Shades of Gray

“I hate my job. I hate my job. I hate my job,” Temperance Larkin chanted loudly as she pounded maniacally along the graveled path, huffing and puffing and building up a sweat. Exercise sucked but it was a means to an end. By exercising Temperance could burn off all the delicious empty calories she had consumed at lunch, therefore allowing more to take their place at dinnertime. There was also the fact that a brisk walk helped to ease the tension that tightened her body and mind. Of course Temperance knew she would probably have to walk to China and back to relax properly but a couple of erratic, fast-paced circuits around the local cemetery talking to herself were the next best thing.
A lot of people thought power walking around the cemetery at twilight was a weird thing to do. However, Temperance was not someone who worried about other what people thought of her or what was or was not considered weird. She did things because she could and “weird” was just a name tag for anyone considered different. Temperance Larkin enjoyed being different. Why be one of the crowd?
“So color me weird,” she muttered through clenched teeth as she tramped. She had frustrations to burn off and the cemetery was the best place to do it as it was quiet and uncrowded. Temperance did not have to be polite to fellow exercisers as she worked off the tensions of the day. The dead never asked questions. The dead did not care if she sweated, or swore, or talked to herself. The dead were really quite the most perfect people to be around.
“Go the dead,” murmured Temperance in quiet appreciation. She smiled suddenly. “It is true. I am weird—and my care factor would be?” she asked no one in particular as she tramped along. “Why I believe, Temperance, it would be a negative twelve on the Larkin couldn’t-give-a-rat’s-ass scale of caring.” The sound of her own words made her laugh. It was bloody good to laugh after a day of dealing with crap, cranky customers at work who felt the need to take out their frustrations with the company she worked for, on the call center staff. Those customers had yet to work out that the staff did not really care and that they were basically only there to get paid and go home.
“I have to get out of that job.” Temperance’s pace picked up just thinking about her job. Crap, crap and more crap. And yes, in a perfect world she should just shut up and accept her lot in life. However, along with being weird she wasn’t good at shutting up either. This caused tension and that tension needed to be relieved or she would explode. So the minute she got home every day after work Temperance dragged her hair up into a messy ponytail, pulled on her sweats and slid on her battered gym shoes and hit the pathways of the inner northern Brisbane cemetery to burn off the raging emotions left over from the day. Generally it worked. While she did not return to her home in Zen-ike calm, she did, however, not feel the need to kick her front door open in search of wine.