Good morning one and all and happy election day. If you haven’t voted I suggest you do so. Everyone deserves to have their voice heard. My voting is done and dusted. All that is left is to see the results. But that won’t be until, much later. So while we wait shall we see what we come up with from today’s prompt? Set your timers and one, two three…we are off.
I can honestly say I didn’t have a glimmer of where I was going until near the end. And then just when I started to figure it out, the timer went off. I’ll probably jot down a few notes before I file this.
Tuesday, November 8th, 2022: Laughter crinkled his eyes.
Laughter crinkled his eyes. I knew I was the source of the amusement but I couldn’t quite figure out what I had done wrong. I followed his instructions exactly. They hadn’t made much sense but after issuing them he walked away and given the quiet of the office environment it felt wrong to simply call out after him.
“You said put all the stickers on each file,” I told him.
“I should have said all of the relevant stickers,” He said. County numbers at the top, town numbers in the middle and then individual site numbers after.”
“I see,’ I said. I looked at the one file I managed to start. Given the colors I figured I placed at least six counties worth of numbers on it. “Right.” I looked around wondering if there was a way to tell which county corresponded with number as well as which town held which number.
“I realized I forgot to give you the sheets,” He said. He placed the pages down in front of me. One was a list of counties with their corresponding numbers, each town in the county, with ich number was on an indented list beneath the county name.
“The site number is on the page inside.” He added.
“That I saw,” I replied. He nodded and reached into a box of spare folders.
“We can change this one out and then you can get back to work.” I nodded, took the offered folder and slid the pages from the one I over stickered to the blank one. He watched as I carefully placed all of the correct numbers on the page. Once he was certain that I wasn’t going to be adding any more excess stickers he turned and walked away.
The work was not the most stimulating. I opened each folder and noted the county and town names along with the site number and pulled the necessary stickers off of the giant rolls. I added them to the side of the file so they could be seen by someone walking down the long rows of shelves where the files would live once the files were finished and then I placed it in a box. I then reached for another file.
The files themselves were not interesting, at least not to me. I’m sure if I knew enough to decode the information it would be of some interest. All of the information inside looked like it was in some kind of code. One line read A/S: after the colon was placed either and A or an S. Other questions were answered with other letters and a few seemed to ask yes or no questions. I couldn’t figure out the questions let alone what the answers signified. But reading the information wasn’t my job. All I needed to do was make sure that the people who could read them could find them.
Time ticked by slowly. Every time I finished a box there would be another one waiting. I was told, when I was hired, that there were millions of files that needed the coding stickers put on them. It wasn’t challenging but it was necessary.
‘And I could pass the security clearance,’ I thought. The thought amused me. I had to go through a series of intense background checks to make sure I was suitable for the post. To make sure I wasn’t passing any information on. Even then I was pretty sure the person who did the checks was suspicious of me even applying for the post in the first place. Perhaps they were starting me off on low clearance files just to make sure I was safe for going deeper into the files.
I rolled my eyes at the thought and reached for a new folder. I had no interest in anything these files contained. My plan was to simply do what I was told and collect a paycheck. I didn’t care what information was in the files. I only wanted the steady pay so I could pay my bills and figure out where I wanted to go from here. The truth was I never intended to take a job like this, but three months’ prior, my world went pear shaped.
Ten til Midnight 