Today is Wednesday, also known as 'Hump Day' in office jargon. For some reason, for me, that image of a hump always calls to mind a whale surfacing in the sea rather than an obstacle to be surmounted. From there it's easy to imagine the progress of the entire working week as a great Orca swimming through the ocean deep: Monday is the flopping tail that propels me forward, Wednesday the aforementioned hump, and finally Friday as a joyous spout of water vapor in the air. And I am obviously Jonah, swallowed by the behemoth on Monday morning then spat out again on Friday afternoon.
Except, these days, the working week is surely more of an ugly bottom-feeder than a majestic whale. In fact, let's go with a slippery saltwater eel and the nine-to-five as just one long unpleasant wriggle, in and out of the empty eye sockets of some drowned sailor's skull. And there is no sunken Spanish galleon this far down, no shell-encrusted treasure chest overflowing with golden coins, not even a mermaid to guide me through the trails of seaweed. Just the impenetrable darkness and eerie silence wherein lies the wreckage of your desk.
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