Dreams of the Quill

Entry #3 in the first Dreams of the Quill Writing Challenge.

Operator 35571

The grey walls of the cubicle stared back at Paul as he sipped the morning coffee that he’d made himself. He’d screwed it up again, which was obvious from the grimace on his bespectacled face. Closing the thermos and setting aside his first failure of the day, he waited for the ticket queue to load on his workstation.

The morning meeting was approaching; that 8:30 ritual that sets the tone of the day. Typically, the boss gives a speech about the customers that made Paul want to drink the failed coffee and projectile vomit all over the boss. Sadly that courage never materialized, and the spacing out would just continue.

The hum of ringtones across the cubicle farm droned on and on, only when a louder drone was heard did Paul spring back from staring at the fabric that draped the cubicle walls.

Straightening the headset, Paul clicked the answer button.

“CTS support, this is Paul, operator 35571, and how can I help you with your issues today?” Paul recited the script perfectly, for fear of being “Monitored and recorded.”

This is typically where some bozo complains that they’ve spilled coffee into the computer, or can’t figure out why the screen is blank, or can’t find the ‘any’ key. Most of these were office jokes by now, and they’d be funny if they weren’t so real. Even if the boss didn’t want to call the people on the other end “users” anymore, you had to figure that ‘user’ is just another word inside “cUStomER?”

“Hi, this is Hallie down in finance. My keyboard is not working right anymore.”

Paul sarcastically, but cheerfully responded, “Ok, what did you spill in it, do I need to send the coffee police down there again?”

Paul’s demeanor when working with customers was different from his usual spacey attitude, everyone loved him. He excelled in making people really want to work with him, because his stupid user jokes struck a chord with the everyday Joe that called the tech support line. It earned him several gold stars for customer service, and made the average support employee jealous.

Outside of work, he couldn’t muster a word to someone who sounded as nice as Hallie. In the real world Paul erected walls between himself and pretty girls. At work, he was superman on the phone, scaling walls like they didn’t exist.

“Ha Ha,” Hallie replied, “It’s really not my fault, I swear.”

She sounded cute, like she really meant it and truly wasn’t an idiot. If only that were true.

“OK, OK, let me pull up your info.” Paul asked her for her employee number as he typed the data into the ticket system. Hallie’s data appeared in front of him and stared back at him. She was one floor beneath him, and so very close.

“Hellooooo, are you still there?” Hallie asked.

“Yes, sorry, you know these computers, slow as hell.” Paul’s technical sarcasm was in full swing now. “I swear they give you guys the good computers while we get the left over crap.”

Hallie laughed.

Paul continued, “So your keyboard is dead, like, what’s broken?”

“Half of the keys don’t work anymore; everything left of the T doesn’t work.”

“Okay, so you can’t type with the left side anymore, okay. Sounds like that one is off to the great keyboard graveyard in some poor Chinese kid’s backyard.” He chuckled.

“That’s not very nice, you know,” Hallie said, as seriously as she could.

Paul began to sweat, he figured he’d blown it at this point.

“Gotcha!” she yelled and began laughing. “I know we recycle this crap somewhere, but in the end you really don’t know where it goes.”

Paul hit the mute button and sighed loudly, unmuted and returned, “Yeah, no kidding, but hey, if it makes the investors feel better then so be it.

“Hallie,” he continued, “I’ve set up a second level monkey, I mean technician, to come down and get you a new keyboard. It shouldn’t be too long, but they’ll be there in a bit.”

After Hallie finished laughing at the monkey joke, she continued, “Shit, really? Like how long, because I have this presentation that I needed to finish before nine this morning, and now I can’t finish it.”

Paul was not the guy who did the replacements; he was just the phone guy, hidden behind his earpiece and microphone. Days like this were his norm, and Hallie was a bright spot.

“Let me see if I can convince one of those guys to move their fat asses down to help you out.”

“Great Paul, I hope they get down here soon.”

“Yeah, see if I can tear them away from the morning smoke break. Let me get you a ticket number.” Paul punched the keys on his working keyboard and the computer responded with a unique identifier for Hallie’s issue. Firing off a copy to the printer, and Paul was on his way to find the second level support losers that pretended to know more than Paul ever did.

