Episode 1: World Collapsing

3678 Words
Flipping through her files, Sarah's colleague, Kathy Davis, nudged her saying, "Hey! your phone is buzzing for the millionth time. Just pick it up, girl. Maybe it's important."                                                                      Sarah Brown returned a warm smile to her short, dark-haired friend who was running her hands on her hair while lounging in Sarah’s cubicle. Sarah sarcastically said, "Phone calls can wait as the dragon lady wants this file before lunch. If not done, she will be having my head for lunch."                                                   Listening to her response, Kathy couldn't resist laughing at Sarah's witty remark, spilling water on Sarah's desk. "Watch out!" screamed Sarah, desperately trying to clean the few droplets that fell on the file.       Kathy smiled mischievously and said, "Seriously girl, take a chill pill and answer the phone. You can think about the dragon lady after you take the call."                                                                                                     Before Sarah could think over it, Kathy answered the call and passed the call to Sarah. Unprepared, Sarah answered in a hushed voice, "Hello!" and all she could hear was wailing and sobbing on the other end.   Perplexed, Sarah looked over the phone to see the caller id, only to realize it was her mom.                             Seeing Sarah's face frowning, Kathy realized something big must have happened so she decided to show herself out. While closing the door of Sarah's cubicle, Kathy overheard Sarah saying, "Okay mom! I will be there as soon as possible. Please calm down. Don't worry, everything will be fine."                                      Kathy turned around to see her friend sobbing after ending the call while pushing her bangs back. Flustered Kathy returned and kneeled before Sarah, and tried to calm her down, who was sobbing uncontrollably while keeping both her hands on her head.                                                                                                             Kathy rolled around Sarah's chair so that she could force Sarah to face her and talk to her. Kathy asked in a low voice, "Talk to me Sarah, please. What happened?" Sarah refused to look at Kathy.                               Kathy repeatedly asked Sarah, “Come on Sarah! At least tell me what happened."                                           After some time, Sarah looked at her hesitatingly and murmured, "Dad complained of chest pains so mom took him to Uncle Fred.”                                                                                                                                            Seeing Kathy’s confused face, she further explained, “Uncle Fred is a doctor who lives nearby and is also our family friend. He had recommended taking my dad to the hospital in the city as it appeared to him that Dad might be having an issue with his heart. So, mom along with my brothers have taken dad to the hospital. Uncle also told mom that there is a possibility that dad might need surgery so we should arrange money accordingly.”                                                                                                                                                    Sarah continued to sob as she said, “After reaching the hospital, doctor's there have confirmed that dad needs to have the surgery as soon as possible. If delayed, he won’t even make it till tomorrow morning. Dad’s heart valves are blocked due to which he had those minor attacks. Now doctors have suggested conducting the surgery as soon as possible.”                                                                                                       Kathy didn’t know how to console her. She kept on sobbing while putting her hand to her head. Kathy gathered herself and sternly told Sarah, “Come on! You need to pull yourself together. You can’t keep on crying. Get up! While you get yourself cleaned up, I will go and ask leave on your behalf.” All Sarah could do was nod.                                   Then, Kathy went and knocked on Sheila Jones’s cabin, popularly called as the dragon lady, and explained Sarah's situation to her.                                                                                                                                                 She made a face and started screaming, “Is this a charity home? She just started to work here and already found an excuse to take leave. From where did she get such an unbelievable reason to take a day off? What she needs to do, on a priority basis, is the assignment that was given to her, instead of wrecking her brain on how to avoid doing it.”        Kathy’s ears almost came off listening to Sheila’s blabber when Sarah, all of a sudden, came into her cabin. Kathy looked nervously at her as she was unsure about what Sarah had heard.                                           Sarah looked expressionlessly at Kathy and then to the dragon lady. Kathy was desperately thinking about how to explain to Sarah about the dragon lady’s sudden outburst.                                                                     Before she could say anything, Sarah said, “I know Ms. Jones that this is not a charity home. I know it’s only been two weeks since I joined.”                                                                                                                           The dragon lady furiously raised her brow and was about to say when Sarah interrupted her and continued, “But you know I have been working sincerely for the past two weeks. I am not here to defend my unprofessionalism but to request you to grant me a few days leave as I am not sure how’s the situation at the hospital or how long will it take for my father to recover.”                                                                           Taking a deep breath, Sheila Jones, placed her hands on the chin and looked at us, as if she was in deep thought. A moment later, the dragon lady replied haughtily, “You can take leave only for today and tomorrow. Then, come back to the office and report your situation directly to me so that I can make sure you are not lying and planning to go on a trip with your boyfriend.”                                                                      She glanced at Kathy and said “Ms. Davis! Since you are a good friend of Sarah, you will be handling the file I asked her to finish before lunch. Take over the assignment from her and finish it before the office gets closed. Hoping you won’t have an objection and while doing Sarah’s work don’t forget your deadlines.”  