Perendinate

One day, for no decipherable reason, Julie decided to hold all calls, all interviews and appointments. She even gave her assistant the rest of the day off. She wanted to just sit calmly behind her desk, on her comfortable green chair with the worn fabric on the armrests and stare.

Two big deadlines were, for now, forgotten and put aside. The suffocating pressure of urgent deliverables slowly fizzled out of the window she opened. Her view of a small but green manicured yard was perfectly framed by a fig tree. She reached out and plucked one right off the branch, scattering leaves all around.

Sweet, purple and delicious, the fig disintegrated in her mouth. How long had it been since she had a fig? It had been years. This whole time they had been growing right outside her window within reach.

The sound of the phone ringing broke her contemplative stare and she slowly reached for the receiver and dropped it. She could almost hear the faint “Hello? Hello?” coming from the dangling artifact on the other side of her desk.

It crossed her mind that this could just be an excuse to perendinate and not complete the idiotic marketing campaign that was assigned to her. Her instincts told her otherwise. The moment she dismissed Elsie and set her Out of Office, she felt a surge of liberation and a tingle of excitement.

In five years, she had not missed a deadline, an email, a phone call or an appointment.

“Why now?” she pondered as she tried to get a piece of fig skin out from between her teeth with her fingernail.

This reminded her why she hated figs and how she had sworn she would never eat another one again. She sighed, closed the window and reached for her phone.

“Elsie, I changed my mind. Bring me a double espresso and some floss, pronto.” She hung up.

Those were the happiest four minutes of her life.