@therealnealxhopper
The phone on Marissa’s desk had a constant, steady glow to it. Not that the phone itself had any sort of luminescence, but at any given time, Marissa Reed could pick it up and answer any of at least four lines on hold. Ringing, singing, beeping, her office phone had a constant, incessant sound to it which kept Marissa up during the day with her constant need for some level of perfection. She was high achieving, high functioning, high performance. Everything had some sort of standard and Marissa’s goal was to raise it. Despite her moving the crown of the company to her daughter, Marissa found her calling still behind the scenes of the company, and her clients found themselves calling her when they needed something done.
Marissa didn’t mind the sounds of the phone going off. The subtle tones and tunes that became part of the white noise of her day. it meant things were happening. That work was getting done. But right now, the noise that haunted her was not the typical sounds of bustling and business. They were the sounds of an eerie, not-quite-silence. It was the sound of the built in intercom echoing with nothing, and Marissa knew, unfortunately, that the incessant nuisance she would face today would not be a technical or technological challenge in the magazine world, but a personal issue that breached into business, family, and fortune. The stealthy shuffling outside the door confirmed it as the intercom-like hum of her work phone buzzed and droned on with such a monotone, boring, joyless tone. Marissa waited a moment to clear her mind of anything before buzzing in her newest visitor. That was the buzzing she didn’t mind. The sound of obvious movement. It wasn’t a lie. It wasn’t sneaky. She appreciated the transparency of it. “Are you here to ruin my day,” she asks, barely looking up from a mocked up layout, a spread for the next issue that had been scarcely through a full round of review, “because you’ll have to try very hard this particular Tuesday.”
