Insomnic – Sandra 30

 

[For back story go here: Story so far at 17 Sept 2020 and more recent Sandra episodes.]

[Other back story through in-links.]

It was 2am and Sandra wasn’t having any of it. There was a time and a place for everything and this was not it for anything, it being the middle of the night and a time when usually, hopefully, if there were ever any justice in the world ever, she would be asleep. But she wasn’t. She was staring at the ceiling above her bed, trying work out why it was all like how it was.

Naturally there were things she had no control over and things which she had some control over and things which she actually made happen. By carefully compartmentalising these she was pretty pleased to find that nothing she had actually made happen was particularly chaotic, although then she started thinking about the ransomware kittens again and got confused.

She wished for silence, but there hadn’t been any of that for a long time now. Just when she thought there was peace she would hear Yolanda turn over heavily on the couch in the sitting room, either signally the end of a snoring session and the start of some heavy breathing, or the other way around, punctuated in either direction by a cough. It was an OK cough though – singular, connected with sleeping and not anything else.

How had Yolanda ended up there? She’d just turned up, of course. Refusing to even discuss the situation any more, she just turned up on the doorstep, battered suitcase and designer handbag in hands, mask floating around chin and taxi disappearing into the distance. Frankie and the kids were not ill, Jackie next door had got over it, but Yolanda felt she wasn’t wanted there. Sandra said she couldn’t imagine why she felt like that.

If Yolanda was trying to protect herself through cutting links she would be disappointed. Frankie had still insisted on Sandra coming and looking after the kids so if there were germs around they’d still get to her some how. Mind you, thought Sandra, at least that would come to an end come Thursday’s lockdown. Or would it? Would Frankie find some way round it? Demand childcare while she sat on a zoom call? 

During the day there had been a panicked phonecall from Trinny who was worried that their app, designed to help people date each other whilst observing the correct Covid related rules, would now be far too complicated to use. There were layers of instructions concerning the tiers set out around the country, and now they were preparing for the full lockdown restrictions but they still needed to hang on to the tiers in case they came back, but then they’d probably come back but be different. Trinny wanted to put up a disclaimer to say that the app was only advisory, but naturally she didn’t want it to look like the app was only advisory because then why would anyone download it? Sandra said she’d sleep on the issue. Which was precisely not what she was doing.

An equally panicked phonecall had come in from Daniel who had a meeting with his boss coming up and he needed to know what he could present to her than would make sense – innovatively, or otherwise. His job was meant to be to identify and implement improvement for the business in all areas, but it was fast becoming evident that identifying improvements wasn’t easy, let alone working out how those improvements could be introduced. Or even explained. He had a few thoughts and wanted feedback. Sandra said she’d sleep on it. Which was precisely not what she was doing.

At least she’d not heard from Rob recently she thought to herself. And then stopped the thought right there so as not to tempt fate.

Just lying there defying what the night time was for was too much now and so Sandra decided enough was enough and got up. She would strap on her head torch and go for a run. It wasn’t raining, she wasn’t cold and she wouldn’t go far. She knew it was a sort of bizarre thing to do at this time, but she honestly couldn’t think of anything else she wanted to do. She just wanted to get out.

And the run was good. There was no one around, the streets seemed to welcome her and at last she had control over where she was going and at what pace.

Twelve hours later, with Yolanda chuckling on gin at the midday weather report, messages and emails still sitting waiting for a response, Sandra received a call out of the blue from a head hunter. They were looking for a head of marketing for a leading business in the transport sector. The position was secure and the pay impressive. Working conditions acceptable when the pandemic wasn’t around, and very acceptable while it was. If the job suited her it would be a full-time position requiring her to drop other commitments and concentrate on this one employer, and they’d look after her.

And why not? Thought Sandra.