Your Day

Summary: Written for the prompt(s): Write a fragment of a story that is made up entirely of imperative commands. Do this, do that; contemplate the rear end of the woman who is walking out of your life. This exercise will be a sort of second-person narration (a you is implied in the imperative). 500 words.



Wake up . . . like the day you emerged from the womb.

Let your eyes, filled with promise, adjust to the sunlight painting golden-brown shadows across your ceiling. Listen to the noisy sparrows outside your window squabble over worms in the garden.

Roll over onto your side while stretching out the kinks of last night’s hopes, fears, and dreams. Shake off the failures of yesterday, and the broken promises, too. Remember that you made him smile. Recall how you made her laugh.

Sit up and put your feet on the cool, hard wood floor. Squiggle your toes and stamp the beginnings of a smile on your face. Stand up and stretch again as you pad noisily to the bathroom, the slap-slap of your bare feet a counterpoint to the noisy sparrows.

Make today your day.

Take a shower then mug for the mirror. Brush your teeth while singing Taylor Swift to your appreciative toothbrush. Eat lukewarm breakfast on the way to your car. Guzzle scalding-hot coffee on your way to work. Don’t stress about traffic or possibly being late for work.

Get there when you get there.

Park your car at the opposite end of the lot because the exercise is good for you.

Greet all and sundry when you walk in the big, glass doors. Take the stairs to your floor—not because of the exercise, but because riding the back of a giant sea turtle to your cubicle would be faster than the elevator. Take the stairs two at a time, like when you were a kid, because you can and because it’s fun.

Saunter toward your cubicle like you’re not out of breath and . . . . glowing from exertion.

Make friends with the shy newbie in Accounts Receivable. Exchange emails and mean it when you say you’ll go bowling together sometime soon.

Step into your cubicle. Take a deep breath and put away the you who’ll only reappear in a five o’clock world that happens eight and a half hours hence.

But smile.

Smile, and be thankful for the private space of your modest cubicle. Be glad you’re not Janet in Accounts Payable, who does more griping about the lack of breathing room in her significantly larger cubicle than she does actual accounting.

(Acknowledge that for eight hours a day—perhaps even longer—it really sucks to be Janet.)

Do work till you’re in the Zone. Once in the Zone, keep working till you forget you’re working and start to dream. . . .

Live in your dreams till lunchtime. At lunchtime, go to Gilardi’s. Have the white pizza, since the sauce tends to give you wicked heartburn. (Make a note to self: See the doctor about persistent heartburn.)

Fight off the ‘itis that comes with a good lunch on a warm day, and head back to work. Nod to the noob and to miserable Janet, even though the latter doesn’t even notice. Once at your cubicle, sit, and work through the sleepiness until you hit the Zone again. Work like you mean to earn this paycheck.

But don’t go overboard. Call it quits around five-thirty.

Hang around your cubicle, chatting over the dividing wall with Marsha Duffy while you check your personal email. Shoot off a quick email to the noob in Accounts Receivable: Bowling on Thursday??? Let’s massacre some pins!

Shut down the computer. Exit the building. High five Mr. Hong, the night janitor, as he’s entering the building. Cross the empty parking lot. Commute home. Stop at Ari’s on the way there, for dinner: a gyro with extra white sauce.

Let yourself into your apartment. Lock the door behind you. Turn on the lights and look around contentedly. Acknowledge that this is home and you are home.

Change into your old, sprung sweatpants and Mickey Mouse t-shirt. Slam down that gyro and extra white sauce while watching Netflix. Enjoy the adventures of the Doctor and Martha till your eyes grow heavy. Pause the show. Turn off the television. Turn out the lights in the living room and shuffle off to the bedroom.

Slide between the cool sheets with sleepy appreciation of that coolness. Turn off the bedside lamp.

Think about today—this marvelous, strange, wonderful day—till your eyelids become too heavy to lift and the darkness of the bedroom becomes the darkness behind your eyes. Take a drowsy moment to ponder what wonders tomorrow will bring. . . .

Then sleep . . . like you slept the night after you were first born. And dream.

Dream.

END