literature
Best corporate culture and workplace literature to better your workplace experience. Journal's favorite stories.
The Day I Learned To Dance
Working as a nurse in a hospital, you are exposed to death more than the common person. Upon arriving here, I was warned not to get too attached to any of the patients. It’s the only way to maintain your mental stability in a field where pain is as common as a stapler in a law office. I did well with the concept until a woman named Naomi was placed in my care. At the end of her life she trusted me with her memories and gave me the gift of 20,000 dollars she left behind, a sum that changed my life.
By Samantha Parry5 years ago in Journal
A man with a white dog and bright blue eyes
I wake up in the middle of the night. It seemed as if I was abruptly interrupted from my dream by a loud noise. My heart is pounding and my head feels warm and sweaty. I find myself breathing fast and loud. I decide to hold my breath for a moment and lie still. I try to focus on the environment and listen. Had I heard anything? What was that loud noise that woke me? Was there any sound at all or had I imagined it? My breathing calms down. Apart from my breathing, I hear no other sounds in the room. I shift my focus to sounds coming from outside. I can hear the wind blowing softly and when I listen carefully I can hear the whine of a few foxes. I sit up in bed and take a good look around. Slowly my eyes get used to the light, or the lack of it. I can't see much, but enough to determine that the bedroom looks pretty much normal. Nothing or no one to be seen. Maybe I dreamed it. I remember I had a very pleasant dream. I felt like I won the lottery, but just woke up and realised I lost everything again. Had I really heard a loud bang or not? My dog isn’t barking, so it must be nothing. Maybe it was the dream after all.
By Thys C Aarts5 years ago in Journal
The Resurrection of Death City
White noise. The loudest part of silence. Somewhere off in the distant corners of quiet, the static emptiness transforms into noise. The sound of nothingness becomes something that can barely be heard. A faint echo dances through the ear canals, morphing into whatever the mind is inclined to shape. Clattering, clamoring, chatter. Incoherent noise. Overlapping ideas break the shore-front of my mind like waves, rousing consciousness from the depths of sleep. Invisible forces nudge my body left, then right. Muscles begin to twitch on an otherwise motionless face. The brow furrows. I can feel the urge to stretch. My head turns, lids lift and eyes roll forward to focus. It is still dark. Giving into the stretch with a sigh, I angle my neck until the clock comes into view. It's three o'clock in the morning. Wide awake at 3 AM. I wonder what all that noise was about. Closing my eyes and reaching for the nearest thought, it is evident that only one remains, I have not written anything in a long time.
By Martha Mathis5 years ago in Journal
Papa, Pablo and Me (Pierre)
Chapter 1 – The Dealer The greed was sweating out of the dealer's skin. He had licked his lips at least once as he took the piece of paper from me and surveyed it. While he may have thought he was playing it cool, the moisture above his top lip glistening in the Manhattan sunlight betrayed him.
By Leo Dis Vinci5 years ago in Journal
Mickey's Black Book
“Six. Six hundred. Six hundred dollars is all that I need. It’s all that I need by the seventeenth.” Mickey muttered this to himself over and over as the elevator rose, one slinking floor at a time, to the penthouse suite on the twenty third floor of Caesar’s Palace. “Six. Six hundred. Six hundred dollars is all that I need by the seventeenth.” The seventeenth, Mickey calculated, was five days away. “Five days to make six hundred dollars?” Mickey asked himself aloud, as he lifted his head and caught his reflection peering back at him from the glassy elevator wall. His panic paused for a moment as he caught his own gaze and wondered all at once how he had ended up here. His panic, as all panic is wont to do, quickly proceeded to slap him back to the most pressing issue of this particular moment. Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath in, then looking at his reflection with a resolved determination as he exhaled, he said it one more time. “Five days to make six hundred dollars.” Ding. The elevator door announced its successful climb. Mickey forced a fake smile as he entered the Penthouse.
By Christopher Buntyn5 years ago in Journal
The Not So Empty Seat
After days of gloom the sun was shining and all I wanted to do was sit on the porch and watch the world go by. But here I was stepping foot, once again, on the bus for the short trip into the city for a meeting. My usual seat was free and I grumped toward it.
By Debora Lynn Wistrom5 years ago in Journal
