A Wound Back Clock And Karina’s Dictaphone (Part 1)

The Last Day Of August

The last day of the month, unscathed, unglamorous and unrewarding but nonetheless the last day. Behind in chronology by five nights, I can only hope that such unsolicited procrastination will fade, not with fewer memories or helpless weekends but with my strive to correct this long tail of mine. With these being the last minutes of the month of August, there isn’t much to say but that like the typical flow of events, the first portion of the month looked superb in growth but in these last few days, it has settled down.

This time last month, I was still coming to terms with myself and I guess the most dramatic change is the phasing of friends. Gone are people like Keith and Tatton, Shawn and Ralf have faded and seldom seen is Jett and whoever else from that group. Clutching ambitious strive in my hands, I have turned from formidable acquaintance, stepping into my new combination opening new doors. Nero, Tyler and Imad have developed within my intentions over this past month and if this were a project with a deadline, I will have achieved a fair amount in our collaboration thus far.

Next month will just further my content and most probably heighten the displeasure that Lyssa and other people would be feeling. My life now is manageably satisfying, where I substitute those lonely nights without someone by my side with new friendships, relations at work and the goals I set for myself with money received. Life for some straight months now has looked good and to my foresight, is only getting better. Nevertheless, I am with the shadows of other disheartened myself unnerved and I cannot be one with myself in happiness until everyone around me sheds their contrite depression.

Alarm Clock Trouble

Starting now straight upon the content of Friday, that morning was a harrowing one indeed. Subject to a problem with my alarm clock which is extremely strict in waking me up on time, the night before I must have touched the winder to which I found myself waking up at 5:00 a.m. Knowing that something was amiss, I looked directly at the clock on my video and pleased to find I had another hour to sleep, I set the alarm for what I thought was 6:20 a.m. but to my surprise, it didn’t ring.

Eerie dreams permitted me to awaken at 6:30 a.m. wondering if I just didn’t hear the alarm go off. However, as I finally jumped out of bed and glanced at the alarm clock, I noticed that I had wound it back to which the time was reading 4:30 a.m., terrible. You can put this down to poor judgment in the near dark situation when winding my clock back up that second time. As for my preparation and then my bus and train trip to the City, there was no relevant difference apart from my sleeping for the whole trip on the train and cracking my usual fat when nearing Museum Station.

Mail And Najla

The morning began as a burden to the leisurely actions that was typical of a Friday. Heading to the mailroom, I had to lug up a huge amount of mail to our section and later through the day as Najla and I went through it all she found that half of it was mail to claims. Najla getting frustrated and wanting to complain she packed one of the mail bags with all the wrong mail and sent it down to the mailroom later so she could tell them off.

Gawain Keeps His Secret

During the incoming mail I decided to get the photocopies done and in this time I had a small chat to Gawain because he was there in the kitchen alone. Seeing these times of being alone and without a deal of intimidation, I jumped upon that chance to smooth any bad notions over with Gawain. Making the first directional step I asked how he was doing to which he elatedly replied “I couldn’t be better, I’m having the best day of my life”.

Curious as to why he was so happy I asked “Are you going to share” to which he replied “Nah not yet, you’ll probably learn soon enough”. Making his way out of the kitchen and leaving me hanging, I had the feeling that he didn’t feel too comfortable around me because of the attitude I carry around. People just have to get past my intimidation and not feel intimidated themselves to get to know me.

I’m sure that Gawain’s probably feels that I think he’s a weirdo of I have a hidden distaste for him but that’s all in his head because he’s been relaying the wrong messages from my body language and misleading silence. Nevertheless, later in the day after reading my emails I realized that Gawain was so happy because he got promoted to claims officer. Seeing him one more time during the afternoon I made the effort to congratulate him for his promotion to which he was pleased but shunningly.

Jonas Shows A Ring

Other people that gripped and intertwined upon my life were various throughout this leisurely Friday but nonetheless, the usual pool of people. During my stint at the photocopier I also chatted away with Jonas to which he was acting a touch weird. Asking if he was heading out partying for the weekend he showed me a ring on his finger and needn’t have said any words for my conclusions to have been drawn. Ecstatically I blurted “No way, are you engaged or something” to which he nodded his head with a tethered smirk.

This notion in my mind carried on as I tried to get to the bottom of the news and as Jonas tried to slither away around the corner I with my words pulled him back. The truth of the story was revealed when Jonas told me that he started going out with a girl since the weekend that he’s known since school. Sounding like he had already subjected himself to being bound and pussy whipped, he noted how he didn’t want to go out on the weekend, he just wanted to stay home.

