Touch typing

Thomas was working on the IT infrastructure programme plan when his head of section, Samantha, came into his office. She was stunning, as usual. She gave him a provocative glance, moved towards his desk, perhaps standing a little closer than the normal collegial distance would allow, and looked at him working.
Why not, Thomas thought. I can also play that game.
He started caressing the keys as he was typing, sometimes touching the mouse with sensual dexterity. She leaned a little bit closer. With an audacity he knew that he would regret, he did two blank lines and started a new paragraph

Would you care to meet me later, maybe for a drink? You look absolutely gorgeous, as always.

Then he paused a moment, waiting for the sky to fall down over his head. It didn't. Samantha only said:
- Good work, Thomas. Will the report be ready before the meeting?
Thomas cursed inwardly, how could he have been so stupid.
- Yes of course, he said in a rather cool voice.

That evening, as Thomas drowned his humiliation at the local pub, Samantha told the little anecdote to her husband, Jens.
- Today, I went into that IT guy's office, and it was absolutely amazing. I had to stay and look. You wouldn't believe it, the way he was touching the keyboard, it was as if he had fallen in love with it. The way he was caressing the mouse. Come on, computers are nice but I wouldn't call them sexy.
- IT guys are always like that, Jens said.
- I must have seemed extremely stupid, Samantha mused. As I watched him typing, I suddenly started wondering whether you can touch-type with crossed hands or not. I must have stood there for ages, thinking about it. Then I had to say something, so I asked whether he would get his report ready on time. He seemed really annoyed that I'm checking what he's doing, I just hope this isn't going to blow into a conflict with the IT staff.
- You know what I always say, Jens said. 80 % of everything that happens only happens in our own heads. There is probably no reason to worry.

Spelling it out

Suzannah brought a new dimension to every play "A problem, why? I do it on purpose" she performed in, thanks to her improbable timing. According to Bob Tanner, a drama student with interest in statistics, Suzannah delivered 2 % of her lines extremely early, 21 % slightly early, 17 % on time, 38 % slightly delayed, and 22 % wildly delayed (average over 1997).
She had a way of making it all look perfectly natural. One memorable evening, starring as Juliet, she delivered all her lines, one after one, from first love to the final suicide, the first moment she laid eyes on Romeo. The rest of the play, she went through all the motions with an air of quiet, horrified resignation. The effect was slightly unsettling.
Her co-acters never lasted long; their most frequent reason was stomach ulcers.
When asked whether she perceived her complete lack of timing as a problem, she smiled and said:

Ruthlessly

Ruth was a woman without faith, but she had one creed.

Never ever admit it.

It had helped her a lot. It helped her through that terrible accident when she reversed to park her car in the office garage, knocked down the caretaker's bicycle and sent the waste paper containers skidding down to the next level into the PR officer's new mercedes.
It helped her innumerous times in arguments with her husband. "No, I never promised to go to the shop". "No, I didn't forget to pay that bill". "No, I didn't break that cup". It was somebody else's mistake and she couldn't take any responsibility for what other people are doing. How would she know.

Now she was walking home in her usual stride, arms swinging energetically, her eyes staring past and through her fellow pedestrians. She scared a couple of kids and caused an insecure traffic warden to drop his pen, but hardly noticed. Her mind was elsewhere.

This morning, one of her stiletto-heeled black shoes had got stuck in the escalator in the metro. She had continued walking as if nothing had happened, for good reasons, because behind her the morning rush had come to a sudden, confused stop as the emergency alarm went off.
She had continued in the same manner all day. One stiletto-heeled black shoe, one tiptoing foot in a threadworn but formerly very expensive silk stocking. Her angry eyes daring anyone to take notice. In and out of meetings, all day. Now at last she was heading home, finally she would be able to drown her humiliation and frustration in a very stiff gin and tonic. Only a couple of blocks to go on the uneven pavement.

That evening would later turn out to be a defining moment in her existence. It took her completely unaware, and there was nothing she could have done to avoid it. A soft hand on her shoulder, a kind but sligthly worried voice talking straight into her ear.
- Excusez-moi Madame, il me semble que vous auriez perdu un de vos chaussures.
"It seems to me that you would have mislaid one of your shoes", what an understatement!
Ruth searched furiously for words but her French seemed completely evaporated. She considered brushing the woman aside, but suddenly her arms were feeble like spaghetti. She looked down at her hopelessly ridiculous bare foot in its broken stocking, and took a deep breath to keep her voice steady.

- Oops, she said.

