No one, but no one has had sex in this elevator. I don’t care what the Dempster claims about the Christmas party two years ago. I don’t believe he’s gotten laid in over five years, and the fact that he still hits on me is proof. I have a glare that will wither at ten paces. Five if you get me on a good day. The goods elevator is never cleaned, and has dust drifting up the sides. I’m positive no one has had sex in it. Ever.

This thought has filled me with vague feeling of happiness.

When the tone dings for the third floor, I hate it. When the tone dings for the fourth floor, I hate it. I hate all floors but my own. No, scratch that I hate my own and all other floors. I hate all the people that work in this hideous building and the building and the incredibly pretentious, useless job that we do.

My job? My job is to deliver piles and piles of packages to the suits upstairs. What do those packages contain? Hope. They contain hundreds and hundreds of peoples hope, from all over the country. They send in their manuscripts, their opuses, hours of dedicated work, sweat and tears. And then someone upstairs takes a large red pen and writes a two letter word on the front cover. No. And that’s it, gone. Dashed. Hopes swept away in one brush of the pen.

And I don’t for a second believe that there is a single difference between the manuscripts that make it and the manuscripts that don’t. It’s a whim, a random thought, a single diverging path.

Did I mention that I hate it here?

So why do I work here? Because it’s money. Not a lot, but in New York, decent jobs are hard to come by, jobs in a publishing house, nearly impossible to come by. Most of the people who work by my side are either people who pray that one day, they‘ll be upstairs with a red pen, or they’re the ones whose work has been decimated by said instrument. Me, I just want money. I got lucky with the job, and I don’t plan on giving it up any time soon, no matter how much I hate it.

I push my cart along the fourth floor and drop mail as I go. I know everyone’s name in relation to their pigeon hole. Some people merit a little box at the start of each office area. Some people are more important, and get an inbox. I hate those people more than the others. They’re so… pretentious and boring. Anyone with an inbox is automatically boring.

I dump the fourth floor mail with a vigour that surprises me. Some. I make it to the third floor before I feel it all fly away. I am left with the same apathy I started the day with.

I won’t pretend it gets any better. It doesn’t. I eat my peanut butter sandwich at lunch, with the same level of indifference.

I make it through the afternoon the same way.

I walk to the subway and then sigh when I realize I don’t have the change for a fare. That’s what happens when I actually have lunch; when I bother to spend the money on a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter.

I get home, open the door, and trip over a body lying across the threshold. This is nothing new. I stumble to my bedroom and close the door.

Did I mention that I wasn’t happy? Good. That’s important. Because that’s how I deserve to be.