Repeatedly

"I've done this several times before", muttered Jeff. He looked up and glanced around to see if anyone had heard him. All clear, he sighed with relief. He looked down again and stared at the endless lines that ran down the page in front of him. “Agh”, he said half aloud and half under his breath. He was staring so hard; the lines were becoming blurred! He gave his head a slight shake, side to side, now up and down, side to side and up and down. He stood up and stretched his hands to the ceiling while trying to balance on his toes. His legs quivered. “Can't do that anymore, old age”, he quipped. He took a walk to the employee lounge. On the way, he passed Ross's office and gave the customary mock general’s salute. Ross acknowledged the gesture with one of his own and smirked. “Yeah, yeah, yeah”, said Jeff as he rounded the corner and continued his way to the lounge. On opening the door, he tried to determine if the room looked a little darker than usual, questioning, “Does it look darker in here?”, and gave a surveying glance. “Hmm”, he said without concluding and shrugged his shoulders as he went through the door. “Hey Jeff”! a voice called to him from the far-left side of the room. Jeff turned to see who had called out to him and possibly return the salutation. It was Nicholas who was occupying a table with Mark. He had asked to be called Nick, you know, it seemed more grown-up. Jeff acknowledged his greeting with slight nod of the head. Mark did the same. He continued his way to the beverage station. Nope, not there, what else is new, he mused. Without even looking to see if something else would be a suitable substitute, he turned on his heels and vacated the lounge. “Okay, back to desk duty”, he said as he made a left turn back to his cubicle. Or was it the right. He cringed at the thought of his still not knowing which turn to take and standing there trying to remember. The same spot every day! His dejected gaze turned down to his shoes. There were scuff marks on them. Where did those come from? he questioned. He lifted his head back again and scanned the area in front of him, then to the left, then to the right. He saw Angela starring at him questioningly, and slightly raising her hand in some sort of greeting. “Ah”, he said, “to the left”! He looked back and gave Angela a half-smile and then back at the spot where he had just left, looking for some sort of marker that would let him know where to turn. He looked up and down – at the walls, the pillars, a stain on the carpet! Nothing! “What’s the use”, he said, “I’ll probably not remember anyway”, and with that, he made his way back to his desk. He entered the cubicle and yep, there it was, the morning’s mail. He sat and looked down at his scuffed shoes again. He scowled at the sight of them. In disgust, he turned away and faced the stack of mail that had been placed on his desk during his lounge hiatus. With a flourishing gesture of the arms and soft drumming of the fingers, he gave himself a drum roll and raising his hands to his face and cupping his hands around his mouth, he mutely announced, “Hmm, what interesting reading do we have today”! He dropped his hands in his lap, looked around and then proceeded, with a letter opener in his hand, to open the envelopes, one by one, one at a time. There was the usual floor activity - footsteps along the corridor past his cubicle, back and forth nods of the head, up and down. He finally finished going through the stack. He leaned back in his chair and swung around in it. “Well, that’s done. Next”. He stood up and leaned next to his cubicle’s doorway and looked across at the glassed offices. Half of them were empty. Hmm, a sigh escaped from under his breath and he mockingly hit his head against the cubicle’s partition. Almost, he thought, almost. Maybe next time, he’ll have someone to do his letter opening for him. “Sectional meeting in 10”! he heard Tom say as he passed by his doorway. He almost heard himself scream out; Do I have to! It seemed so convincing that he looked out his doorway and looked around to see if anyone had heard him! Realizing the absurdity of what he had just done, he shook his head, straightened up, took up a memo pad and pen and headed out the doorway on down to the small conference room. On the way, he passed by the mini display room advertising the next promotional. It was probably what the sectional was all about, he mused, quite unimpressed. He reached the room which was already half-packed. He slipped in towards the back and squeezed into a little niche between a chair and the wall. In strode Ross, sectional leader extraordinaire! And yep, there it was, from one of them that occupied one of those glass offices, the fervent pep talk about the promotional! “Yadda, yadda, yadda”, he quipped, as he rolled his eyes up to the ceiling. “I wonder how many yadda’s it would take to substitute the script”. The thought amused him, and he actually let out a chuckle. This time when he looked around, two other heads along the wall were looking at him accusingly. He snapped his head back to the front and caught the last phrase of the presentation – “We’re going all the way! All the way”! He exited the room along with the others and headed back to his cubicle. He threw the pad and pen on the desk and plopped down in his chair. He looked up at the ceiling, threw up his hands and unabashedly announced, “I can’t believe I’m going to do all this again, scuff marks and all – tomorrow”!