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Helga G. Pataki is late.

Again.

These days everything seems to be slipping away from her.  She’s only twenty-five and she already feels like the world is passing her by.  If someone had told her even just three years ago that she’d still be living in dreary Hillwood working the same waitress gig and living paycheck to paycheck at this point in her life, she would have punched them in the face.  No questions asked.

Things change.

She pours herself a cup of coffee (real coffee - no ice cubes, because she is not her mother) and runs a hand through her tangled mess of blonde hair.  She’s been growing it out again, she thinks.  It seems that way at least.  She cropped it real short back in the eighth grade - rocked a Mohawk for a little bit in ninth and then kept it at a manageable length, resting on her shoulders, for the rest of her high school career.

Helga isn’t sure why she is thinking about hair.

She realizes somewhere in the back of her mind that she’s stalling.  She’s not even dressed yet and her shift starts in fifteen minutes.

Helga takes another sip of her real coffee.

Before slamming the mug down on the table and running up the stairs.

Three minutes and ten seconds later, Helga G. Pataki is huffing and puffing as she tugs on her work shoes and tries to keep her wits about her.  As much as she hates it, she can’t get fired from this job.  It’s the only thing she has to keep her afloat, since her writing career went and….

Sunk.

She tries not to think about it.

Because the whole thing is too heavy for her to deal with these days and she’s going to be late if she doesn’t get her butt out the door in the next thirty seconds.

She doesn’t have time to examine the parts of her that she forced herself to bury on that day just three years ago.  She has to keep moving and keep breathing and not think about anything, except little stuff like the oh so interesting hairstyles she has had over the course of her lifetime.

(she doesn’t want to think about what it's like to walk around without feeling anything at all)

Helga steadies her breathing as she sits on the floor and holds a hand to her head.

Then she hoists herself off the ground and snatches up her purse as she walks to the front door.  She does not think about how it feels to be alive without really living.  She just crosses the hall and puts her hand to the doorknob.  Twists it.  Exhales.

Helga G. Pataki opens the door.

She’s greeted by jellybean-green eyes attached to someone she’d never expected to see again.

“Helga.”  He mutters.

Arnold Shortman collapses on the front step of a woman who is sleeping through her life.  Arnold Shortman falls into a dead faint on the stoop of an old friend who is not going to be able to make it to work today.  Arnold Shortman drops into Helga G. Pataki’s world once more.

And for the first time in three years….

Helga is alive.

Description
Helga G. Pataki is late.

Again.

These days everything seems to be slipping away from her.  She’s only twenty-five and she already feels like the world is passing her by.  If someone had told her even just three years ago that she’d still be living in dreary Hillwood working the same waitress gig and living paycheck to paycheck at this point in her life, she would have punched them in the face.  No questions asked.

Things change.

She pours herself a cup of coffee (real coffee - no ice cubes, because she is not her mother) and runs a hand through her tangled mess of blonde hair.  She’s been growing it out again, she thinks.  It seems that way at least.  She cropped it real short back in the eighth grade - rocked a Mohawk for a little bit in ninth and then kept it at a manageable length, resting on her shoulders, for the rest of her high school career.

Helga isn’t sure why she is thinking about hair.

She realizes somewhere in the back of her mind that she’s stalling.  She’s not even dressed yet and her shift starts in fifteen minutes.

Helga takes another sip of her real coffee.

Before slamming the mug down on the table and running up the stairs.

Three minutes and ten seconds later, Helga G. Pataki is huffing and puffing as she tugs on her work shoes and tries to keep her wits about her.  As much as she hates it, she can’t get fired from this job.  It’s the only thing she has to keep her afloat, since her writing career went and….

Sunk.

She tries not to think about it.

Because the whole thing is too heavy for her to deal with these days and she’s going to be late if she doesn’t get her butt out the door in the next thirty seconds.

She doesn’t have time to examine the parts of her that she forced herself to bury on that day just three years ago.  She has to keep moving and keep breathing and not think about anything, except little stuff like the oh so interesting hairstyles she has had over the course of her lifetime.

(she doesn’t want to think about what it's like to walk around without feeling anything at all)

Helga steadies her breathing as she sits on the floor and holds a hand to her head.

Then she hoists herself off the ground and snatches up her purse as she walks to the front door.  She does not think about how it feels to be alive without really living.  She just crosses the hall and puts her hand to the doorknob.  Twists it.  Exhales.

Helga G. Pataki opens the door.

She’s greeted by jellybean-green eyes attached to someone she’d never expected to see again.

“Helga.”  He mutters.

Arnold Shortman collapses on the front step of a woman who is sleeping through her life.  Arnold Shortman falls into a dead faint on the stoop of an old friend who is not going to be able to make it to work today.  Arnold Shortman drops into Helga G. Pataki’s world once more.

And for the first time in three years….

Helga is alive.