Lucinda Drake Has Had It

Written by Jordan Resnick // October 30th, 2025

Today’s the day that Lucinda Drake has decided that she has had it. At 36 years old, single as a spinster, Lucinda has decided that nothing in her life matters. She walks to work, rain sinking beneath her crepe paper slacks and thin loafers. Rain splish-splashes away — quite frankly, she is soaked — but all that is on her mind is that Today is the Day. Eyes in the gutter, Lucinda walks.

Cold wind cuts on her walk to the office, a flashbulb reminder of the time she felt safe to speak. Regret pierces through her with each drop of rain. Lucinda squishes a worm under the ball of her foot, the last living membranes struggling to outswim the drain.

As Lucinda takes the same route to work as she had every day for the past 2,741 days, she recognized all of the people that crosses her way. Rounding the last corner, a gentleman bumps into her. Medium height, casual athletic build, Lucinda was momentarily knocked off-guard by the unexpected stranger. Gabriel apologized under his umbrella, though Lucinda had no clue how she knew his name.

Dew drops held still on blades of grass. Lucinda stammers a response, more like a gurgle than words. The umbrella lifts. Sunlight glides through a curtain of clouds, hitting the honey gold of his eyes. Unbothered, unrushed, Gabriel offers to walk Lucinda wherever she need.

This offer perturbs her. What is someone like him doing in a place like this. Now? Did he not have work to do? Was he a hooligan? Was he a bum? He didn’t look like a bum, in fact he was neatly dressed, but this perception was blocked by Lucinda’s storm cloud. “No thank you,” Lucinda replied, “I’ll take it from here.”

Heartbroken, Gabriel watches the thether of cosmic connection ripped away as easy as a spider’s web. He watches, flabberghasted, as the woman he’d been dreaming of for ten years walk away.

Taking the stairs, Lucinda wants her body to burn. She feels possessed, a storm churning stronger as the rain outside begins again. Soaking wet, she sits down at her computer, glazed. Muscle memory pulls out here. All thoughts of the street roar louder than Leonard grinding fresh coffee in the kitchen.

Gabriel’s golden brown eyes melting in the morning sun, black hair toussled on white sheets, a thought fictitious and impossible as Lucinda clacks her fingers on keys. She shivers, just once, but enough doubt to consider that maybe she was wrong. Suppressed aspirations pumping gray and gritty through the central cooling system hangs heavy on Lucinda. Thoughts of Gabriel drown. She’s numb.

A pre-maturely balding head bobbles over the cubicle wall. Fernando’s eyes burn, headlights charging towards her. He accuses Lucinda of inputting Vidosa’s billing information incorrectly, and now he was fielding calls from Vidosa’s accounting department demanding why were they charged two million dollars, and why the hell are you soaking wet? Lucinda burns, dropplets falling off long strands of hair. The impulse to open her mouth about all of the times she has stayed late, opened early, and forgetting one decimal seemed more like a concequence of the hours, but rocks solidify in her throat and all attempts to speak are cut. The storm brews fiercer than Fernando’s jet fuel eyes. As Lucinda is about to launch into how she is the greatest employee this company has ever seen, the smell of Leonard’s warm coffee curls like kittens in her corner of the room.

A preternatural calm consumes her, like the memory of a song your mother once sung. Lucinda is calm. She meets Fernando’s eyes and and smiles. Normally, the two would dodge each other as they walked down the hall, not knowing the appropriate amount of eye contact to make. Today, Lucinda refuses to look away. Stomach sommersaulting, she feels herself steaming like a sautée. Fernando flinches, his own impetus to flip out on this bizarre, disturbed woman becoming a stronger possibility with each moment.

Suddenly, the whole scene is fake. Lucinda flies out of body watching two people wearing clothes they don’t like, doing a job they don’t enjoy, arguing about people they had not met. She laughs, an unyielding gaggle until she gasped for breath.

“Fernando,” Lucinda’s voice bubbling, “I’m sorry. I’ll talk with my contacts at the Vidosa office, and clear this up by lunch.”

Fernando takes a half-step back, half a mind to call for security. “Is this some kind of joke to you? Are you mentally distrubed?”

“Don’t you see how this is all temporary? How none of this will really matter? I know what I did was wrong, I understand my mistake, and I know how to fix it. Please, if you would allow me, let me get back to work.” Fernando huffs, his daily insanity tolerance reaching its limit. Backtracking to his office, ready to make viral videos, he violently shrugs.

“Sure, whatever, be my guest.” Booking it, he distances himself from this alien.

Lucinda’s preturnatural peace continues, becoming more solid within her as the storms rage. She pushes aside thoughts of revenge, and chasing after Fernando with a fireman’s axe, and checks her numbers. She was indeed delirious when she sent them out last night. The gravity of such an upcharge doesn’t upset her, for all the numbers on her screen were a game. She calls Elenor, the Vidosa rep who helps Lucinda with this account, and together they sort through the layers of verifaction to clear. Elenor’s dismembered voice finds it amusing, joyridding about her upcoming retirement. When Harold, the office manager, arrives two hours later, luxury coffee in hand, the situation had been cleared to the best of Lucinda’s ability. The past series of events are out of her hands. Fernando trailing at his ankles, the little man’s anger turned into a pulsing headache, the higher manager had not much more to say than, “Get some dry clothes on.” For a moment, Lucinda wants to splash paint on Harold’s Gucci suit. Twitching, moving by a demonic force, she slides open her desk drawer to launch a highlighter assault when a pen drops across the room. Lucinda’s eyes clear, and she closes the door.

Dust particles count the progression of time. Lucinda’s mind folds in on itself, columns of numbers moving swiftly under her hand. Jackets rusteling wake Lucinda out of her reprieve; she’d been sitting in a puddle for hours. Rolling her desk chair next to the custodian’s closet, she makes a mental note to buy a better one. Waving goodbye to Fernando hunkered over his laptop, purple bruises set in under his eyes, Lucinda feels empathetic. Burrowing deeper under his screen, Fernando wished to be unseen. He understands her, but he doesn’t want to admit he’s like her. That would mean change. Lucinda understands, and bids him goodnight.

The darkness was a shock. Hours under flourescent lights, Lucinda forgot the storm. Frozen, Lucinda is startlingly aware of her flesh being alive. The corners of buildings and the edges of windows are sharper and more defined, now seen for the first time. Street lamps reflect gold on wet asphalt. Compelled by a blissful weight, as that of a child tucked in on a winter night, Lucinda stays and watches traffic lights blink green, yellow, red, green. The air takes on lucid possibility.

Lightheaded Lucinda, steaming in her coat, feels a magnetic pull. She hears shoes. From around the corner, Gabriel walks into view. His name hangs on her tongue, planted there from a forgotten dream. Dazed and faithful, she accepts his coat.

***

Hello there! This is Jordan Resnick. If you like my work, you can find more of my writing at jordanresnick.substack.com, screenwriting and acting at www.youtube.com/@PandorasGardenstudio.