Ok, for this one we need a little bit of context. I was bored on Valentine's Day (because I ain't got no loooovveee liiiffee) and decided to try and write a 24 hour short love story... well, I failed and wrote out 8 hours before I called it quits, so here is the end result: 8 hours (with 1500 words).
Haha. Enjoy...

Hour One

'You Have Eyes'

Yes. She did, she knew that very well. Without said eyes, she wouldn't be able to see the writing on the pink heart.

'Blue and Black'

What the hell? Who even thought of this sort of stuff? Who could honestly sit down and think, "oh yes, I'll just put these words together on a sweet that people will be given in romantic situation"? It honestly sounded to her more like a description of a bruise.

"Kiss me"

Uh, yeah, no. She was good eating the heart rather than kissing it. She reached down to grab another of the sweets off her desk, her mind tearing itself apart from boredom. On Valentine's Day, no work ever got done. Everyone was always out, or otherwise occupied.

"Miss me"

Miss me? Really? This was starting to get really weird for her. She was already tired, even though her shift only started twenty minutes earlier. One AM was never the recommended shift for her, but she couldn't exactly complain.

"Love me back"

Yup. That's exactly what she wanted to hear on Valentine's Day. Just not right now, when all she wanted to do was sleep.

Hour Two

"Can you turn down your music, love?"

Eliza looked up at the person sanding over her desk, a scowl already working it's way onto her face.
Her face scrunched up even further when she saw who it was.

"Sir, it is two o'clock in the morning. I believe that I have the right to exercise any precautionary measures that I think necessary to make sure that I do not slack at my job." She glared slightly at the older man leaning casually over her. "I also believe, since there are three other people currently working in my vicinity who have not complained about my music nor it's volume, that my music is perfectly acceptable in this work environment."

The man let out a sharp breath and scowled at her. She has won this battle. No one was going to tell her that her music, that Queen's music was too loud.

Round one, score one nil, Eliza.

Hour three

Cathrine had blocked the lady's toilet, again, so Eliza and the other women had to go down to the lower levels and use their bathroom.
More fun... at three AM.

It probably wouldn't have bothered her too much normally, but this was the second thing to annoy Eliza that hour.
Jen from Accounting had been throwing a tantrum because someone (Catherine, Eliza was placing her money on) had filed some financial report or other under the wrong subject and now Jen had to search through almost three years of reports to find it.
Unlike everyone else in the office, Jen didn't seem to think that the village idiot was the problem, instead blaming it on Eliza and threatening to take it up with management.

A likely story. Eliza called Bull.

Round two, score one all, Eliza 'v' world.

Hour four

She'd had some time away from her desk, a break almost, for the last twenty minutes.
She had, unlike most people, finished reading a book in that time and was now sitting back at her desk with her hands clutching the book in her lap, her eyes blank and her mind somehow rushing at a million miles an hour all while being completely empty.
She didn't even know why the book was effecting her the way it was, but she put it down to the Author and the way he managed to pull her in so completely.

Regardless, she had more work to do.
A LOT more work.

Hour five

"Cleopatra's left nipple."

She had forgotten, yet again, to pack her own breakfast in her haste to pack Benjamin's. And now, here she was at five o'clock in the morning wanting nothing more than leftover macaroni that had been half eaten by the others in her household.

Glancing over at Emma, the woman at the desk next to her, she smiled slightly when they made eye contact.

Emma has been bragging the last few night shifts that she was brilliant at making porridge, so Eliza could only hope that she was willing to share.

"Hey, I forgot my breakfast..."

Emma looked at her with a hint of judgement but said nothing, only sliding over the half finished bowl.

"Thanks."

It tasted like half cooked, gluten free, lactose free, sugar free, life taking shit.

So she ate all of it.

Round three, score two one, World.

Hour six

She was finally getting around to checking her pigeon hole next to the break room, something she had been putting off since Christmas.
It wasn't that she knew that there would be lots of papers in there. It was more because she knew that once she had seen the papers, she would have to deal with them, which was not what she wanted to do this early in the morning.

When she opened the little door that had a tab saying her name, she let out a sigh when she saw the way the papers were crammed in.

From her position slightly above the pigeon hole, she had to really crane her neck to see to the back, and she was glad she did.

Atop the pile off papers was a small box with heats on it. A chocolate box.

In the moment she didn't care who the hell they were from, or why the hell they were even there. She needed something with sugar and the chocolates seemed like a good enough idea.

She noted that they tasted slightly off, but she knew well enough rhat you shouldn't look at a gift head on.

They weren't that bad.

Hour seven

"Mummy... mummmmyyyy!"

"Yes yes, I know darling. I think they're..."

Eliza closed her eyes and mimed out where she would have put her daughter's stupid sport shoes when she was tired, her mind flicking through days and even weeks. She had absolutely no idea where she would have put them, but she wasn't going to tell her daughter that.

"Have you checked daddy's shoe bucket?"

She heard yelling on the other end of the phone and realised that she didn't care if anyone thought she was crazy earlier. She was a mother first and foremost.

"Thanks mummy, daddy found them. I love y-"

Crisis averted, point Mama Eliza.
Round four, score two all.

Hour eight

Eliza was sitting at her desk, her arms crossed tightly over her chest as she nodded along to whatever Emma had been saying. To be perfectly frank, she didn't have any clue what she was talking about nor did she intend on finding out.

Luckily for her, the phone on her desk began to chime out its annoying and (apparently) unchangeable tune.

"Hey sorry -"

Emma had nodded or something, Eliza wasn't really sure what she had done, but she had left the woman alone to answer the phone.

"Hello, Eliza Crofton speaking."

God, why did she have to say that every damn time someone rang her. If it was her boss, 'hello Eliza speaking'. If it was her daughter, 'hello Eliza speaking'. If it was the janitor or worse, Jen from accounting, 'hello Eliza speaking'. How monotonous.

"Yes, hello darling. It's me, your mum."

Eliza sighed, scrubbing her hand across her forehead. This was going to take a while. "Yes mum, I know who you are."

"Good, I should hope so. Now you remember how last week I took you out for lunch?"

"For my birthday? Yes, I remember."

"Well, it turns out I need you to pay me back the $50."

Eliza shrunk down on her chair, thinking of all the insults she would yell at the garbage bin outside the office when she was finished. "But I thought it was a birth-"

"Yes so did I, but now Sophie is divorcing Micheal and you know how she always needs someone to look after the kids."

Why on earth would that concern either of them? Why would she need to pay back her mother for a Birthday Present (the first one in 10 years),only to have the money spent on her younger sister?

"But -"

Her mum said something along the lines of 'pay me back by lunchtime, I love you, please come and replant my vegetable garden' before hanging up abruptly.

What great parenting. 10/10. Eliza made note of yet another thing she would not be doing to her children when they were older.

And yet, glancing at the clock across the stuffy office, she still had another 20 minutes before her shift was over.

What a life.

Final score, three two, world 'v' Eliza.
Of course the world would win.

~ MallaHarkness04