Four hours later George set the controller down on the living room table; his coffee still three-quarters full, now lukewarm at best. He stood up and stretched, trying to shake loose the atrophy that comes with sitting hunched over for four hours straight, and walked back to the laptop. He pointed the cursor to the search bar and mimicked typing imaginary words, tapping the surface of the keyboard rhythmically, until deciding on what to search for: jobs.
“Jobs,” unsurprisingly, returned nearly one billion results, half a page of ads, and a dozen local listings for temp agencies. George began half-heartedly skimming through pages, looking for appealing keywords and legitimate offers, dismissing what was obviously spam; he needed a spark: something that would provide him with direction, but he didn’t know what that was, or where to get it. After a discouraging five page expedition, farther than George had ever ventured in search results before, he checked the clock on the laptop: 01:30 pm. His wife would be home in less than three hours, and with her the girls; there was no way George could get any work done with the girls home, and what could he really accomplish with less than three hours left? If you add in the time it took to find a solid offer, it was probably more like two and a half hours, two if he took a shower, which he still hadn’t done today. George wanted to take his time with any application he found, less than two hours wasn’t going to cut it. He decided that in order to have the energy he needed to spend time with his daughters this evening he should take a nap, besides, George had been employed for the last five years of his life, not moving on from a job until he had another one firmly in place, and taking no time off to transition: he deserved a day off. He closed the laptop again, this time shutting the whole thing down beforehand, and trekked upstairs to take a nap.
When George’s wife woke him up the first thing he saw was the gray-blue sky outside their window, it was the color of wasted time. He looked at the digital alarm clock on top of their chest of drawers: 05:13 pm, and George thought, is it five o clock already?
Hey, we’re home, can you come down stairs and watch the girls while I cook dinner?
Yeah, sure, of course.
His wife didn’t wait for him to get out of bed, instead leaving before he even finished his short, half-mumbled, response. George knew that that probably wasn't a good sign. He could hear his oldest daughter running around downstairs, jabbering to herself, or to Jack, or to her sister, it didn't matter really, just excited to be home. George sat on the edge of the bed and stared down at his pajamas that he had now been wearing for almost twenty four hours straight. He contemplated changing, but decided against it because he hadn’t showered yet, telling himself he would definitely change after taking a shower. He put his slippers on and went downstairs.
George and his wife held a conversation while George acted as a horse for his daughter to ride on, occasionally grabbing her calves and straightening his back, bleating an unspeakably bad impression of a horse’s neigh.
So, how was your day?
It was good. How was work?
Work was fine. What did you do? Did you find any jobs?
Yeah, I just kind of took it easy.
So, “yeah, I found some jobs,” or “yeah, I just kind of hung out and played games all day?”
George pulled up and held his daughter to his back, unleashing a horrible braying that would never under any circumstances be mistaken for a horse’s neigh, it was not the noise George thought he was going to make.
Ok, let’s not do that anymore.
I don’t know, I tried to look for some jobs, but I really couldn’t focus, so I took the dog for a walk, made some coffee, cleaned the house a little, but, I don’t know, I just couldn’t figure it out. I think I got too much sleep, so I was kind of out of it all day. You know how that happens sometimes, if you get too much sleep you end up feeling more tired than if you didn’t get enough?
Sounds terrible. So you didn’t find even one job to apply to?
No, but I will tomorrow, I just needed a day to unwind, to get my bearings after yesterday.
George was unsure how his wife took this answer as she didn’t respond or extend the conversation any further, just continued to cook, while George continued to play. After dinner George gave both girls baths and put them to bed while his wife cleaned the kitchen. Once the girls were asleep George helped his wife finish with the kitchen.
I really hope you find a couple of jobs to apply for tomorrow.
I will, I just needed a day to settle down.
They finished cleaning in silence. George ended the night by taking a shower and changing out of his twenty seven hour old pajamas.