Once a month the Australian Writers Centre runs a short story competition and here was my entry for January, 2024! Here were the necessary inclusions for this competition:

1. Your story must take place on a character’s FIRST DAY OF A NEW JOB.
2. Your story must include something being stolen.
3. Your story must include the words TRIP, TRIANGLE and TSUNAMI.

---

Compulsion

By Jess Knaus

‘Let me show you around.’

They climbed the stairs and entered level 14, where everyone’s offices were situated. Their trip took them past fluorescent-lit booths, corner offices, common meeting tables and kitchens, with Owen occasionally pointing out areas and people she’d need to know for her role. But there was only one place she needed to find for things to make sense in this new company – the stationery cupboard. 

It was huge. Ceiling-high, double-doored cupboards lined all three walls. One or two doors were open, so she could only steal a glimpse of the glory within. She would come back.

‘And here’s your desk. Why don’t you settle in? I’ll come and grab you in thirty minutes for our first team meeting?,’ he asked.

She nodded pleasantly, before he wandered off toward the lifts.

She placed her bag under her desk, sat down, turning on her computer. She logged in, opened her new email account and read through a welcome email that Owen had planned perfectly as her first read.

But her mind had not left the stationery room. Excitement, longing and dopamine rushed through her like a tsunami. She needed to go back.

Attempting to glide across the room unnoticed, she pretended to be looking for the toilet. But she had remembered the way there with distinctly odd clarity. The way back to that blessed space – stationery heaven – had involved walking a triangle pattern across the floor, eyes always on the next point. Finally she could see the final destination. 

With a lightness of touch and a gleam in her eye, she opened the first cupboard. The highlighters glistened, the post-its towered high, and the electricity of plastic sleeves clicked as she ruffled them. The sticky tack was smooth and untouched, the tape sat heavy and prepared, and every colour on earth was presented in pen form. Her mind could not conceive, nor look away. 

Then gently, quietly, from inside her pocket, her hand lifted out and higher. It was drawn to the contents of the cupboard with such intensity. She selected, despite her urgings, just two pens – one blue, one black. One was held tightly in her sweaty hand, to be carried back to her desk. The other slipped into her pocket and never found its way to her desk. It was never used. No one noticed. It belonged to her now.

---