***

In their usual spot on the terrace, the two elitist server administrators and the two second level support people sat and engaged in their typical daily ritual of coffee and cigarettes that always took the first hour of the day. Paul opened the door and shivered at the morning chill that the wind brought in over his short-sleeved polo shirt.

“Hey, you fuckers done yet? There are people inside there that need shit done, or do I have to do your jobs for you?”

Gary, the old one, replied, “Fuck you, Paul. You young people have no respect for your elders, and could give a shit for the expertise we bring to this job.”

“Expertise?” Paul said, “How many sysadmins and support people does it take to change a god damned keyboard. Don’t answer, you smoke and ‘confer’ and just give me the key so I can go fix what you don’t want to do anyway.”

“Yeah, maybe you’ll learn something and the boss will promote you.”

“Suck my dick, Gary.” Paul said

Gary took a drag from his smoke, flipped the bird and in a terrible attempt at a New York accent muttered, “Fock you, Paul,” and tossed the key for the equipment room to Paul.

Paul happily jaunted off to the equipment room, and grabbed a new keyboard.

***

When he saw her, he wasn’t sure he could even talk to her. Paul’s usual façade behind the headset was not as easy when it was in person, but Hallie was just as beautiful as she sounded. There was no time for confusion, and no time to hide, because he was there and she needed his help. Hallie’s pale skin, and brown hair framed her grimacing face as she threw the keyboard to her desk in disgust at the part.

Composure regained, Paul strolled over, keyboard box tucked tightly under his arm.

“Hallie?”

“Yes…OH MY GOD, is that my new keyboard?”

Paul, sheepishly replied, “Yup, this is it, has that new keyboard smell and everything.”

“I’m so happy right now that I could kiss you.”

Paul was pretty sure that he turned about as red as humanly possible, but managed to squeeze out, “Let me get this installed first, then you can put in a gold star form if you want, and save the kisses for later.”

Hallie didn’t seem amused by Paul’s joking comment. Paul wiped the sweat from his brow and got to work replacing the failed peripheral, ignoring his idiotic comment. Crawling under the desk to do the dirty work, Paul cursed himself for his inadequacy.

***

It was short work to replace the part, and Paul just couldn’t recover from his earlier gaffe.

“All set, It was nice meeting you,” Paul said as he turned to leave. “Sorry for the trouble.”

Paul’s pace back to the elevator was swift and calculated. As he pushed the up button, he realized that Hallie was standing next to him.

“You didn’t let me say ‘Thank you.’” She clenched her hands behind her and tilted her head and smiled.

“You just did…look I’m really sorry for what I said back there it was probably inappropriate, but you know you said something first…” She stopped his yammering with her index finger

“Why don’t you shut up and text me when you get your lunch break. We should grab a bite in the food court.” She opened Paul’s palm and pressed a small scrap of paper into it.

The elevator dinged and the door opened, Paul slowly backed into the elevator and watched Hallie’s smile fade to center as the door closed.

Back at his desk, Paul wasn’t sure what to think as he touched the spot on his lips where Hallie’s finger had left its invisible mark. Paul missed the morning meeting, but really didn’t care whether his boss noticed. The calls came and went, the idiots and morons that couldn’t remember their passwords, or that their monitor didn’t turn the computer on, were no match for Paul on a day like this. Time passed, and nothing could sour his demeanor.

It was time, the half hour of the day where Paul was supposed to take lunch. Paul’s lifeline to Hallie now laid in his cell phone as he pulled her up from her freshly entered address book entry and tapped the screen with the short message that would be a gateway to interaction with a beautiful woman who was actually interested in him.

I’ll be out of here in five, shall we meet by the food court elevator? – He pressed Send and waited.

The reply came – I’ll be there, by the Sbarro. Hallie.

***

The elevator was crowded and smelled like old socks, but you can’t ask for much in the downtown mall’s food court. The elevator door opened, and the exodus from the smelly little room began. Smells of the day’s fast food concoctions wafted in and overtook the odor of feet. Pizza, McDonalds, the random Cheese Steak place, the generic Chinese food place, and the other generic Chinese food place combined to create a stench where the odor of socks was actually preferable. Regardless, Paul ate here every day with Gary and any of the others from the support team who tagged along.

