The Book of Jennifer

Chapter 1
Late for Work

Chapter Description: Putting the finishing touches on a new piece of artwork, Jennifer finds herself late for work.

Surrounding the solar system that is home to planet Earth, there is a vast sea of stars that span the entire galaxy and have an vast span of time between when they were born and when they died. This span is on a massive scale and is significant compared to the existence of the planet Earth, much less the creatures that inhabit the planet, namely human beings. Most of them would think they are the center of the universe, and not realize just how insignificant they are in the grand scheme of things. One human in particular, on a random day by chance, was putting together a non-representation of such objects into a piece of artwork, on the off chance others of her species might find it quaint or cute. The objects in the piece represented caricaturized versions of what these creatures perceived these stars to look, and not how they actually looked. Combined with shapes of the main shape and an interesting randomized pattern.

The young woman in question sat hunched over in her deliciously cushioned office chair, the support provided by it allowing to sit for long periods of time and work undisturbed at her computer. As she put the finishing touches on her latest creation, she scrunched her face in a funny way while signing her name, Jennifer Dwame, in the upper right hand corner. She had surmised that it might not be as well liked as her previous effort, which was an eye collage, but it was a risk she was willing to take. She was pleased with how quickly the new picture had come together, and had been careful to put some extra effort into making it look visually appealing and as something that was its own unique thing and not being to derivative of the previous effort.

Jennifer had a penchant for being extra critical of herself, and not without the cost of peace of mind. She sometimes stressed over even the simplest of things, and one would assume that she may have had anxiety because of this, but that actually wasn’t the case at all. She just wanted to make sure the picture looked close to the way she had intended it to look and not gotten lost in translation between appearing in her brain and transferred to the digital canvas of her computer through her hands. So far, so good she thought. It seemed to be lining up in order how she wanted it and decided it was done. The stars were a bit trite to her, but after all the positive praise for her eye collage, she thought this star picture was a worthy follow-up. Otherwise, she wasn’t sure how long it would have taken her to come up with something else.

Jennifer’s eye collage had been something of a smash hit when she uploaded it to her DeviantArt page. It achieved several thousand views and a couple hundred comments from friends, relatives, and admirers of her previously submitted work, which was of a very personal nature and meant a great deal to her. There were also comments from strangers, as the picture was highlighted in a site spotlight for a day.

Amongst all of the hubbub, people asked if the image could be made available for purchase, and Jennifer thought it was a good idea. So she set in motion turning it into a salable print, and within hours of doing so, she had made enough to pay one and a half’s month’s rent. She was pretty happy with that. She did make a comfortable living from her current job, but this certainly was a nice addition to her income that she definitely wasn’t going to complain about.

Having felt inspired by the success of this image, she quickly thought of another image with a slightly similar nature and the stars came about. She had thought they looked nice and she decided that they would be the inspiration for the piece. Normally, what would take her 2-3 months to do, she finished in just a couple of days. Feeling completely satisfied with her creation and having saved it to her hard drive, she uploaded it to DeviantArt and would see what would happen.

As she clicked the upload link on the site, and made sure the settings were what she desired, Jennifer happened to glance at the clock and saw it was 3:45 P.M. She screamed ‘SHIT!’ at the top of her lungs as she realized she was going to be late for work. The picture had uploaded and Jennifer shut down her computer. Jennifer called her boss to let him know that she was going to be late for work. He said that was okay, and just to take her time coming in. Jennifer liked that about her boss as he was strict and by the book, but was also more concerned about his employees and their safety and well being. It was one of the reasons she liked her job at the bookstore where she worked so well.

She went into her flat’s bathroom and quickly fixed her long ebony hair and banded it into a ponytail, removed her shirt, slapped on some deodorant, slipped off her panties and walked into her bedroom area, slipped on a pair of black panties, black and white striped knee length socks, black skirt, white camisole, white tshirt, and a black button up dress shirt. Once dressed, other than the ponytail, she was the real life version of Wednesday Addams of the infamous television and movie fame.

Jennifer prided herself on this gothic look. She wasn’t always dressed like Wednesday, but she did always manage to incorporate something gothic into her daily attire and almost 90% of everything she owned clothing wise was black in color. She even had Mary Jane platform shoes to go with it to complete the look and had a pair of black leather Victorian looking shoes to go with it. The laces looked like a nightmare to untangle, but in reality were painless compared to pairs of sneakers she owned in the past.

Jennifer grabbed her Mary Jane platform shoes and slipped them on, grabbed her wallet and her phone, and locked her door behind her and began her drive across town to the bookstore she worked in. As she pulled out of her parking lot, her cell phone began to ring, and she recognized the number as her mother. She wasn’t going to even begin to pick up the phone while driving, and she let it go to voicemail. She could deal with her mother later. She also noticed the time was 4:25 PM and that she was almost a half hour late. The drive was innocuous as usual, and Jennifer pulled into Book Emporium’s parking lot. The number of cars foretold there was not a high level of foot traffic there at this time, so at the very least she wasn’t inconveniencing the store by being so late.