Matt, inside the security of his office, leans back in his chair, one hand behind his head, the other holding a thick, white sheet of paper. He looks at it with mild distaste.
“Wow, that kind of format would require a programmer. We’re web page designers, not magicians.” He throws the paper on his desk and runs his fingers through his hair, fisting his hands. With a push of his leg, he spins his chair toward the computer, waving his hand in front of the screen so it comes to life. He presses touch-buttons on the screen, opening his mail. He scrolls the list with his finger, the title of each e-mail expanding to show the full name.
His face drops, “Mandatory lay-offs…” he mumbles. He quickly double-taps the screen, pulling up the full document. His heads quickly oscillates as his eyes scan the notice. He gives a sigh of what seems to be relief, but rubs his chin anxiously. He taps a microphone beside his monitor. It beeps twice.
Sitting back, he commands, “Forward to Amber.”
A “Send Message” box pops up on his screen with “MamaCherry11@atw.per” in the “Send To:” box, with a half-transparent image of Amber’s smiling face behind it. After a moment, Matt sighs again and states, “Cancel.” The dialog box disappears, re-revealing the notice.
“Close all,” he states. Everything abruptly disappears from the screen. Looking at the digital clock projection on his inside window and seeing it is shortly after
“Sleep,” he passively states.
His computer beeps, and a box appears on the screen, “Streamline?” it reads.
“Why not?” he answers, annoyed.
He is answered with an obnoxious buzz. “Yes,” he grumbles. Immediately the computer begins to making muffled whirling and grinding noises. He throws on his coat and leaves.
: : :
Amber, sitting in her dark turquoise minivan, drums the steering board impatiently. She looks in the rearview mirror at her son playing with his handheld video game. “Luke, baby, are you sure your sister didn’t go home with somebody?”
With nothing more than normal preteen irritability, he responds after pausing his game, “Mom, Carrie doesn’t talk to me much. I mean, I didn’t overhear her saying she was gonna go home with anybody or see her going home with anybody.”
Amber sways her head to the right, “Never mind. Here she comes.”
Caroline jumps into the car, “Sorry, Mrs. O’Blackwell kept me afterwards.”
“Did you not turn in your homework again?”
“No, Mom, Mrs. O’Blackwell teaches English. I always turn in my English and it’s always wonderful. That’s why she wanted to talk to me. She asked me if I could write something to submit to the literary magazine.”
“Oh,” Amber abruptly. “Sorry…”
Amber mumbles are interrupted by her mobile phone ringing. She looks into the LCD screen on her dashboard that attached to her phone, which states, simply, “
She picks up the phone. “Hey,
Caroline, in the backseat, sarcastically mouths her mother’s words.
“Okay, Jimmy’s mom’s gonna take you home? Well tell her ‘Hi’ and ‘Thanks’ for me. Alright, see ya, babe.”
“Lord, what would I do without Allison’s occasional favors?”
Pronouncing it, Caroline replies, “Run around like a hen with her head cut off?”
“…like a chicken… And I’ll work on my anachronisms, thank you very much.”
: : :
Amber quietly stirs a pot on the stove in the kitchen, humming. “Mom,” Luke says as he enters the kitchen, “can I watch TV?”
Amber smiles, “Homework done?”
“Yes,” Luke says immediately, holding up a floppy disk.
“Okay, but just for a little bit.” Luke is already gone into the living room.
Matt walks in and kisses his wife, “Hey, Honey, how was your day?”
“Normal. Exactly like every other day only not.”
Matt laughs, “Luke?”
“School, homework, which
“What’s he watching?”
Amber, getting back her cooking, says, “I donna know. He just went.”
“There’s a function on the TV that’ll tell us.”
Matt grabs the remote atop the small, kitchen television set and turns it on. He presses buttons and a diagram appears on the screen. He scrolls to the living room television and a show pops on screen, and seconds later, the station and program in the lower left-hand corner.
Matt replies, “House Overloaded, family sitcom.”
“You’re such a snoop,” Amber teases.
“Hey, I didn’t program this technology. It’s just standard when you get monitors now.”
“You gotta love technology. We haven’t solved world hunger get, but we can use the computer, watch TV, and listen to radio on a single TV set. Remember when we were all excited when
“Burning…”
“Computers are replacing everything… cable television, postal services, any communication for that matter…”
“Jobs…”
Amber turns around, “Well, yeah. Matt…” Her faces freezes, her eyebrows slightly lowered in concern.
“Mandatory lay-offs…” In reaction to his wife’s sudden shock, he continues, “Not me, but half my team gone.”
“Why are they cutting your team when you are already overworked?”
“Low profit margins…”
“What?! In the fifteen years I’ve been out of work, the economy has only gotten better. I know all about profit margins, and your company’s margins are high enough.”
“I know, I know…”
Amber turns around again, and flatly, “Matt, are we going to be okay?”
Matt comes up and hugs his wife from behind, “Babe, I’m plenty qualified for a lot of different things. Don’t worry about it. If things go from bad to worse, I will get us out soon enough. When I agreed to marry you and have the kids with you, I need what it was going to—”
Amber cuts him off with a short kiss, “Okay. Tell the kids dinner’s almost ready.” She puts on a forced smile.
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