009: The anniversary.

There was something on his desk. A postcard-sized frame, with a certificate inside, printed in yellow and grey and badly trimmed to fit.

A woman walked past, along the corridor. Martin didn’t recognise her. Another of the smiling, gossiping, pastel-dressed assistants, managers, line managers, duty managers, HR managers. They came and went, he barely noticed anymore.

She smiled at him, but didn’t stop. “Happy Anniversary Martin!” she called, in a falsetto whine. It was how everyone seemed to talk to each other now.

He raised an eyebrow, and she was gone.

Martin picked up the frame. ‘Congratulations Martin, Many thanks for 30 Years of Service.’

30 years? 30 years?

He rubbed his forehead. The dates were hazy, inexact. It was before Julia was born, of course. He groped around for a foothold, a memory that would place him in a given place at a specific time. A life event that would allow him to navigate the last three decades, but there was nothing.

Shit.

Martha’s face caught his eye, smiling from the faded little polaroid he had pinned to the wall of his cubicle. For the first time in a long time, he noticed how young she was. How happy.

30 years was probably right.

Martin’s arms dropped to his sides and hung, limp. The frame dropped from his fingers and clattered to the floor, where it lay on the grey carpet tiles.

“Happy Anniversary Martin!” called a cheery sing-song voice from along the corridor. “30 years! Where does the time go?”

@tom_cornfoot is a writer, designer, and illustrator. He’s spent over 30 years carefully developing a style of handwriting that’s almost illegible, defending his collection of old copies of Playboy and never getting around to learning to play the guitar.

The 100 stories in this collection are plucked from the air, like everything else. There’s no consistent link or thread, unless of course you find one, in which case, it was entirely planned that way.

Words and pictures © 2023 Tom Cornfoot