Automation Storytelling Blog

This is a task I completed for The Creative Copywriter Academy course. I was tasked with writing a blog aimed at creating anticipation for the audience.

Click, click – tic tic.

The familiar clatter of keyboards is soothing as the sun makes its steady pace across the morning sky.

Click, click – tic tic. You are into your stride, already thinking about that warm bagel at break and caffeine hit to propel you all the way to lunch.

Click, click – tic tic. But something’s just not right.

No time to think. Data to enter, collate, sort and separate.

Click, click – tic tic. A familiar sound, but not. As you drone your way ever closer to your break, you start to notice. Under the constant clicking is a murmuring rhythm, a pulse that reverberates the office floor. No time to stop. Targets to meet. You can smell the coffee already. Your pace increases but now you have noticed the underlying rhythm, you can’t unhear it. Like an itch you can’t scratch, you push on.

One minute to break; you check your clock – nearly there. All thoughts of the rhythm have disappeared. Now your brain is focused simply on caffeine and sustenance.

Click, click – tic tic. But then the clicking stops.

All at once. In synchronicity. Like a conductor has dropped his baton.

No tapering off like applause. The clicking just stops. Dead.

And then the silence pulses through the room. You are struck by the heaviness, the thickness of it. No wheels squealing. No collective sighs. No lunchboxes being opened or murmuring of conversations. Nothing.

You look up and out across the sea of cubicles but you see nothing. Emptiness. An inkling of confusion grows in your stomach into a knot of apprehension. You get up out of your chair and peer over the cubicle wall. A dull silver android is sat in Helen’s seat, its hands placed calmly either side of the keyboard. Its metallic head is slumped forward; the only sign of movement is slowly flashing orange light.

The knot tightens and grows into a ball of panic. You stumble from cubicle to cubicle, finding the same scenario in each. You pass row upon row and you begin to run wildly in the direction of the manager’s office. There you will find answers.

As you approach the manager’s office you notice through the glass that his chair is turned. He must be on the phone. The panic starts to subside. Your breathing calms.

You wait outside the door for a minute but anticipation tells you to break protocol and you enter the office.

“Mr Jameson. I’m sorry to burst in like this but…..”

Before you can finish your sentence the chair slowly turns, revealing an android where Bob should be. This one is different. On his face is a screen. On the screen is a message. ‘Please press here to contact Head Office’.