FICTION: The Former (Mosaic Entry)

He looked over her shoulder while she sat the computer. The webcam watched her silently, it was turned off, but you could never be quite so sure. Whether it was on or off, it saw her furrow her brows as she concentrated on the window on focus. Another customer to call, another lead to pursue. Eight hours left to go.

He placed the mug full of steaming tea, peanut butter in colour down on her desk, and gave her a cuddle where she sat, before he left the room. She had seven hours and fifty nine minutes to go. Another day working from home, another day in paradise, a white feline roaming in and out of the room to nap, scratch at things, and be blissfully unaware of another avalanche of unending tasks. Business was good.

Her pay was meager and often wrong - but she didn't need to wash the filth of public transit off her flesh, out of hair and out of her mind like prior jobs. A smile cracked across her lips, but it wasn't entirely genuine. The cat stalked out of the room, stretching along the way. The door clicked shut as he left the house, down the long hallway.

She picked up the tea, fingers wrapping around mug for warmth. A sip brought that warmth to her body, and she focused on the task before her. Just one of so very many.

Monday.

Seven hours and less minutes remaining.

Hundreds of alerts popped up on her computer screen every day. All of them mattered, in their own insignificant ways. The alerts came from various programs, all unified in a single rectangular box that would periodically appear above the clock on the right hand side of the screen. It constantly reminded her of how much time she had left.

“Congratulations, you’ve got a new customer!” meant that someone had found the website and managed to fumble their way through an interface, demanding that they be contacted. New customers, call backs, or follow ups to try and sell them something that they did not perhaps know they needed, the result of the initial correspondence.

The phone didn't ring like it used to. It was virtual. It just made a beeping sound in the headset she wore atop her strawberry blonde hair. The beep indicated there was a customer waiting. If she, or any of the coworkers didn't pick up, it would go to next generation voicemail. None of these antiquated leave a message after the beep - it was a conversational robotic voice that often transcribed customer intent incorrectly.

Every now and then, a weary few would call back and as for Clara, who couldn't pick up on its indistinct mechanical cadence. Clara was the machine. Clara did not understand. They merely did. A model employee.

She took in a breath and let the machine take the call. She moved away from her desk, sighing. For every call the machine answered, she'd need to make two, maybe three to fix the problem. But without them knowing there was a problem, they couldn't fix it. So she let the problems start to mount. Beep. Not ok.