New York

The minute I prepared for my desk move they postponed it for a week due to a phone connection problem.

I put my two postcards of New York back up. What aspiring writer doesn’t want to see New York? I dream of a long visit, perhaps noting ideas for a novel whilst staying an old Brownstone hotel. I dream of peering up at the Empire State, hot dogs and pretzels, dodging yellow cabs and of stopping to rest and sip coffee on a bench in Central Park.

In the meantime, Howard told everyone he’d extended the hand of charity by giving me a pay rise and the promise of a better job. When he approached the Office with a sheet of A4 and she laughed after reading it, I knew it wasn’t good. Perhaps my New York postcards had given him the idea, but he’d made a sign about me including the Statue of Liberty inscription. He hung it above his desk in full view of the office.

Think of this whenever Eva speaks:-

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore
Send these, the homeless,
The tempest-tossed to me
I lift my lamp beside the golden door. 

I’m grounded enough to realise, of course, that New York is a distant dream when I can’t escape this office or even relocate to the other side of the room without technical problems and humiliations.

Eva x