Three hours to go
The dial tone
Again begins
Its ever repeating dirge
Its soporific effect
Weighs down my lids
As I wait
And wait
For the next one
Maybe I’ll make a sale
And I hate myself for caring
The figures on the board
All red and read too much
Attempt to motivate
the bowed heads around me
Incapacitated by the pressure
Of unreachable targets.
Hello. We’re not available now
But please leave a message
After the tone.
I peal my eyes open
Straighten my back
And reflect
The robotic cheerfulness
As I leave another message
Another plea
For a returned call.
I regurgitate
The all too rehearsed
Speech and I begin
To think.
In vain stifling another yawn,
I wonder how I got here.
How my degree
In English literature
Spoken with fingered quotation marks
By colleagues
Led me to this place
Devoid of creativity and culture
How I got rejected
From so many better jobs
In so many better companies
How I ever hope to save
The money to return to education
When I barely pay rent at all.
The message is over.
Hang up the phone.
Check the list.
Dial the number.
It all begins again
I return to the dial tone’s cold embrace.
Two hours and fifty five minutes to go.
***Josie lives in Bristol after graduating in English from UWE. After writing a collection of sonnets for her dissertation, Josie has been rebelling against the restrictive form and writing about life after university. Working as a receptionist, it seems that it is not the career filled utopia she first thought. Follow her on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/AlfordJmo ****
SICK LIT MAGAZINE 
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