The Anomalous Keys

Emaline Briggsmere wanted it to be 2pm, very badly. She had been looking forward to 2pm for three weeks now and it still hadn’t arrived. When 2pm doesn’t arrive for that long, there is often something that has gone wrong, which has happened before it hasn’t arrived. Or so to speak.

Of course, the use of the term ‘often’ isn’t really correct here, as - as far as we know, 2pm hasn’t not arrived for three weeks before; before this.

Emaline Briggsmere chewed the end of her ‘BankNorth - ‘Come Finance with us’ complimentary pen and sighed, as she entered more data into her spreadsheet.

‘Column 11a - Client Income, minus Client Debt, minus Client Monthly Costs, minus More Client Monthly Costs - minus Life Expectancy, minus Number of People they Care About, minus double the Monthly Costs for good measure.' It had a lot of calculations but they always ended in the same calculation for all her clients, except for Finance Broker Managers or Real Estate Agents.

She had actually done an amazing job on the statistics, in the last three weeks while she waited for 2pm. She realised that no matter the input, unless the client was a Finance Broker Manager or a Real Estate Agent, the end column would end the same.

‘Nill amount to lend for home loan to this hopeless, deadbeat, never-will, never-can, pleb, commoner who-will-never-own-their-own-house, client.’

She had actually run it on the big computer, seven times; just to be sure, and it kept reading out the same line. She thought the computer was being a little judgy and juvenile with all the name-calling, but when she tried to rename the column contents, the monitor just fuzzed and lurched a little until it got its own way, so she shrugged and let it be.

It made her job easier, anyway. Trouble is, she was not a Finance Broker Manager or Real Estate Agent; data entry and statistician for a finance company didn’t count, but she would have liked to have at least been able to daydream about owning her own living zone, one day. Work was easier now though; not much point in entering all the clients' data when it’s just going to output the same information. Skip to the end and show the customer the last line, then be silent as they go through the 7 stages of grief;

1) Shock; they should be able to live in a house.

2) Denial; surely only other people get their loan application rejected?

3) Anger; 'I will hit your computer and its silly stats' (computer lurches and goes fuzzy before zapping them.)

4) Bargaining; telling the computer (from the floor after being electrocuted), that they will upgrade their system if they just please help them out.

5) Depression. (This comes from electrocution as well as homelessness.)

6) Acceptance and hope. (People on the floor are always much more accepting of bad news.)

7) Processing grief; putting their head back and then headbutting the monitor to try to vainly affect the computer's processing speed as revenge, but not realising that the CPU is not actually inside the monitor, so they only succeeded in cutting their forehead open so that they have to spend more money going to the nurse for sutures.

Emaline coughed and then half choked as the pen lid she was chewing broke off a piece of blue plastic. Spitting it into a tissue she looked up and nodded, embarrassed, to the twins after they stood and peered disapprovingly over the partition of the cubicle next to her, their pens neatly clipped to each of their front, top pockets; unchewed lids in place. She picked up a pencil to chew instead, idly wondering if she would ever get promoted up the ladder one day for being so efficient. Perhaps she might make it to be a Finance Broker Manager? She looked at the clock on the far wall again. No one would ever be promoted at this rate, being that it was still not 2pm.

They all could, of course, have just gone to their homes over the last three weeks. They could have had three glorious, sun-filled weeks (since the sun hadn’t moved any further than the clock handle) while they waited for time to restart. They even could have had a holiday. So could the whole town really. They could have done many things of course rather than stay in their offices entering data and staring at the clock, but a routine is an addictive thing and afternoon tea wasn’t until 3, so leaving your desk at 2 just wasn’t on.

It’s a good thing the whole time-stop also time stopped them needing things like sleep or to eat really, otherwise Emailine’s cat would have been quite cross by now. As it was, Jexabelle Dolorus Bibbetty was back at their rented studio apartment thoroughly enjoying sharpening her claws on the back of the couch without anyone to tell her ‘no’.

Jexabelle looked around and idly wondered what she might break, without having to put in too much effort. She leapt to the side table and swished lazily at a few ornaments. The blue vase landed disappointingly safe on the rug, but the smiling photo of Emaline with her best friend Becci at the Eiffel Tower two years ago, made a satisfying smashing sound as it landed face down on the tiles.

She purred.

The avocado plant that Emaline had watched grow taller and sprout four leaves over the last few months was next to feel her spiteful paw pushing. She looked down smugly as water pooled around the sad, bare roots under pieces of smashed glass from the broken passata jar.

Jexabelle Dolorus Bibbetty wasn’t a particularly nice cat. She also happened to be the reason that it wasn’t 2pm as yet.

(To be continued...)