Mundane

/ Liz H-H

Six Sentence Stories

“Mundane mundane…can’t trust that day,” he sang the words, sotto voce, a fractured ear worm that always flooded his brain the minute he stepped off the elevator and paced down the hall to his cubicle.

He thought that during the pandemic and quarantine, he’d gotten over doing the same old job in the same old office setting; when restrictions lifted and everybody went back to the office, he’d felt a sense of renewal.

The woman watching cat videos while she waited for her data to be available, the other clipping her fingernails just over the cubicle walls, the portly, bearded, frequent snacker who licked his fingertips with a kissing relish after each bite, the guy at the other end of the office (super nice, but…) who should’ve been a DJ with that carrying bass voice, and the nervous supervisor who skittered in on her leopard-print high heels and black pencil skirts, and caused everyone to stop what they were doing to look busy, had been missed during the three long years of quarantine.

It had added the non-piquant thrill of vanilla to the plain vanilla that was his job; flavorful but not distracting. But all too soon, the thrill was gone, and there was that earworm, and he couldn’t help singing it, low and in time to his keystroke tapping.

But really, what else was there, outside of this career he’d chosen fresh out of college, when he should have known better than to play it safe?

© Liz Husebye Hartmann (2022)

The challenge? Write a story in 6 sentences, no more & no less, and if you’d like, share your creation or just visit and comment on others’ ideas, with GirlieOnTheEdge, Denise. The prompt is “MUNDANE”, and here’s where you join the party:  Six Sentence Story

And here’s the ear worm. Enjoy!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWGh92O9kxU 

30 thoughts on “Mundane”

  5. I’m with the others*
    Talk about putting the Reader in the scene… nicely executed.
    Then there is the matter of the conflict inherent in the choices we make… not so much that we should forgive ourselves for earlier choices in career or romance or relationships. From a certain perspective that is not easy to acquire but usually worth the effort, we should to see the world as we experienced it at the time, rather than settle for a memory.
    makes a difference
    thoughtful Six

    * in your dreams, clark, in your dreams

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • Perhaps it’s possible to simultaneoudly hold a number of perspectives on a single, objective event, even outside the bounds of memory. Or do so in real time?

      Like

      Reply

  10. Office life captured! Substitute another country or city and the characters are all there. You’ve got the universality of that situation nailed. And I want to yell at him not to be content with dissatisfaction, that there’s always time to change if only he’ll take the risk… Great piece of writing.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

Hello!

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.