Work brought feelings of inadequacy.

Family forced feelings of guilt.

Boyfriend supplied feelings of uncertainty.

Future left feelings of unease.

Her house made her feel content.

Her home made her feel untouched.

Today the European Court of Human Rights heard Pandora’s appeal against the guilty verdict of 34,056,729 counts of murder.

Her lawyers claim she wasn’t to know what would transpire after opening the box, which has been given to her as a present. Zeus, representing himself, maintains he made the consequences perfectly clear.

Those of us who survived the original massacre which followed her crime will remember that, although Pandora was in Cleveland at the time, legal proceedings have had to take place in Europe. This is because every court in America has either been destroyed by the giant ant tribes or are still invested with tiny racist robots.

Days on end with no sun would

Augment our taste for grief and

Regret. But the absolute

Knowledge of just one day in

Night could bring magic and joy.

Enchanting celebrations

Set to a new backdrop of

Shadows would bring harmony.

Smithlessness:

The regret of missing an opportunity to watch the Fresh Prince of Bel Air.

"Jack's smithlessness kicked in after he was told an entire episode of the Fresh Prince played while he was on the phone to his girlfriend."

Screeching alarms chase away

Unrivalled dreams of forgone

Possibilities. No design

Enters the mind except to

Reach for the record player.

Superstition instigates

The magnificent journey

Into the greatest music.

Thanks to Superstition for

Inviting the mind to this

Otherwise bleak existence.

Now great things will be achieved.

Becca Cahan sat patiently in an uncomfortable chair in front of an emotionless desk.

Her fingers ran unconsciously up and down the imprints of the vest top which lied beneath her suit.

She silently feared someone in the office may look towards the chair and see how little was being achieved.

Her top’s thick lines reminded her of how it was the only thing around her not being rented from somebody else.

The grey suit was hired from a failing shop in the city.

The cluttered desk belonged to another worker.

The people who weren’t looking towards the chair weren’t her colleagues.

Any modest achievements which may be made today would be given to someone else in a few days time.

“Rebecca!” His sharp voice straightened the chair and its occupant. The anxiety it inspired with Becca removed her hands from her shoulders. “What are you up to at the moment?”

Her fingers pushed strands of her brown hair behind her ear in a rebellion to the idea of being idle.

“Oh, well I’m waiting for...”

“Waiting? You shouldn’t be waiting around here.” The temporary boss’ voice carried well as he moved towards the other end of his dim office. “I don’t know if you’re really cut out for this line of work.”

Becca wished his voice hadn’t travelled so well. She wished she didn’t have to be sitting here with no idea what she was supposed to be doing.

The final hours of the day traced by slowly and the majority of the time was spent staring at an unchanging Facebook page.

One by one those around the chair stood up and left their clean desks.

They passed insincere farewells onto their colleagues but gave no sign of acknowledgement to the placement girl.

The silence surrounding the chair and the ignorance of what she should do felt as though it was slowly numbing Becca, as it had done every day that week.

She eventually left without a goodbye to the remaining blank faces around the chair.

Fears of not remembering any of their names in the morning plagued her mind, but knowing her failure may not even matter was far more terrifying.

The mood she had unwillingly fallen into would have been poetically met by pouring rain. However, as she drove through the streets of the city which engulfed her, Becca was greeted by a beautiful sunset she could not bring herself to enjoy.

A space on the road offered the chance of a quick entrance into her house but as she locked the door she felt the decrepit phone vibrate in its pocket.

It was the mother. She didn’t want to answer. It was the guilt which made her answer, as it always did.

“Hello.”

“It went well.”

“I’m not sure if I’ll get a job there.”

“I don’t know why.”

“Sure, I’ll try harder tomorrow.”

“OK, how are you?”

“Yeah. Bye.”

She hung up and breathed in to steady her weakening body.

The feeling of frailty gripped her every day at this point and she could only pray relief was near.

She was never sure if each day would be the first time she couldn’t recover from that feeling.

The sound of her key connecting into her lock was the first sign of hope.

Becca moved forward through her open door and felt the strongest wave of nourishment.

She stopped still before she removed the jacket and the shirt of the suit so she could take her time to appreciate her white walls and touch her blue pattern upon them.

Her fingers traced all over her blue top and she smiled for the first time since she had left her house that morning.

She leant back against her wall and felt her print against her back.

It reminded her she was well and truly home as shadows were cast upon her pale skin by her hallway light.

Everything could get better now.

A deep breathe filled Becca Cahan’s nose with familiar smells and as she closed her eyes, she heard a voice.

“Honey! You’re home!” It was a soft voice which calmed her even further. His voice started to drag her hands away from her vest and towards its redemptive source. “How was your day?”

She readied herself to reply as she took one last second to soak in how much had changed just by walking through her door.

“I’m home now. It’s about to get a lot better.”