Stephanie Ripley - Sudden Fiction
She hadn’t looked at the old picture, held together by two pieces of clear tape, in over a year. It lay at the bottom of a box that had been gathering dust in the back of her closet, unnoticed and forgotten since she’d moved into the room. The only reason she was looking at it now was because the adventure that had hidden this box from her was coming to an end and it was time to move once more. The box had startled her. It was simple, cardboard, duct tape keeping the corners from breaking apart. The box and it’s collection of items all seemed to have that slight disrepair in common. To any outsider they would look old and ruined, possibly even like trash. To her, though, it was more like a treasure chest. The items she had already weeded through included an old teddy bear that had once been white but had gained a yellow tint over the years and was missing one eye, a pocket book of inspirational phrases and quotes, two tickets to an Indians game, and more pictures than she could count offhand. The picture in her hand, though, was the one that mattered. It was the one that held her eyes the longest and brought a smile to her tired face. A handsome face gazed back, young and bright, full of promise. He had the light blonde hair of youth and a slightly crooked smile that always made her laugh. She could hear his kind voice in her head, tenor in pitch and full of curiosity.
“Hey, babe, you about done with those boxes?” came a deeper voice than the one in her memory. She shook her head, clearing it of the thoughts of the past, and laid the picture back in the box as if it were as fragile as glass. Looking up she saw a tall man with dark hair and a perfect smile, carelessly leaning against the door.
“Yeah, I just about done,” she replied, putting the lid back on and wondering when the next time she would stumble upon it would be.

Unreliable Narrator
I’m not easily annoyed. I deal with people for a living and I’m use to working with the obnoxious. Of course, everyone has their exceptions, and he is mine. I told Davidson that I was iffy about working with him, but no, he assigns him to me anyway. I don’t understand how he even got this job to begin with. I know it appears to be pretty simple and that anyone could do it, but that’ isn’t true. It does have it’s qualifications, and this guy meets none of them. I’m convinced he cheated his way through school.On top of being under qualified, he’s also a jerk. That’s putting it simply. And kindly. If you are going to work with people all day you have to be open minded, non judgmental, kind and courteous. He is not. No surprise. Just look at him! Always with the jeans with holes in the knees and polo shirts that are never ironed. The guy doesn’t own anything that could be considered “dress clothes.”Alright, so we work behind a counter most of the day, scanning books and filling out forms and typing away at ancient computers, but we are still expected too dress nicely, thank you very much. And even if you don’t worry about his clothes, just his name gives you a sense of what this guy is like. His real name is some old Hebrew name or something. ‘Micajah’ I think is how it’s spelled. He could have chosen a normal nickname, like ‘Mica’. Of course didn‘t, though, because that would be too simple and too normal for him. Instead he has to go with ‘Cage’, “Just call me ‘Cage’.” Give me a break.And he’s far to curious. I have no problem with the inquisitive but this is just too much. Every day it’s new questions about me. Where I went to school, if that’s my natural hair color, if I always wanted to be a librarian, what’s my favorite type of sandwich, have I ever been married, yada, yada, yada. While it would still drive me crazy I probably wouldn’t care so much if he was doing this simply out of the desire to get to know his colleague and supervisor better, but that isn’t why he does it. Oh no. He does it to annoy me - on purpose! He’s constantly grinning at me like he knows something and if I slip up and reveal an even slightly embarrassing fact about myself or let him know that a certain topic is touchy to me, he’ll exploit it.I’ve talked to Davidson about him numerous times since he came here two weeks ago, but my boss seems to be oblivious to this guy’s undesirable traits. I’m not going to worry too much, though. I’m sure he’ll slip up in the next week or two and then it’ll be adios! Maybe then things around here will get back to normal.