Hallie was waiting perfectly by the wall, in her black pants and purple blazer, flowing curls that framed her perfect face. As Paul approached, nervously, she turned to greet him and smiled.

“Hey,” she said. So very simply, yet it still melted Paul as he approached.

“Good afternoon, your friendly neighborhood CTS employee is here to assist you with your lunch plans.” Paul was nervously making things up because he honestly had no idea why anyone would be so interested in him.

“Drop the act, Paul. I get it, you’re nervous, but it’s OK. I’m here, you’re here, let’s just get along.”

Paul faked a sigh of relief.

“You know, I just get used to being so accommodating on the phone that I forget how to act with real people.”

“No kidding, so what’s good down here? I usually bring my lunch, and I’m a bit new in town.”

“Well, let’s see. To your left we have shit on a bun, next to that cardboard with cheese on it,” Paul said, pointing to McDonalds and then Sbarro. “And to our right, I think that place serves cat and the other one dog.” He pointed to the two Chinese places.

Hallie grimaced, “When you put it like that, I think I’ll pass on it all.”

Paul got nervous and started to think he lost this one with his stupid sense of humor. He’s been told that his sense of humor was no good when he tried to be funny, but he was nervous.

“Would you be interested in just taking a walk with me around this lovely place?”

“Uh, sure, that’s preferable to eating at any of these places.” Paul smiled as she saved him from failing yet again.

So they walked and just talked. As Hallie’s lips complained about her boss and how he promoted some blonde bimbo to VP because she looked good, it really didn’t matter to Paul what she said. She smelled like spring rain, and looked like a goddess to him. Nothing mattered, she was there with him, and only him.

They wandered around the mall and ended up in the train terminal. Being the middle of the day people streamed in from the terminal and up the stairs to street level to go about their days. The terminal was old, but recently renovated with granite walls that blended into each other. They stopped and looked around, and for the moment, Paul swore they were invisible to the hordes of people coming and going.

“When do you need to get back?” he asked.

“I really don’t give a shit.”

“Aren’t you worried about your manager getting mad?”

“He’s probably too busy fucking the new assistant to worry about me, and I’d rather be here.”

Paul felt the blood drain from his face.

He stammered, “I didn’t know you liked trains so much.”

Original photograph by Sergey Ashmarin.
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“I don’t,” she said, “I like you.”

Paul’s knees went weak and he leaned against the wall to support himself.

“Stop fucking with me, you can’t possibly be serious.”

Hallie grabbed his hand and pressed into him as he leaned on the wall, and whispered into his ear, “I am serious.”

As she turned her mouth toward his, her breath felt like fire against his blood-drained cheeks, and her lips were mere nanometers from his. She made her move, and pushed into his lips, staining his lips with her lipstick in a kiss so powerful that Paul was sure no one had ever recorded in modern memory. Paul’s muscles went weak and his head hit the wall behind him.

***

Paul hit his head on the desk as he finally found the right port on the back of the computer.

Hallie was nowhere to be found as Paul slowly backed out from beneath the desk. Paul looked around and found her sitting in another cubicle talking with another employee.

He walked over to her, “You’re all set, I’ll take this one back to the recycler since it’s had it.”

“Thanks, I was starting to wonder how long it took to replace a keyboard,” she said in a huff.

“Sorry about that,” was all Paul could muster to say as he walked upstairs.

***

Paul sat down at his desk, and put on his headset. Typing into his keyboard, he input the resolution of Hallie’s problem into the ticket system, and hovered over the ‘close’ button. If he clicked the button, Hallie’s issue would go into the vast abyss of closed tickets that no one would ever read again.

There was no point; he had failed to even have a meaningful conversation with a woman again.

Paul pushed on the mouse button and the ‘close’ button did its work and the ticket disappeared.

The phone rang, “CTS support, this is Paul, operator 35571, and how can I help you with your issues today?” Paul read from the script once again…

***

Hallie’s screen blinked with a new e-mail.

“CTS Customer survey of operator 35571 on your recent support call.”

Hallie opened the e-mail and began filling out the survey.