Hearing Ms. Jones’s outburst, Kathy suddenly shuddered with fear and couldn’t help thinking, “Wow nice brownie points for helping Sarah! Now, I have both files to finish before going home. God! Why are you so cruel to me? I was only helping. It will take forever to finish both files.”                                                       However, she had no choice but to nod and said trembling to the dragon lady, “I will try to finish it Ma’am, and give it to you as soon as possible.”                                                                                                                  Sarah looked at Kathy guiltily and gave her an apologetic smile. Sarah’s POV Kathy appeared terrified at Ms. Jones’s outburst but it was my issue. It suddenly dawned on me that she got dragged into my trouble unnecessarily.                                                                                                                                                            Sarah's POV                                                                                                                                                                         I felt guilty when Ms. Jones had asked Kathy to do the work that was assigned to me, on top of her workload. I took a breath and told Ms. Jones that the work assigned to me is almost complete. I explained to her that all that I am left to do is to contact the clients and get their approval for the proposed changes.  Sheila looked at me and commented, “Surely. I just need happy clients and work done on time. It doesn’t matter who finishes it. Right, Ms. Brown?”                                                                                                                   All I could do was nod and agree to her. Ms. Jones then went on to say, “You will do the rest of the work, Ms. Davis, and report to me as soon as you get the client’s approval.                                                                 And you, Sarah, this is an exception, I am granting you, however, next time, it would be better for you to put in your papers and take care of your family. And after you have sorted your family affairs, you can try re-applying here.”                                                                                                                                                         Listening to her orders, I felt Ms. Jones had changed her attitude towards me all of a sudden and was hinting that my time here won’t sail as smoothly as I thought but I tried to push these negative thoughts to the back of my head.                                                                                                                                                            I always believed, “What has to happen will happen so why waste time worrying about it. Better focus on the current situation rather than applying my energy on thinking about future events.” I heaved a sigh of relief as Ms. Jones agreed for me to take a leave so I along with Kathy left her cabin.                                   After leaving her office, Kathy and I looked at each other and let our breath out. “I will go and finish your assignment for which you were breaking your head.”                                                                                          Kathy waved her hand and left towards her place. Seeing her walk off, I felt sad momentarily. I shook my head to remove all my bad thoughts and slowly returned to my cubicle to arrange all my work for Kathy to complete the leftover task.                                                                                                                                             ----------                                                                                                                                                                      Before knocking on the glass door, I peeped inside the cubicle by putting my head inside to see what was happening inside as I could hear only the voices. I could only see Kathy talking with another colleague, who was standing with her back facing the door, and Kathy was sitting on her chair so she could not see me trying to look inside her office.                                                                                                                                   Then, I closed the door without making any sound and fixed my pencil skirt which was slightly riding up. After fixing myself, I knocked and walked into her cubicle, without waiting for the response.                           As soon as I entered, both of them looked flustered, which took me by surprise.                                                    I said to Kathy confusingly, “This is the work that I have worked upon. Client’s contact details, I have kept inside the file.” Kathy was about to say something when my phone started buzzing. Seeing the call was from mom, I hurriedly said to Kathy, “I appreciate your help but I need to leave urgently as my mom is calling me. See you later.”                                                                                                                                          Kathy came towards me and hugged me out of the blue and said, “Okay girl. Take care of yourself and your family. Don’t worry about work. I will handle it.”                                                                                                             I just nodded and exited the office hurriedly.                                                                                                                                                                                                             ***** A/N                                                                                                                                                                                         Hello Readers,                                                                                                                                                                   Thank you for giving this story a chance. Hope you liked how the story has progressed so far.                    Feel free to leave your thoughts and comments.                                                                                                 Regards,                                                                                                                                                                           Eliza Tom 
Free reading for new users
Scan code to download app
Facebookexpand_more
  • author-avatar
    Writer
  • chap_listContents
  • likeADD