Remarking that his girlfriend’s parents were strict, it sounded like he’s been going out with her for years for him being laden enough to stay home in his pussy-whipped state. Sounding like a week had done him a world of good in settling him down, he pointed to the nothing-ring on his finger remarking “If a girl walks up to me on the dancefloor and I don’t want to dance with her I’ll just show her the ring and say ‘Sorry babe, I’m married’”.

Karina Never Wraps Up

Karina was also another cracker of a conversation which was a constant stream of somber sounding punctuation. Spending more time sitting and chatting with Karina than I did with Najla because she was giving me the cold shoulder for being late again, I found it a sacrifice I was willing to take. In basis, as soon as you endorsed Karina with words she would break out in a continually spreading rash of conversation. Asking one question would leave sitting there with your mouth open, listening for half an hour whilst doing your work, repeatedly asking yourself “When is she finally going to wrap up her thought, it’s just taking too long for any human”.

And you see, Karina isn’t the talkative type and is lowly just like me. Therefore, she doesn’t really carry her conversation too well but she keeps it upon that border of monotony for a touch long for my liking. In addition, all of Karina’s conversations turn into complains as she loves to bitch religiously. She talks of being at one with yourself and finding lifelong harmony and yet with each paragraph she seems to dictate condoning thoughts and depressive opinions. Karina without her Greenie aspect and her opinionated criticism there would be no Karina.

Trying The Dictaphone

When totally sopped with her convictions and after speaking about the woes of her clothes dryer she created for me an interesting situation that I’ve always wanted to try. For so long now I’ve wanted to test out a Dictaphone so that I could see if I would be any good and after she criticized David’s voice on the tape she asked that I listened in to his voice. “Do you want to hear David’s voice” she whispered as she handed me the headphones, putting them at first above my head instead of under my chin.

Passing seconds did see me taking the headphones back off with a smile and as Karina noted she hated being on the Dictaphone all day she asked if I wanted to have a go. “Go on, I’ll do the filing for a couple of minutes while you do some typing” she exclaimed and unable to turn down her offer, I knew that Najla would probably be gritting her teeth on the other desk right about now.

Typing away, Karina didn’t realize how fast a typist I was until she had seen me in action and I’m sure most of that adulation was feigned for my confidence but I was doing a fair job. As soon as I worked out which one fast-forwarded and what rewound I was on track to typing on par to David’s voice and instructions. Finally did I realize Karina’s views on David, how he was scrappy in all departments and you couldn’t even understand him most of the time on the cassette tape.

The Dryer Saga

With this touch of experience behind me involving the Dictaphone, I allowed Karina to get back to her normal duties to which she explained some more woe about her dryer. “Do you think I should ring the guy who’s repairing my clothes dryer” she asked, “I sent it to him two weeks ago and I still haven’t received a call yet”. Figuring that he was just playing her, she decided to give him a call to which she complained about his service after the conversation.

“Can you believe this” she cried, “He’s inconvenienced me for two weeks and now he almost didn’t agree on coming to my house tonight after work”. Karina explained that after work finished she basically had to rush for her bus back home to which she would be fortunate to have him waiting around. Finding some more news to this saga on Monday, Karina explained how he did end up coming on Friday night but it was a disaster.

Instead of receiving her dryer back the guy dropped off another one and just as he was leaving Karina noted that it wasn’t her dryer. “Yeah, we decided to give you this one instead” the guy noted, “Your one was beyond repair”. This coming after his promise on the phone that afternoon that her dryer was fixed and all of a sudden, when he tried testing it before delivery it suddenly didn’t work again. Despite this, Karina kept her new dryer because it looked newer and had more gadgets so she wasn’t really losing out with the dodgy repairman.

Ottilie On Smoke Breaks

With Ottilie making her way over to our table to borrow some pink string, joining in on our conversation we embarked on another fifteen minutes of chatter. However, in this conversation and as the trend is with Ottilie, we talked about HIH the company and how back in the day smokers used to get away with murder. Making her reciting sound like it was only a couple of months before I arrived, she noted how smokers used to have smoke breaks frequently during the day to which her statistic showed that they spent on average, an extra eighty minutes bludging downstairs.

Not fair on the workers who didn’t smoke, Ottilie also noted that they used to call up their girlfriends to meet them out the front and as they would stand in big groups and chat, time would just fly. The game ones would even head off for two hours of lunch as there wasn’t a way to keep tabs on who was having how long a lunch. Karina brought about her opinionated comments and I am pleased that this tardy behavior has been rectified in time for my arrival.