Paperwork

• Elizabeth Pickersgill, Grade 12
• Short Story
• 2010

The incessant drone of the air conditioner was lulling me to sleep as I turned page after page of each file before me. As one stack of files shrunk the next one grew to greater heights. At the rate I was going I’d be doing this one task for years to come.

Sometimes I think life is all about paperwork: you’re forever putting pen to paper, fingertips to keys, all for the purpose of explaining how and why you did something on such and such a day. Everyone seems to want to know the how and why of things instead of just taking things as they come, accepting them for what they are. Exams are much the same: you have to give the right answer (there’s only ever one) and if you don’t it’s too bad, your fault. They make you feel stupid and worthless, and worst of all everyone seems to believe them to be infallible.

But life shouldn’t be about exams and paper, it’s wrong that you’re made to feel as if it’s the end of the world when you fail. Those things should just be inconsequential, something to learn from, just like a paper cut. At first when you cut your finger whilst filing you don’t notice the sting, but after a while it grows to the point where you can’t ignore it, and you look down and see to your surprise you’ve got a paper cut. Upon this realisation you accept what’s happened, put your finger to your mouth and suck on it a little to take the sting away. And just like that you’re fine, you’re moving on. As the saying goes ‘there’s no use crying over spilt milk’ so the saying should go ‘there’s no point dwelling on what’s been and gone’. You just have to move on. Place the file on another stack for another day, week, month or year.

I wish I could take my advice, but I sit here day after day, filing paperwork, moving it from one stack to another in an attempt to make sense of the cluttered desk that is my life. I haven’t made any progress: if anything I’ve gone backwards, created a greater mess than when I started out. Soon the files will come crashing down upon me, an overbearing weight looming high above my head. The question then will be “Will I survive and if I do, who will I be?”