Just One Of Those Days

Analise wandered through the forest, trying to find her way home. She felt like something was watching her. Heartbeat increasing, she began to run, tripping over roots that seemed to reach out to her. All she could see were blurs of green and brown. No matter how fast she ran she never seemed to get anywhere. She could hear strange, muted voices but couldn’t tell where they were. A familiar drumbeat had her whirling around. Screaming women surrounded her. They were crying and pulling on their hair. Her favorite band was on stage playing their hearts out. She began to dance along with the music.

Analise awoke with a start, the last notes of the song still floating in the air. Another song started as she sat up and reached out to hit the snooze button. She looked over at the blurry numbers on the clock. Damn! She hated when her alarm merged with her dreams. She had overslept by half an hour. She might have to start using the buzzing, alarm but that was so annoying.

She pushed back the covers and staggered into the bathroom. After doing her business, she showered and brushed her teeth as quickly as possible. As she put in her contact lenses, one of them slid over into the corner of her eye. It took her ten minutes to get it back to the center. It didn’t feel right. Kind of like someone was stabbing her eyeball with a pin. She removed the lens to clean it again but soon realized that it had torn while she was trying to fish it out of the corner of her eye. She swore as she removed the other lens and tossed them in the garbage. It was the last set in the box, and she didn’t have time to open a new one. Analise wiped her glasses clean and put them on. She hated the way she looked in glasses, but at least she could see. She pulled a brush through her wet hair and twisted it into a knot that she secured with a hairband. Her hand stung from where the first hair band hit it when it broke.

She tore through her closet, trying to find components to put together an outfit that worked decently well. Her nylons shredded as she pulled them up. She threw them aside in disgust. The hell with it. People would just have to deal with her pasty pale legs. She hated wearing nylons anyway. Analise dug through her sock drawer and found a pair of socks that would be just enough to keep her feet from getting sticky and sweaty in her heels. They were hot pink, but no one would see them anyway. She managed to get dressed without further incident.

As she left her room, she glanced at her unmade bed. Her mother would have had a fit if she had been there. There was no time to make it. There was no time to eat either. She’d just have to pick up something on the way to her office. Her cat gave her a dirty look as she tossed a scoop of dry food into the bowl instead of the wet stuff she preferred.

She pulled into a parking spot at the train station and shoved a couple of bucks into the machine just in time to hear the announcement. Her train was running fifteen to twenty minutes late. Seriously?

Once she was on the train, she could finally relax a little. She texted her boss that she was running late and checked her social media. The train came to a stop in the middle of nowhere. A freight train was passing through, and they had to wait for it. Of course. Analise pulled a book out of her bag and started reading. They eventually pulled into the station.

She considered skipping breakfast, but she really needed her coffee, and the stuff they had at work was horrible. Her boss knew she was going to be late anyway. She was already going to be working late to make up for it. She stepped into her favorite coffee shop to find a long line. Oh well, it gave her time to decide what she wanted. She eyed the mocha grapple, but she was trying to watch her weight. She fought a war in her mind but, in the end, ordered her usual coffee with a couple of egg cups.

As Analise rushed down the hall from the elevator to her office, she stumbled as her heel snapped off. Coffee sloshed out of the hole in the cup lid, still hot enough to burn a little, but at least she hadn’t fallen or spilled it all. Analise needed some sort of bright side, or she wasn’t going to make it through the day without about ten donuts or something. She was a stress eater, and the healthy snacks in her desk drawer only did so much to combat it. She hobbled the rest of the way to her desk, threw the shoes in her bag, and put on the extra pair she kept at work.

She hoped things would get better now that she was at work. It couldn’t get any worse, right? She could almost hear the scanner laughing at her as it jammed for the fifth time while she was scanning the day’s invoices. The power in her area went out when one too many people plugged in a space heater. She couldn’t blame them. It was always ridiculously cold in there. Her boss had words with her about unpaid invoices. It was pretty much a weekly conversation, but it was extra annoying that day. She couldn’t pay the invoices without a sign-off, and certain managers were less than helpful when it came to signing off on their invoices. It would serve them right if they lost services over it, but she’d be the one blamed for not paying the bill.

She sat eating a salad while her co-workers shared a pizza and talked about their significant others and children. Analise wasn’t very good at getting close to people. She lived alone with her cat. They smiled and laughed politely, but she could tell they were tired of hearing about her cat. It’s not that she didn’t want to get married or have kids. She was just kind of shy and a bit of a geek. Her favorite pastime was making intricate costumes to wear to the various geek conventions. Analise used most of her vacation days to travel around the country to them.

When she finally left work and got back to the train station she had to wait an hour for the next train. She was starving when she got to her car. She had to make a quick stop to buy a new pair of heels before she could go home. Analise just didn’t have the energy to cook. As she drove through her favorite place, she found herself drooling over that picture, they evil, evil image of the piece of chocolate cake. They made a delicious chocolate cake for a fast food restaurant. She ended up ordering a couple of sandwiches because she couldn’t decide which one she wanted. She would just save one for later. She checked the bag before driving off. With how her day had been going, she wanted to make sure she got the right food. There was a piece of cake nestled in the bag. Had she ordered it? She didn’t remember saying the words. She checked her receipt. She had paid for it. Well, it looked like she would be having cake for dessert.

There was a man she had never seen before carrying a box through the front entrance of her apartment building. He tripped over nothing, spilling the contents of the box. That was totally her type of move. The crate was full of DVDs, lots of her favorite titles. While helping him pick them up, she noted his attractive but slightly disheveled appearance and friendly eyes that twinkled behind his glasses. He was wearing a Star Wars shirt. It was her favorite movie or series of movies and tv shows. She even liked the new ones.

“Thank you. I’m Remy, by the way. I just moved in.” He looked down at the box of dvds. “I’ve been having one of those days.”

“Analise. Have you had dinner? I have cake.” She said holding up the bag.

He gave her a bright smile. “I like cake.”