Farm

Silvia spent her afternoons dreaming of owning a farm. Not the kind with acre upon acre of one crop. No, hers was the random sort, with a different crop in every row, a barn zoo-full of variety, and a big, drafty house built of hand-piled stones and with less than a dozen electrical outlets.

She relished the notion of leaving the computer-centric world, reading a dog-eared paperback novel by the light of a fire rather than wasting her time online, making pretend food and chatting with moved-away friends.

Instead, the four flat-screen monitors displayed her many tasks-in-progress. The first, always filled with lines of code, poetry mixed with crudeness, the fodder of corporate existence. The second monitor for emails, as memos flew through the office like dragonflies, faster and more efficient than face to face communication. The art of conversation had such covens to blame for its annihilation. The third, a debugging screen, the mistress for screen number one. And lastly, her favourite, a web browser, her gateway to escape, her connection beyond the cubicle walls, her lover, her compadre, her salvation.

The post-lunch sleepiness always hit her the hardest during her monthly week of misery. Chocolate scraped the edge of it away, but could never fully contain the wrath of hormone-induced depression. These were her least productive days, during which the notion of a simpler life flooded her beyond the hundred-year-line. On such afternoons, her misfortunes could not only be counted, they could be placed in a ledger and profited upon.