Nanowrimo

The carrier girls returned to their job. He had retrieved another cup of water and moved his seat so he could rest his feet on the table, the chair angled back. One of the girls walked to his desk, looked from him to the machine and back. He looked at her wordlessly, shrugged and pointed at the light. She frowned, turned. As she walked he tilted his head and watched her arse move with tired lust. She was one of the younger women in the information plant, retaining enough will to impress her own shape on the uniform. He admired that shape as she turned the corner and left his view, then swore under his breath in Egyptian, yawned and tossed the empty drinking cup at the receiving slot in the desk. It bounced clear with a hollow plastic sound and he sat considering what to do with it, scratching his head and mussing his dry hair.
When the bell rang to change shift he was still watching his light, waiting for it to turn off and tell him to start work. He was near paralysed, unable to move at first. The sudden change which should have been expected was not. His first movement was to sit up from his slouch where he had been staring into the light and to look around stretching. People were filing down the paths between the work stations, tripping or stepping deftly across the bundles of cable. He looked around, finding the clock and sighing. It was time to leave. Before standing he loosened the back of his chair so the person in the next shift to use his desk would fall if they were not expecting the prank. They were probably used to it by now and would be disappointed if he did not do it, he decided. He got his bag from the break room and headed out to Stainlees.
The bar was in the bank of small businesses that formed a thin crescent between the river and the Information District. Info labourers filtered through on their way to other places and left just enough for the restaurants, bars, newsagencies and coffee shops to survive. Stainlees was two rooms, a bar, an eatery and an outside decking where discerning patrons could experience the river’s effluent odour as an accompaniment to their meal or beverages. Gen took his beer outside, alone at a table with two seats, and watched the water and the navigation lights of the vessels travelling after dark. The lights were a unnecessarily complex language of heading, size, speed and license that Gen had begun to understand from his nights drinking in the same seat. A one man vessel was heading for berth in front of him, a series of blinking lights indicating its intended path. The number of lights flashing reduced as the distance between the boat and the marina reduced. As it docked with its destination and the lights dimmed, Digitalis took her seat across from him.
“About time you got here.” He yawned.