BY DERVILLE QUIGLEY
First published with Trasna, spring 2023. Copyright is held by the author.
WE WERE brought to the cinema for the all-hands meeting. Given popcorn and Seven-Up. The CEO, a small man whose catch phrase was, “Act like a CEO”, took to the stage. We were good but not good enough. Still had a lot of work to do, targets to reach. I wasn’t sure we’d ever get there. Afterwards, I was asked what I thought about the video played at the meeting.
“The one about rowing?”
“Yes, how we’re all part of a team, striving to row in sync with each other.”
The office was no rowing boat. We didn’t have broad backs, gelled hair or wear singlets. Mendelssohn was not the soundtrack to our lives. But there were at times high winds, strong currents and vortices. Colleagues being sucked under the surface. Desks left empty, except for headsets, half-eaten energy bars, and a few shrivelled cacti.
I needed to call the heating company about our banjaxed boiler. Sonya was waiting on a sperm donor. We stared out the window towards the Homefit carpark. I wanted to tell her the donor will be a great match, that I hoped it would work first time. I don’t care for rowing.
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Derville Quigley is a writer from Monaghan, Ireland based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Her poems and short stories have been published with Trasna, Hidden Peak Press, Hooghly Review, ROOM Magazine and Abridged among others. In 2024 she placed 2nd runner up in the Mairtín Crawford Poetry Award and was shortlisted for the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award. She is co-founder of Strange Birds a writing feedback community. www.dervillequigley.net
