Writing Prompts (2010)

How much Longer?

300! 300 minutes passed by and I was still sitting in here. Over the past 300 minutes the phone rang 20 times. I had over half of it leave a message, and the other half I picked up.The cabinets needed some assistance, but with my condition, I left it alone. Blurred moments of last night lingered in my mind and the bookshelf three feet away transfigured into a sofa. I got up just as the phone rang. I tried answering in my warmest tone ever, but it wasn’t very convincing. The desk was searched until I found a writing utensil and some notepads. I picked up the fallen photo on the ground for the thirtieth time that day and dropped it on the desk. Another half hour went by, and I found myself tracing the pattern of the crack on the ceiling. Concentrating on it, I could make out the mold build up in the crack. After clearing my eyes of tiredness, the light in the room seemed even duller than before. I studied the door hinges. They were rusty, no doubt old, and it wouldn’t close properly, spilling a thin line of light from the hallway. I noticed the unevenness of the desk top for the one hundredth time of my two years there. I rested my hands on the desk top, tipping over a pile of documents. Leaning over to pick it up, my eyes drifted over the white floor. Dust covered the lot of the ground, especially in the corners and under the lopsided bookshelf. Just as closely as I had studied the ceiling crack, I noticed an almost identical crack along the floor. Fortunately, there was no mold build up. It was then that I realized the clock adjacent the desk was ticking. I sat back in my chair totally ignoring the fallen documents and studied the clock. Its second hand ticked backwards with every forward movement of the minute hand. I quickly swiveled around colliding the chair with the corner of the desk. I grabbed my things and left the room in three quick strides, time to go home.