Quantitative assessment

Quentin sighed and put down his pencil on the table with an irritated gesture.
- How many times have I told you that I don't need to be disturbed? I'm working on an cost valuation of the social costs of dying from cancer and I can't do that if you keep bothering me all the time.
- I just wanted you to feel this lump in my breast, his wife said meekly.
Without looking at her, Quentin got up from his chair, his manuscripts in a heavy pile in his arms, brushed past her, stormed down the stairs to the windowless room in the basement where years of disagreements had taught his wife never to trespass, and continued writing in longhand the sentence he had been struggling with when he was interrupted.

"Since primary income is lower for women than for men, initiatives supporting men's health should be preferred over initiatives supporting women's health, all other things being equal. Ethically, this may be considered as problematic..."

He paused and listened to the annoying sound of his wife pacing the living room floor upstairs, like she always did when she was upset or angry. Then he deleted the last sentence.

Paternal

- I don't think that I've seen so many in one place at once, said the doctor.
- No, said Paul, I have done what I can to create a good environment for them. I have found that you need to be really careful with chemicals, and I have stopped smoking.
The doctor leaned forward to take a closer look, and one of his blond locks of hair fell over his eye. He took a quick step backwards, alarmed.
- I don't think you need to worry. Normally, they don't attack.
The doctor smiled but did not move closer again.
- Could you please tell me how this started?
Paul started from the beginning, talking about the void he had felt in his life, and how he had come to realize that it might be the physical impossibility of carrying a baby in his body that made him feel so bad.
- Then I read this book, Värddjuret, about a woman carrying butterfly larvae in her thigh. She was in Borneo when the insects entered her body. I could not afford the trip, so I had to come up with another idea. I meet a lot of children through my work and that's how I came up with this.
- Ah, well, I think I understand why you started this. But why head lice?
- It seemed like a cool idea at the time. But now I've decided to get a dobermann instead. Nuke the itchy bastards.

One phrase only, but how to use it?

Ottojust couldn't wait to use the sentence that had come to him like a flash from a clear sky. The sentence had been in his mind as he woke up, like an instant message from a presidential campaign leader cheating in a debate. (That was Otto's insiduous association, not mine. )

Otto walked his way to the office, talking to acquaintancies and colleagues as he arrived, hoping that soon someone would say something that would seamlessly lead up to his new sentence.
But it was exasperatingly difficult.
All day passed. Otto's shiny new sentence started to show the first signs of rust around lunchtime. At three Otto became aware that the edges of his new sentence has started to get worn and frayed. At six, just before Otto left for the day, he realised that the former glory of the new sentence had all but vanished. And it had never been uttered, even once.

- Au revoir, Monsieur, said the security guard. Bonne soirée.
Buggers! This might be the last chance to use the new sentence before it was completely decomposed, and the man didn't even speak English. It couldn't be helped. Otto smiled the wry smile he had practised all day.
- I feel a strong urge to be defensive, but it's not entirely clear how you try to attack me.
Somehow, this sentence had sounded better in his head, he reflected.

The security guard smiled indulgently, this was not the first time he had met an Englishman trying to speak French with such a terrible accent that it might as well be another language.

No new expenses

Nick's undertakers had to carry his body from his small flat, down the three flights of winding, narrow stairs, to the ground floor and out into the street.
His life had come to an end prematurely; he was only 32 and had died from slipping in the shower.
Watching the sorry procession - three sweaty men carrying a covered bier, one caretaker carrying the keys - a melancholy mood settled among the bystanders. It was such a silly and meaningless accident, therefore it could have happened to any of them.
- Well, his neighbour said, finally, with a pious sigh. It was a blessing in disguise really, it was just as well for him to pass away so quietly, the poor man, you know he had really fallen behind with the instalments on that new stereo of his.

Message

Mara was finishing her report on the international tungsten trade when Pasi's e-mail arrived. "Just a few lines to let you know I'm still alive" began the message, as always. "I'm in hospital now, they take good care of me but sometimes I feel over-protected. A nurse is reading this over my shoulder as I type. These past weeks have been worse than anything I've been through, I hardly remember anything but my eyes are sore from crying and my body aches all over. I swim through a malstroem of long forgotten memories, and faceless children haunt me in my sleep and keep me from eating. Last night I couldn't stand it any more. I tried to take the easy way out, but luckily I was found and saved. And so I soldier on. I will get better, I know. One day I will get out of here and I will come and visit you, and we will have coffee on a terrace with the sun in our faces. I have to go now. Pray for me if you still can. Pasi"

Mara's secretary walked into the office without knocking. "The boss needs your report right now, he says the director will make all our lives a living hell unless we publish on Wednesday."

Mara finished her spell-check with tears in her eyes. As if redemption was that easy.