Mother

The day I was fired from my job I thought of my mother. I imagined how she would have said I told you so, perhaps ranting about how marketing isn't the kind of job that will be around forever, rubbing salt in the wound in order to be the one to make it better. She was an unpredictable person like that.

A perfect London summer was blazing through the full-length windows that day. I decided to move desks so that I could be right under the sun and imagine that I was on a beach far from here, or that I was a wild tree restoring its energy and breathing fresh air back into the world. I was seated right under a towering office plant that pushed itself against the window, yearning to break free. The sunlight cut through the glass and shone through its gargantuan leaves, pulsating a rich, emerald green light onto my face and arms. I am a plant now, I thought as I looked down at my green-ness.

Just as I was in the midst of photosynthesising, my manager Darren called me over for a chat. I didn’t realise that I was walking into a round-table corporate intervention filled with suits muttering to each other over freshly delivered catering. That was when he took a seat at the head of the meeting room table and asked me to go to the other end. There was no chair placed there so I awkwardly hovered and tried my hardest to avoid everyone’s gaze.

“I’m sure you might have heard by now from your colleagues on the marketing delivery team who we spoke to earlier today, but if you haven’t we have basically called this meeting to announce that your department amongst two others are being terminated.”

I stared at him blankly, probably for much longer than was comfortable. I had not heard this from anyone in my department. The last time any of us said anything remotely interesting to each other was when my married colleague Maria drunkenly admitted to the whole team that she had an affair at a work social. We had a silent agreement not to share anything with each other after that.

“I understand you might be wondering where that leaves you, Ariana. We have organised severance packages for all of you that span over two months and are prepared to help in any way we can with references.”

I didn’t like the way he used my name so directly like that in front of everyone. It felt personal, like we were in a short-term relationship and he was letting me down easy. I also didn’t like how there was no space for me to plead or negotiate my position. They clearly didn’t want me to feel like I was valuable enough to have the right to plead for my job, or they wouldn’t have invited the intimidation squad of senior managers to back me into a corner. I smiled politely, thanked them for their time, and walked out as fast as I could.

Slouching over my desk, my mother’s voice rang in my head, I told you joonam. Marketing was no job for a smart girl like you. You should have used that brain of yours to be a doctor or lawyer and help others. I knew it was every Iranian parent’s dream to watch their only child grow into a high-paying, philanthropic career. It was the one thing that emphasised your superior intelligence and was the ultimate flex your parent could use against other Iranian parents. It was a statement that said, “I did parenting perfectly and I win”, without having to say a word. I wonder if my mother ever got her chance to prove to the community that she won with me or if I let her down. Joonam she used to call me; my life. If I was her life I can’t help but think that the path I chose ruined it for her, that I was selfish not to choose something that would have made her feel proud in her last days. Before I spiralled further into this train of thought, Maria came over to my desk and spun my chair away from the window to face her and the rest of the office I was trying to forget.

“Seeing as we’re all getting sacked we thought we would throw a spontaneous pity party in an hour down at the Gatehouse Inn if you want to come.”

I looked at her for a moment then turned half back to face my laptop, hoping that an excuse not to go would pop up in my notifications section.

“That’s really nice but I’m not really in the mood for a party.”

She mumbled her okays then scurried back off to her side of the office. When I turned to look back through the window the sun had now moved further away but was still shining somewhere in the distance. I decided I needed to be wherever it was going. I wasn’t going to let this bad news take the light out of this beautiful day.

My department was dismissed early, so I walked out of the twenty-sixth floor with all of my office belongings shoved into a single plastic bag. After three years of work I was expecting to be more grounded in this space, to feel a great sense of injustice and anger at being made to leave, but as I chucked the last piece of office stationary into the bag I was feeling nothing but relief. The truth was, since my mother died she could no longer be here to hate the path that I had chosen for myself, so I guess somewhere along the way I was hating it in her place.

I wasn’t leaving anything behind. Maybe just my dignity as I walked alone out of the glass doors. I would have done anything to hear a demoralising joke from my mother to make the crushing embarrassment of the walk of shame into the lift more bearable.

You may be jobless and poor Ari, but at least you aren’t fat and bald like mister Darren.

There it was, I thought. I entered the lift with a smile on my face.

Once I reached the ground floor and walked out of the building, I chased the rays of sun glistening through the dense skyscrapers until I found it again. Amongst all the grey dusty concrete, I emerged on a square I had never seen before in the middle of the city. The sun only shone in that tiny patch of green, and as the majority of people in this area were still in the office, it was only occupied by a few stragglers that didn't belong anywhere else, myself now included. I dumped my plastic bag on the floor and laid on the grass, sprawling my body across the scratchy grass, waiting for it to soak me up.