October 2024 Flash Lit 2:2 - Stretched to the Limit

Marv was getting on Ellie’s last nerve.  Ellie knew it was metaphorical, and yet she felt like she could see the yellow-gray axon stretching across her chest and Marv bending it toward the floor so he could stand on it.

“On page four, I want the chart centered,” he said.

 

“But you said you wanted all the charts to be on the left for consistency,” Ellie pointed out.

 

“I’ve changed my mind,” he said.

 

“We have to finish today,” she replied.

 

“Maybe if you would stop arguing and make the changes…” he said, curling a lip at her.

 

The axon made a protesting twinging sound, but it held.  Until Marv insisted on changing the font for the captions six times and ultimately chose a highly unreadable script font “to class things up.”

 

The nerve, stretched to its limit, snapped, flinging Marv across the beige office in a shower of sticky blue goo.

 

Ellie was also propelled by the force of the recoil.  Her wheeled office chair scuttled backwards into a world where physics was also apparently dislocated because the chair whooshed around corners, up hills and down, until it came to rest on a lovely stretch of beach.

 

Ellie sighed with relief as the cool wind off the waves caressed her face.  A waiter in a white jacket appeared next to her with a silver tray.  “Your Nerve Pill, madam,” he said.

 

She took the cocktail glass and raised a solitary toast to Marv, wherever he had ended up.