The Usual Dilemma

Ms. Stanson woke up at six-thirty in the morning on April fifteenth. She was surprised to feel awake when she checked the time, for she hadn’t been rousing well during the past few months. Satisfied with herself, she lied her head back down until six fifty-three. By then her beloved cat, Harlem, was losing his patience, so she pushed herself from her bed and moved to feed him. She was clean and brushed and dressed and scented by seven-eighteen, so she then began brewing her coffee with the intention to sip it at work.

            The night before she had gone to bed earlier than usual, around nine, because she had nothing better to do. By then she’d already washed her clothes and bathed and read a few chapters of her book. Television hadn’t been amusing her lately, so she didn’t bother with it. She’d been especially downhearted since the previous week. Meaningful connections have always proved difficult for her to make, and even more-so for her to keep, and she thought that she’d finally managed the two before she learned she hadn’t. She loved him, she’s fairly sure; more than she’d been able to love anyone before him. Her cat loved him. Though he does tend to love everyone, she’d bitterly told herself before falling asleep.

            At seven twenty-five, Ms. Stanson left her little home and hoped the train wouldn’t catch her on her way to work. She’d be cutting it close, if not positively being late, if that happened. A few drivers irritated her due to passing her despite the fact she was going five miles over the speed limit, but she tried to let it go by the time she parked. Through the metal detector, up the hill, into the lobby and she’d be seated for eight hours, smoking for one. On her way up the hill, she saw her brother on his own way towards the final inspection lot. He stopped to meet her. She felt a mix of familiar affection and dread entangling her at once.

            He’s going to ask me if I told him happy birthday, she thought to herself. She hadn’t, but she had spoken to him recently, to ease her nerves. She knew that her brother, prone to cynicism and judgmental tendencies, wouldn’t understand that need and how it helped. She also knew that, according to their conversation on break the day before, her brother didn’t agree with her being willing to try again if he were to return to her in the future, better practiced. Her brother tends to not understand a lot of things about her. Though, he isn’t always wrong.

            “What do you think you’re doing here?” he asked, with a playful tone.

            “Going to work,” she responded, with a polite smile, not feeling entirely playful yet.

            “You look stupid walking up that hill,” he said next, laughing a bit.

            Ms. Stanson frowned, tightening her grip on her bag. She knew she looked stupid walking up that hill, but she didn’t need to hear it. She looked stupid doing anything, due to her shifting weight placement and her mediocre face and her awkward hair length. She sarcastically thanked him as she passed, wanting to make it to her desk as soon as possible, where she could breathe.

            “It’s because it’s sloped,” she heard him say, jovially, “You look so short coming up it.”

Finally at her desk Ms. Stanson sipped her coffee and leaned back in her chair. The train she missed sounded in the distance, creating that usual melancholy it tends to produce whenever saturated with the threat of rain. She sighed, heavily, before she turned her gaze to the lobby doors. She hoped the wind wouldn’t take the clouds before the rain fell. She anticipated the petrichor. If the evening is like this, after work, I should kill myself, she mulled. It's the perfect weather for it. She looked away from the sky. Mm…but I’d have to kill Harlem, too. The usual dilemma convinced her she’d better not.