The Time…Friday Fiction in Five Sentences

He could recreate her routine to the last second, sometimes he watched and silently willed her to break it, but like clockwork, she kept to her schedule of little things.

At precisely 4.15, she would come in, a creature of habit, she loved to sit in the same chair and the quieter corner behind the shelf with Art on a bold plaque pinned to its side.

She would plug in her laptop, put on her headphones, hum and move to the soundless music as she happily chomped on Twizzlers and tapped away rhythmically on her Toshiba laptop.

At 6.30 she would rise, stretch her taut limbs that bordered on thin, go for a restroom break and return with her lips glistening pink from gloss, a powdered face and a cup of decaf from the vending machine.

Now it’s 5 minutes to 8, he watched her pack up her things, in less than two minutes she would take the stairs two at a time, sadly, she seemed happy today, it was time, so he followed behind.

© Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha