Date:         Wed, 15 Jul 1998 12:02:16 -0500
From: Phanny <corbett@AXA.SLU.EDU>
Subject:      [WRITERS] SUB: CONTEST: The Office

"The Office"


     Sometimes, the white walls feel like they're closing in on
me, choking me with their pasty glow. I've tried several times
to decorate them--photos of faraway places, framed pictures of
completed projects, wooden plaques announcing some award,
scraps of paper adorned with timeless words of wisdom.

     But the efforts have been in vain. No matter how much of
the wall I cover, another patch of whiteness finds its way to
the surface and leaps out at me, thumbing its nose at my plight.

     There's a hole in the wall on the far side of the room. Actually,
it's a doorway. It connects my tiny world with the outside office
that surrounds me. High-pitched whines from co-workers occasionally
trickle in, disturbing the peace and quiet and interrupting my expensive
thoughts.

     But neither of those problems can match the cluttered desk
that greets me every morning. Piles of paperwork reach for the
ceiling. The in box overflows into the out box with yesterday's
assignments and tomorrow's headaches. Two half-buried photos
of loved ones peek out at me with longing eyes. Business cards
pepper the landscape with names of great importance to be
used at some unspecified later date. And, somewhere beneath
the piles, lies a scuffed baseball that hasn't been seen in weeks.
I caught it at a ballgame some time ago and used to roll it
between my fingers during conversations over the phone to pass
away the time. Perhaps it rolled away to escape the mess.

     When I push aside the stacks to unearth my computer, the
real work begins. There, the tasks wait in electronic form--an
endless parade of ones and zeroes that somehow combine
to create tomorrow's masterpieces and contain yesterday's
treasures.

     Again, I look to the walls.

     They cry out to me with their bareness. Perhaps tomorrow
I'll dig out a painting or two from the depths of my closets at
home and make another attempt to cover them. If I'm lucky,
they'll cease the defiant stares that distract me as I toil away
endlessly, always looking toward tomorrow.