29 November, 2011

some days

Some days, you just want to shoot somebody.

Normally it starts with something small. Falling out of bed and forgetting which way is up, your hair won't stay down no matter what, your clothes get stuck to that little sharp bit on the kitchen chair and some how or other, your favourite shirt gets vegemite stains or your pants rip in the crotch. Then tripping over the cat and spraining your ankle, you run out the door into traffic so abnormally heavy that you get to work an hour late and the meeting's started without you.

But that's just life right?

Well. All those things happened today, but there's one more.

After more clumsy and disastrous happenings in the office, I landed in a stranger's lap after the train jerked to an harder stop than normal. The man was a parliamentarian - a lowly back bencher, barely ever noticed until the shocking statement he had delivered yesterday. I apologised and he gave me his seat, only for him to fall onto my lips and lap two stops later. Maybe there'd been a cow on the tracks and the train driver slammed on the brakes to let it pass. Maybe a duck flew into the window. Or maybe the train driver was just driving way too fast. The train could have literally rattled apart.

In any case, there were paparazzi.
Now there are headlines and I am infamous.
I've even been given a few uniforms to make sure that the media don't stampede and trample on me in the rush to dig up every minutiae of my boring history.

From invisible PA to terribly lime-lighted mistress of a man growing in power. A man (handsome as he is), who instead of denying all allegations, encourages them in their lies, but refuses to talk to me. A man revelling in all the attention.

A few hours later, I'm no longer a PA. No one will ever employ me or listen to learn the truth and all because of an accident. Chance and one man's thirst for power. Oh. And the fact that after I'd fallen into the man's lap; unknown to me, my skirt had split at the back and I'd been walking around in public with a corner of the skirt stuck in my underpants.

Don't tell me that's just life.
I will shoot.

(please note, this is a short work of fiction and has no bearing on any person in real life in any shape or form).