So here it is, The first draft of the night shift, with a terrible ending.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The
night shift draft I
4/9/14
Sandra’s
desk was neat and clean. She didn’t care for the clutter that was
present on her colleagues work surfaces. Considering the desk itself
was a highly responsive touch screen, clutter was a bad thing. She
would watch every night as maintenance ran across her sector, and the
screens calibrated themselves to compensate for the clutter. The red
glow of the errors flashed around her, bathing the office in moody
light. Her desk, as usual, was a shining beacon of blue-white light.
Clutter free, error free, and generally well kept. That was Sandra’s
desk, and that was Sandra.
She
looked toward the center of her workstation, where a small
notification quietly blinked. Her health monitor had scheduled her
for a physical nearly a week ago. She tapped the ignore function and
put it out of her mind. Sarah ate well, and took her vitamins every
day. The only thing remotely unhealthy she did was sit at her desk
and work all night. Yes, she was clean and tidy and her life was in
order, and this thought brought her joy.
Her
prized possessions sat on a table beside her. The table itself was
quite a chore to obtain. It was a heavy, varnished , solid oak table
with a straight cut running lengthwise across its surface. She
remembered, briefly, her joy when the final piece of the table had
been delivered. Her mother had carefully wrapped each piece and
shipped them each separately over the course of 13 months. More than
a year’s worth of supply runs later, and there it stood. Her only
non-standard piece of office furniture and one of her few stabs at
individuality.
Beside
the clean desk and atop the fine oak side table sat a collection of
things. These things were unique and diverse, very unlike Sandra but
their meaning was clear. This collection of small to medium sized
objects that caused no clutter on her desk was her treasure trove.
She liked to think of herself as a Tolkeinian dragon, carefully
guarding her possessions, keeping them safe in her lair. The thought
amused her greatly, and so she kept it in her mind. It was generally
small distractions that kept her going through the night shift.
Maintenance
had a while yet before it finished, and so Sandra walked. She wound
her way through the cubicles, and searched for a window. There was
one located a few floors down from her allocated office space. That
was not to say her office was ‘windowless’ or ‘oppressive’,
there were OLEDs in the walls of most floors that would display
tranquil environments. Forests, the ocean shore, and occasionally
views of a bar toilet, but only when the team down in I.T. felt they
deserved better pay. Such views were often missed, and always
appreciated.
So
Sandra walked. She wandered off into the dark office, toward the
staircase and then down the staircase. She lightly grasped the
railing and descended into more dimly lit office scape. She passed by
R&D, and the Technical Monitoring Center, and the Communal Break
Lounge. Her journey ended at the Human Resources department. This
office floor was set up a little different. Plush beanbag chairs were
arranged in a semicircle in front of a projector screen. There were
potter plants here, real ones, unlike the small plastic daisy in her
trove of treasures. There were windows too, real windows with real
and often unbelievable views.
She
moved towards the nearest window, and relaxed at the sight before
her. The city sprawl stretched to the edge of the dome. The dome
stretched to the sky. Beyond the dome, space stretched into infinity.
The earth rose on the horizon, and its reflected light cast a soft
blue glow on the city above it. This was one of those moments, she
thought, one of those moments that really keep me going. Her gaze
traveled down 'main street', across the arboretum, past the
greenhouses, and settled upon her apartment building. She had left
the light on in the sitting room, again.
Soon
her thoughts returned to her desk,and to her treasure trove. She
turned from the window and would her way back across the office floor
and back to the staircase. Back up the flights of stairs, she
climbed, and soon she found her landing. She moved between the now
darkened workstations and back to her gently glowing surface. It had
passed, once again. Through maintenance without incident.
Her
seat groaned as she settle back in for the rest of her shift. The
chair had served her well over the years she'd spent on tranquility.
She stretched herself out, and tapped her toes against the wall of
her cubicle. On the periphery of her vision, she saw her daisy. She
reached an arm behind her and picked up the 'plant'.
It
was a poor recreation of the real thing, but she loved it anyway. The
soft plastic weave once carried the scent of sandalwood, but the oil
had long since faded. She missed the smell, but scented oils were not
very cost effective to ship to the colony, and the chance of the
bottle smashing in transit was very real. No, she would go without
fancy oils and just appreciate the daisy for what it was, a grounding
rod in the maelstrom of her lunar bound life and the last comfort she
had during this long night shift.
The
reminder flashed again, startling her. She spluttered loudly and
lapsed into a coughing fit as the spit in her throat irritated her
respiratory tract. The jolt had another, deeper effect. Deep within
Sandra's body, the cumulative effect of her long shifts and exposure
to reduced gravity betrayed her. The clot, a small mass of organic
matter, rocketed through her body. It settled in her lungs, and the
next wrenching cough brought forth foam and blood. Sandra stared at
the splatter on her screen as it slowly dripped past the ignore
function.
A
deep pain blossomed within her chest, and Sandra began to panic. The
irony of this event was not lost on her. Clutching at her blouse,
she slapped at the service button on her workstation. The icon was
unresponsive. Sarah slapped the console again, and realized the blood
and foam across her desk had caused multiple touch inputs, rendering
the console unusable. She lurched forward , and wiped the spew from
her screen.
Sandra
lapsed again into a coughing fit, more blood and more foam issued
from her mouth. She held her sleeve in front of her face to stop the
mess from hitting her screen. The coughing did not subside, her panic
grew. She slapped feebly at the screen, her body weak from coughing.
Her fingertips hit the service icon and the menu expanded to fill the
screen. Her hand rose shaking before her, she was still coughing and
very out of breath. The breaths she managed were rattling with
phlegm, foam, and blood. Her lungs felt shredded, and she was
succumbing to the darkness pressing in from the corners of her
vision.
Sandra
managed to brush against the option for Medical Services, and the
call went out. The alert would sound at the medical offices two
blocks away, and the crew would be at her office within seven
minutes. Sandra's coughing subsided again, but the effort of trying
to breathe had taken a large toll on her body. Dazed and exhausted,
she tried to stand. Her legs refused to support her and she grabbed
at her side table to stop her fall. Her hand found the potted daisy
instead, and down she went daisy in hand. Before Sandra lost
consciousness, she saw only her daisy and thought only of sandalwood.
Sandra's
body was found within ten minutes of her call. Resuscitation failed,
and her death marked the first casualty on the colony.
