m the reason she has all these mental problems, tosses her blonde, bimbo hair at me, is moving out the first chance she gets, and you - We are supposed to be TEAMMATES on this project that’s due in 13 DAYS and you can’t wait one. more. freaking. week?”. Her chest becomes a typewriter as I clang each word through her bones, but I don’t feel how feeble they have become. I complete my opening argument with a sassy pushback and a hip pop that would make my daughter proud. I set my jaw, but hot tears abandon my eyes as well. 

Sonja’s spark flutters at my defensive stance, but she gathers herself and has the audacity to smirk at me. 

“Take the week off and go to Byron with me”. A simple invitation. The level of her sincerity is only matched by how bizarre it is coming from her. This woman never misses a deadline, as in, her own deadlines, that she sets weeks before the real one. I might do the bulk of the work, but she always keeps me on a tight schedule. I don’t even bother with a reply, just a lift of a brow and a twist of a lip. 

“Betty, I’m not kidding, we’ve been here long enough that we can leave and go live a little, so let’s go live a little! The project can wait, it’s almost done anyway. Think of it” - she steps to my side and leans against the wall, needles her arm through my elbow and we link. Begrudgingly I lean back, the coolness turning my anger to mist. Our arguments are rare.

-“Just think of it, you, me, some ripped hippy guy with a ukulele on a beach, getting sizzled by the sun with at least 2 vodkas in each hand, seawater washing away our worries”. I don’t have to look at her to know she is smiling, her voice has that tinkle to it. 

“Pfft, this coming from the straight jacket who never uses her annual leave”, I hit back half-hearted. Not entirely true, she’s had a few days off lately. 

Josh, from the HR team, clicks past, clipboard to his nose as usual, and he ignores us. ‘A Sonja and Betty Hallway Hangout’ isn’t new. 

Through the decrescendo of noise in my head, a memory flicks past.

“Wait, wasn't it Bali a month or so ago? Are you downgrading me to Basic Byron now?”, I slide my sarcasm her way, but it is still marinated with irritation. She clamps her teeth like a flood gate, holding in something more, but exhales through the gaps and deflates. Good, I can’t take one more….thing. Not today.

“Will you at least think about it? I’m printing out my notice now, and I’m taking my things home in a box. Call me later if you want help burying Teddy, yeah? I know you loved him a lot. And don’t worry about Chelsea, just sit down and listen to her”. She squeezes my elbow, I barely feel it, and leaves me leaning against the cement wall. 

Three weeks pass. Teddy is 3-foot-under, covered by a lavender bush in my backyard. Chelsea stays with her Dad nearly every night. No ripped hippy guy sang “Over the Rainbow” to me in Byron, because I didn’t go. The clients were satisfied with the project that I finished, alone. My “No F*cks To Give” coffee cup sits over the etching on the desk, now occupied by Simon? Samuel? Someone new. 12 years of grinding through work together seem to have disappeared like smoke. I called Sonja that night after I got home and cried about how empty the house felt, but she didn’t have time to talk, so I haven’t bothered answering her calls since. I realised that night that ‘work friends’ don’t mean much if you don’t work together anymore. And so, work, and life, has been auto-pilot. 

An impertinent ‘ding’ jump-starts me from my skyward stare, and we all receive an email. ‘Staff meeting in 5’. I trudge up the hallway, eyes determinedly forward, and bee-line for the coffee machine, grab a Lemon Crisp and sit somewhere near the back of the meeting room. Someone opens a window to let fresh oxygen in. I wipe crumbs off of my chest as the meeting starts and the buzz dies down, the seat next to me stays empty, and we all sleep behind our open eyes. Arnold doesn’t bring any notes in with him. Good, this should be short. He thanks us all for coming in, like we had a choice, and his eyes scan the room. He skips over me and I slurp my coffee. His hands wring and he swallows hard, he’s always twitchy.

“We’ve, uh, had some unfortunate news this morning”. There is a perceptible straightening in the room by the people who don’t want to be fired. I stay slumped, tune out, and take a long, loud sip. 

“A team member of ours, who recently left our company has, unfortunately, and very sadly, passed away, uh, two days ago”. 

The entire company turn in their chair, like clowns at a showground, painfully slow, mouths open, straight at me. Seconds pass, perhaps. Their frowns at my lack of attention are the first thing I register. 

“Sorry, wha- did you ask me a question?”. The frowns melt to pity. 

“Betty, ah, I’m so sorry, I’m sure you’ve known for a while, but I’ve just let everyone know that Sonja lost her battle on Tuesday evening. We weren’t aware she had any illness at all, this is a shock for us”. 

“Her battle with what?”, my ears block with seawater, and mute the traffic outside, the drone of the fans, the gasps and shuddering around me. Arnold looks at me like I’ve asked him to capture the sun in his bare hands. He pauses to make sure I haven’t lost my marbles.

“Her battle with cancer, Betty”. 

“You- what? What?”. I laugh. No one joins in. I look around me for certain clues that someone is playing an April fools joke in November. A sick joke nonetheless. I laugh short, Arnold clears his throat and bows his head. Eyes avert. Fingers grip flimsy plastic seats.

A wave crashes and throws me out past the safety flags. I can’t breathe. The chair turns to liquid, I crumble in half and my legs break off somewhere and disintegrate. Half of me is lost and soaked, and the other doesn’t have the nerve retention to cling to the rocks. A wild clanging spins my head around in circles and I hear Sonja’s voice through a megaphone yelling “I QUIT!”. The phone drops its heavy anchor, a flash of an “Urgent” email before it locks, and her laugh plays like a soundtrack. Untamed hair flicks over her shoulder, and a cheeky grin escapes, dripping a violent green martini over bright red lips. So alive. Let’s go live a little. Why didn’t I again? What was so important? I grasp for something solid but it slips through my fingers.

A cold cloth is pressed to a distant forehead. It doesn’t reach my brain. My psychedelic Sonja gets smaller and smaller until she shrinks into a little bird, a golden finch. 

“She must have known, those two did everything together here”, someone is speaking too close to my ear. Voices lap against the side of a cliff face.

“Sonja didn’t look real healthy the last few months I don’t reckon”. 

“Maybe they weren’t as close as we thought. None of us saw it coming, she told no one, but surely Betty of all people…?”. 

How did I not see? How did I not listen? This uneven cadence will never resolve and some things will never be normalised, no matter the time that passes. The golden feathers turn to soft black fur, to little blonde curls, to pale, yellow skin, and dissolve into a swirl of coffee and wet dirt.