I stared up at the spire of steel, glass, and mediocrity. The Calgary office. I had called in sick my first week after the transfer, but now it was time to get to pretending to work.

The revolving door churned through people like a blender full of shit. Dispirited, dreamless faces waited for the elevator. There was an indoor gym next to the elevator. The kind of purple, soulless gym that sold New Year’s resolutions to people too lazy to take the stairs.

Rather than wait with the rest of the traffic, I took the stairs. My new office was on the 20th floor — the top floor, where all the high power executives killed time until lunch — but I was early and figured I could use the exercise, despite my headache.

The offices were mostly open-concept, but thankfully I had a real office with a door, a lock, and a view.

The phone rang. The lock couldn’t stop phone calls, it seemed.

“What?” I asked.

“Hi, this is Jim from accounting. We noticed a $1200 charge labelled ‘fuck you’, can you explain?”

“Oh, you want an explanation, Jim?”

“I very much would,” said earnest Jim.

“Of course. Here’s my explanation: Fuck you, Jim.” Click.

They wouldn’t fire me. They relied too heavily on my lack of work output. Nobody could get nothing done all day like I could. I was irreplaceable, hence all the promotions.

The $1200? I had a date. A fancy place, where they charge a hundred dollars for a thimble of lavender Jell-O. I wanted to impress the woman, and why not? No romantic, candlelit dinner would be complete without racking up some charges on the company credit card. Had to pay the girl, too, since she was a prostitute. Someone who pretends to care in exchange for money. A kindred spirit. It was a nice night. Now my head ached.

I looked out my floor-to-ceiling window at the “view” of the sad, grey city below. My head pounded. I closed the blinds. Time for a nap.

This short story was written for the Start Writing Writers Boot Camp in Toronto in 2023. We were given a prompt, and had anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes to write anything we wanted based on the prompt.

In this case, there were two prompts, and we could choose either or both:

A romantic, candlelit dinner would be incomplete without X.
Hi, this is Jim from accounting. We noticed a $1200 charge labelled X. Can you explain? (These prompts come from Cards Against Humanity cards.)

This is my unedited response to the prompt.

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