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crack_van2013-12-10 09:51 am
stars-inthe-sky.livejournal.com) wrote in crack_van2013-12-10 09:51 am
Entry tags:
“An Uneven Ceiling” by blithers (G)
Fandom: THE OFFICE
Pairing: Pam Beesley/Jim Halpert
Length: 1439 words
Author on LJ:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
blithers
Author Website: Tumblr | Pinboard
Why this must be read: In Season 3, particularly at the beginning, it's not clear how much Pam's life has changed even as she tries to change it. This fic gives us a glimpse at why: change is difficult. Momentum is hard to build after such a habit of inertia. It's more of a character study than anything else, examining how a quiet, lonely person might start to build a life for herself.
Bursts of inspiration were hard to maintain. Pam could feel herself drifting and didn't know what to do, didn't know how to stop herself from prodding her newfound loneliness, tonguing it like a loose tooth. Her apartment was small, basic, and experienced. She liked the odd character it had, liked the echo of tenants before, found in the wax running down the side of the stove and the scuffed carpet near the front door. She hated how quiet it was sometimes. She hated the feeling that she had locked herself in this apartment, that it was her own choice, and there was a world out there she was shunning without knowing how to reach it. She hated that she had not slept alone in five years, and had forgotten how.
Every morning, she woke up to her alarm clock, showered, did her hair, and ate breakfast. She was grateful for her job. It gave a structure to her days, and forced her into routines of care that she knew would be all too easy to discard.
Actually being at work was another problem altogether. She was aware of Roy, working in the warehouse beneath her feet. The situation was too tender and explosive for interaction, but they were both too proud, or too ingrained in habit, to do other than keep working for the same company. Their silences and glances were tense, and awkward.
Opposite her was Jim's empty desk. Not quite empty, though - the monitor still sat on the desk, its blue cord curled sadly in a tail behind. The phone bore a post-it note with a list of frequently called numbers; the drawers still held pencils and bits of gummy eraser, an almost dry marker, twisted paperclips, a half used packet of jello folded in upon itself. Sometimes she found herself staring at his empty desk. Sometimes she found herself avoiding looking at it for days at a time.
One particularly bad day, Michael got to her more than she should have let him, and she stood up with dignity to walk to the ladies room and cry small, quiet sobs in the second stall. She heard the door open, and Phyllis's tentative, "Pam?"
"Sorry," she said, and flushed the toilet while she wiped her eyes and bucked up. "Just one of those days, you know?" Phyllis nodded and patted her tentatively, gently on the shoulder.
That night, when she got home, she took out a black marker and sat at the bottom left corner of her large, shockingly purple wall. She twisted her hair back in a knot, and leaned forward to place the tip of the marker at the exact corner, then took a silent moment before bringing the marker swiftly upward in a slight curve, then another curve so the line crossed back down upon itself. Then she let herself drift into the artistic haze she had spent so much time in during high school, balancing light and dark, drawing curlicues, using line to evoke feeling, and letting the lines evolve into trees and chairs and faces, bits of expression all abstract and strung together like small, dark pearls.
An Uneven Ceiling
Pairing: Pam Beesley/Jim Halpert
Length: 1439 words
Author on LJ:
blithersAuthor Website: Tumblr | Pinboard
Why this must be read: In Season 3, particularly at the beginning, it's not clear how much Pam's life has changed even as she tries to change it. This fic gives us a glimpse at why: change is difficult. Momentum is hard to build after such a habit of inertia. It's more of a character study than anything else, examining how a quiet, lonely person might start to build a life for herself.
Bursts of inspiration were hard to maintain. Pam could feel herself drifting and didn't know what to do, didn't know how to stop herself from prodding her newfound loneliness, tonguing it like a loose tooth. Her apartment was small, basic, and experienced. She liked the odd character it had, liked the echo of tenants before, found in the wax running down the side of the stove and the scuffed carpet near the front door. She hated how quiet it was sometimes. She hated the feeling that she had locked herself in this apartment, that it was her own choice, and there was a world out there she was shunning without knowing how to reach it. She hated that she had not slept alone in five years, and had forgotten how.
Every morning, she woke up to her alarm clock, showered, did her hair, and ate breakfast. She was grateful for her job. It gave a structure to her days, and forced her into routines of care that she knew would be all too easy to discard.
Actually being at work was another problem altogether. She was aware of Roy, working in the warehouse beneath her feet. The situation was too tender and explosive for interaction, but they were both too proud, or too ingrained in habit, to do other than keep working for the same company. Their silences and glances were tense, and awkward.
Opposite her was Jim's empty desk. Not quite empty, though - the monitor still sat on the desk, its blue cord curled sadly in a tail behind. The phone bore a post-it note with a list of frequently called numbers; the drawers still held pencils and bits of gummy eraser, an almost dry marker, twisted paperclips, a half used packet of jello folded in upon itself. Sometimes she found herself staring at his empty desk. Sometimes she found herself avoiding looking at it for days at a time.
One particularly bad day, Michael got to her more than she should have let him, and she stood up with dignity to walk to the ladies room and cry small, quiet sobs in the second stall. She heard the door open, and Phyllis's tentative, "Pam?"
"Sorry," she said, and flushed the toilet while she wiped her eyes and bucked up. "Just one of those days, you know?" Phyllis nodded and patted her tentatively, gently on the shoulder.
That night, when she got home, she took out a black marker and sat at the bottom left corner of her large, shockingly purple wall. She twisted her hair back in a knot, and leaned forward to place the tip of the marker at the exact corner, then took a silent moment before bringing the marker swiftly upward in a slight curve, then another curve so the line crossed back down upon itself. Then she let herself drift into the artistic haze she had spent so much time in during high school, balancing light and dark, drawing curlicues, using line to evoke feeling, and letting the lines evolve into trees and chairs and faces, bits of expression all abstract and strung together like small, dark pearls.
An Uneven Ceiling