Minefield of Mirrors

-33-

With a soft sound, the door fell back in its lock behind Iris. She took a few steps to get to her bed and let herself drop on top of it. Happiness was flowing through her body when she thought back to this evening. Mick was one of the few guys on this earth who were still a bit old-fashioned when it came down to surprising girls. And then his personality... Yeah, he was an absolute treasure.

As she was lying on top of the sheets, finally alone after another day of being surrounded by people all the time, she felt how tired she actually was. She already had been working for one and a half weeks straight and even working overtime. The battery inside of her was slowly draining and it was the first time she actually realised it. Of course, Iris had felt tired after long working days, but somehow it felt like, after every day, she needed more and more time to recover from it. She yearned for a day off. However, she knew that wasn't going to happen any time soon. Last Tuesday she was supposed to have a day off, but when she got overwhelmed with several phone calls, she had no choice but to return to the office of Red Bull.

Yes, it was fucking great. Even the voice in her head had been silent for a couple of days. Maybe even the voice was too tired to speak up.

Her phone made another sound again and her arm reached for her bag next to her. Without even looking, her hand searched through the stuff inside of it until she had her phone in her hand. Iris rolled to her side and unlocked her phone to see everything she had missed during her evening with Mick.

Several missed phone calls from colleagues, one from her mom and even a missed phone call from her brother. Her brother had sent a text next, letting her know that everything was fine, but that he was just wondering how she was doing and if she was holding up with everything. And of course, that he would love to call whenever she had time. Iris's heart clenched a little when she read the words of her middle brother. They always had a special bond with each other and they always complained together about their home situation. Tomorrow she had to give him a call. He deserved a call from her, even how tired she was. So immediately she texted him back that she would call him around lunchtime tomorrow, once she had a break.

Slowly Iris scrolled through the texts of the group chat with the Red Bull girls, but nothing really stood out for her. She read about some dinner plans and a few questions that were directed to Iris about Max and Mick. If she hadn't been so tired, she would've given a reply. At this moment, she just couldn't.

With a few clicks on her phone, Iris opened Spotify, dying to listen to one song by Alec Benjamin. As she pressed the play button of the song "My mind is a prison", she put her phone next to her on the sheets and closed her eyes. It was the song she needed to hear, even when she didn't have a special reason to. The familiar sounds made her easily drift into a deep sleep. Her body was craving the numbness.

*

Iris was staring at the black stripe that was blinking at her in the Word document on her laptop. The stripe was waiting for her to write anything down so it would move to the right. Yet Iris couldn't find the right words to write. Every time she wrote something down, she aggressively removed it again. Nothing looked like the quality she normally wrote. She was all by herself in the financial office as most of the people had left towards the big restaurant in the paddock. Some of her colleagues had stayed at their own little restaurant downstairs, but everyone liked the fact that they could eat together with different teams, so they had headed out to the one a bit further down the paddock.

Slowly she dropped her head in her hands and ran inside her head through all the things she wanted to write down. The bullet points were there, but the execution? It was nowhere to be found. She felt completely stuck and the frustration was building up because of it. Her mind was full of everything and it felt like there was no room in there to stir around and mix great sentences together for an even greater outcome.