Never too late

***Please note this is an extract of the story***

Never Too Late


Sitting sadly at the bland office desk that was currently the least interesting place in the whole of London I looked out of the square, monotonous office cubicle in which I was stationed towards the distant window, where beams of sunlight pierced through the Venetian blind at regular intervals to cast striking stripes across the wall opposite. That window, the only one in the room allowed to show a snippet of the outdoors, often caught my attention during times of irrepressible despair such as this; fifty plus pages of documents waiting impatiently for redrafts and replies. I frequently wondered ‘why do I suffer 50 weeks of the year for the sake of a two bed flat and a second hand Escort?’.
After ten minutes of relentless bashing away at the keyboard trying to endure the work, the acne-ridden office assistant (or brown-nosed twat as I liked to call him) marched up to me with orders from ‘the top’. Usually a distraction would be welcome, but the fact I had to take orders from this pubescent pile of spot cream completely ruined the respite.
“Mr Hill wants to see you,” Kevin announced with the self-instilled illusion of authority. I didn’t answer him, just reluctantly stood up and walked past the rows and rows of anonymous office cubicles to the boss’s unsurprisingly bland office. Kevin was jogging pathetically to keep up, trying not to look like a complete oaf in front of the other office drones, most of whom were just like him.
“Mr Jordan Davids,” the boss said in his incredibly monotonous voice when I reached his room. “With the help of Ken here,”
“Kevin, sir. My name’s Kevin.”
A brief smile flickered across my face.
“Yes, yes, Kevin. With the help of young Kevin here, I’ve been examining your results for the past 10 months. Your performance has not been acceptable. Punctuality is below par, effort is lacking. Most importantly, it has been brought to my attention that you have not been meeting company performance targets.”
“I showed you that didn’t I sir,” said Kevin with a triumphant grin.
“Yes Keith you did.” The grin quickly left his face.
“As I was saying Mr Davids,” Mr Hill continued, but my eyes had slowly crept towards the least boring area of his office. A window that stretched from floor to ceiling, about 15 feet wide, showing the magnificent cityscape of London drenched in sunshine. I remember wondering on my first day how any normal human being could sit with his back to a view like this. It said something about the sort of person Mr Hill was though, I suppose. More specifically I my eyes were fixed on the seemingly slow movement of the enormous jet making its way over the South of England. My mind wandered…

… “Brilliant. Perfect,” I said, admiring the beautiful fish and chips the stewardess prepared especially for me. I looked out of the cockpit window at the white-sanded Caribbean islands sprinkled across the deep blue sea 30000 feet below. The extremely pretty chief stewardess, Leah, was sitting opposite me, in the same seat she always took to keep me company on the long haul flights.
“You don’t have to do this, Leah,” I said.
“No problem captain. Think of it as a thank you for being such a wonderful boss,” she replied.
“And I’ve told you, you don’t have to call me ‘Captain’. We’re friends now, not just colleagues. Call me Jordan.”
“Oh no, it’s much more interesting to call you captain, if you know what I mean,” she smiled flirtatiously. Strangely I didn’t have a problem with her calling me Captain from then on.
“You’d better do the intercom now. We’re about an hour from Jamaica now aren’t we?” She told me.
“Nah, not yet. I’ll finish my dinner first. Want a chip?”

Ten minutes later the gorgeous dinner was finished and I switched on the microphone to do the ‘one hour to landing’ announcement (which was actually 50 minutes now I had finished my fish and chips).
“Ladies and gentlemen we have approximately one hour ‘til we land in Kingston.” A muffled cheer could be heard from outside the cockpit door. I grinned with satisfaction at the fourth flight ahead of schedule this week. In fact, I was in such a good mood a thought I’d tell one of my brilliant jokes to the passengers.
“Why did the chicken go to the toilet?” I called through the intercom. “Because it’s where the cocks hang out!” I and Leah were in hysterics and, judging by the roar coming from the passengers, so were they.
‘Aah,’ I thought cheerfully to myself, casting my eyes over the beautiful Caribbean mosaic of islands below me and then to Leah sitting next to me. ‘What a job’…

…THUMP! I startled out of my daydreaming and back into the dreary reality as yet another thick wad of paper was slammed on the desk in front of me. ‘If only…’ I thought, referring to the fantasy I had just been awoken from.
“Mr Davids, I hope I am making myself clear here, you are not…” he continued. I thought about the daydream. Why didn’t I follow that dream? I’d always wanted to be a pilot…
“Take this for an example Mr Davids,” Mr Hill said, holding a performance sheet in front of me. “In our Florida branch every single…”.

Clear sea lapping up on the shore, shifting white sand further up the Florida coast with each gentle wave, I sat comfortably chatting with my parents.
“Have you thought much about what you want to do when you’re older at all Jordan? You’re sixteen now, its about time you started thinking about your future,” my Dad advised.

***End of extract***

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