by Charlotte Reeder

Every day
The same routine
Get filing done by 8:15
The boss will be unhappy
If you defy the regime.

At ten o’ clock,
The hour has struck
The time at which
You’ve scored your luck
Just one report
On boss’s desk
And you’ll be fine,

A sitting duck.
Statistics due
At five to noon
Your lunch break passed
And so would you
If boss found out the way
That you’ve been slacking
With your dues.

At one o’ clock,
You notice that
Your office mate
Who always set
His papers unattended
Is today quite awfully late.

At two, Mike from accounting
Came to visit with the boss,
But when he left his office,
His eyes had a gloss,
A dazed, far off expression,
Like he almost wasn’t there
A wandering way of walking
One that made him seem quite lost.

Nine o’ clock.
The room is dark,
The office empty,
Silence stark.
A stack of undone papers
Sits in front of you unmarked.

When did you lose consciousness?
When did you slack off?
When did night come suddenly,
Without the day cut off?

Only one light still stays on,
Foreboding warning for those not gone,
It’s boss’s light, the door ajar,
It’s calling to you, from afar.

Your work’s undone,
You know your fate,
Yet even as you see the gate,
The entrance to demise
Doesn’t quite seem like it will wait.

And as you wander down the hall,
You can’t recall your boss at all.
No face, or name, or tell alike,
Just The Thing that had changed Mike.

And when you open up the door,
You don’t care of it anymore,
Fluorescent light, calling your name,
Boss’s office.
It’s all Its game.

This piece won the March 2025 contest:”Write about a mundane room like it has great importance.”