Work Text
The road stretches for eternity. The drive, the ambient crunch sounds of the gravel road, and the unending forest of pine and redwood had been drilled in the head of Jessica for a year now. It was mind-numbing, to say the least. She had been promised a lot more than this upon getting hired: more routes, more benefits, more raises. It had all slipped from her grasp. At least the dental wasn’t a lie. And the pay was enough to pay her rent, so she’d settled for the time being.
Still. The drive was average, painfully dull, with a severe lack of witnesses. Meh, might as well break the law.
Jessica reached over to the passenger seat grabbing her cell phone. It took only a brief scroll until she reached the contact she wanted, tapped it, and put it on speaker phone. She listened to the dial tone in silence, the running of the engine as her background music.
1, 2, 3. Beeeep!
“Hey it’s Tim Wright, I can’t come to the phone right now so leave a message after the beep and I’ll try to get back to you.”
She sighed. She didn’t know what she’d expected. She’d been trying this on and off for the past 4 years, and the only thing she’s ever heard is that voice recording. She knew that she should probably quit calling, but the fact that the number was still active gave her that sliver of hope.
“Hey Tim, it’s Jessica again. I know you’re probably tired of hearing me, but you wouldn’t have to hear me if you just called back for once. So yeah, if you actually listened to these, you’d know the drill. Call me back, I wanna catch up and I hope you’re okay. Blah, blah, blah. You get it.”
She hung up. Back to work.
Jessica stepped back into the company van, grabbing the clipboard she had placed in the passenger seat and marking off another neighborhood. She carelessly chucked it back once she was done and leaned back. Glancing up to the rearview mirror, she sighed, seeing the towers of packages looming behind her. That wasn’t even tackling all the letters that needed proper delivery.
Jessica reached for her phone once more. With a few taps, she was listening to another dial tone.
“Hey it’s Tim Wright, I can’t come to the phone right now so leave a message after the beep and I’ll try to get back to you.”
“Hey Tim, guess who just ran into Miss Williams again? This girl! She was super nice, she needs to stop inviting me in for coffee though, I gotta stay on schedule. Not like it ended up mattering though, one of her cats got out so I had to chase the darn thing all across the block!... It was a pain, but you know. I can’t expect an 80-year-old lady to chase a cat down herself, so I did what I needed to do...I bet you have a few good stories to tell after all this time. You should call me sometime and tell me.”Jessica continued throughout her day, choosing to not break the law and just focus on her job, dreaming of her future pay. She dealt with the chatty, the entitled, and the average until it was finally time to break for lunch. She pulled into a parking lot, digging her metal lunch box out of the back seat. It was dented slightly from past packages that had ended up accidentally stacked on top.
She got out of the car and sat down on a curb, staring at her knees instead of digging into her meal. She didn’t even bother glancing at the forest around her, displayed in all the colours of fall. She felt deadened, isolated. Despite her delivery route being punctuated with the requisite social interactions, she lacked any real attachment. Her connections with Jay, Tim, Amy, Seth, and even Alex were so long ago that they didn’t even feel real. It was if they were a distant dream that will be forever out of her grasp. She’s tried so hard to establish new friendships, but co-workers barely tolerated exchanging unhappy glances with her, giving the impression that their tolerance had a time limit.
She pulled out her phone from her back pocket, scrolling through social media. Her online life wasn’t much better, since she’d chosen to make accounts that pumped out media instead of looking for interaction with others. After a few minutes of idle scrolling, taking occasional bites of her sandwich, she switched over to her contacts. She looked at her screen, hovering over Tim’s number. She took a deep breath and put her phone away. This forest was a pretty good view, anyway.As the sun set, Jessica struggled to keep her eyes open. Eight-hour shifts made it difficult not to collapse as soon as she was done. But she managed to park herself properly and stumble into her home. With an exhausted huff, she threw her backpack onto the floor and stagger to the fridge. 9:30 isn’t exactly the ideal time to be preparing dinner, but Jessica really didn’t want to skip the meal entirely. She browsed her cupboards, greeted by crackers and canned pineapples. She sorely lacked in snacks. She made a mental note to go out shopping. She walks back to her living room kneeling down and digging out her phone. Turning it on she saw a she got a text message from Tim! Jessica opens it.
The message read: Everything is fine. Live your life, forget about mine.
Jessica didn’t get it. Disappointment filtered through her reaching her very core. All that time waiting for him to break that silence and she’s greeted by something incredibly backhanded. It was way too short, way to fast. It didn't satisfy the deeply seeded craving she had for communication at all; if anything it just left her starved. She quickly called him. He had to pick up this time right? All there was a dial tone, and that voice recording she’s heard a million times.