Making a choice, that was the hardest thing. And sometimes, when you made a choice, it wasn’t a choice at all, but an attempt at ducking one. Clementine was a grade A example of that.

‘I don’t know what to do after high school so I’ll stay on and do A Levels’, her mind had concluded. ‘Now that A Levels are coming to an end, I guess I’ll go to Uni’. Another similar conclusion.

The problem was that you couldn’t climb the pyramid forever. You had to reach the apex at some point. For Clementine, this had happened straight after she finished her PhD. With no obvious or immediate job prospects, and a world that demanded regular infusions of numbered paper she had been forced to take a factory job. She was not pretentious. She was descended from two members of the working class. It had simply been drummed into her that she would do better; that she would attain greater heights. Pyramid, pyramid, pyramid.

It was however one hell of a comedown, going from the nine to five life of the sunny dispositioned academic to clocking in for a twelve hour night shift, and feeling like your feet were just about ready to fall off, come seven in the morning.

So it was that when she spied a job online for an agency position at the local library she had just about bitten the agency rep’s hand off. I’m the person you want for this job, she had delivered sternly over the telephone. Six years later and she had done an admirable job climbing yet another pyramid - more of a bookcase really - going from library assistant to manager, to district officer. The problem was, now she had a choice to make, and Clementine was pretty shit at that.

What irked her most were the possibilities. She was like a kid at the ice cream van window, so bowled over by the variety of flavours, and so paralysed by indecision, that by the time she had come to a decision, all she could hear were the merry peals of the ice cream van’s music as it turned the neighbourhood corner and out of sight.

Fomo the kids called it, fear of missing out. So consumed by the intricacies of decision making was Clementine that even applying for jobs reduced her to a bag of nerves. Never mind the interview, never mind preparation before hand. Never mind the fact that you might not be offered the job. Never mind, never mind.

These possibilities did and did not exist for Clementine. They were like the people cheering at the roadside during marathons. There but not there. In reality, those fans made running what it was, a sport. But in Clementine’s mind she was already across the finish line, had already celebrated the victory, and was at home plotting her next race.

Hence the current predicament. Become a receptionist at a filmmaking company and start a new career or take home another eight grand as a Tourism Event Officer working for the local Council. Or, or, her mind frantically added. Stay where you are and keep on keeping. Gah! Where would it all end?