FICTION ||Oduor Otieno: Department of Unhappiness
Penned in Rage Journal, Amplifying Marginalized Voices
The main point of the matter was to deny and approve. For James, this was work and it had amassed into seventeen years of conventional labour. From behind a window he’d listen to people describing their problems, look into the evidence and make a decision on whether their unhappiness was legitimate. Then he stamped the forms. DENIED OR APPROVED.
Through it all, it never occurred to him that so much unhappiness existed in the world.
If anything, it all sounded like mere tales to expedite time. One hour would soon be two then three, and before he knew it, it would be closing time.
This is not to say any of these reasons were exempt from guidelines. See, death in the family was approved with conviction, the stamp coming down on the white paper to leave its crimson mark ; financial difficulties needed proper documentation; loneliness was a private matter and rarely approved; pubertal unhappiness was given no audience whatsoever. He worked bearing this in mind.
One time he denied a man’s application for lacking merit. The man in question, from reading his application, was simply just unhappy. It lacked rhyme or reason.
“What do you mean you just are?”
His form was quickly stamped. DENIED.
The following day at nine, a lady in blue jeans arrived in a huff. Her neck glistened with perspiration. James saw her through the window and assumed she’d run all the way. Two people were already waiting in line. James rapped on the window and motioned for the woman to approach.
“Good morning,” James said.
The woman passed him her form. It read that her dog had just died.
“Don’t you think this is a bit premature?” James said. It was obvious the woman was trying hard not to cry.
“I don’t understand.”
“You could always get another dog.”
The woman exhaled like a rusty exhaust pipe.
“You don’t understand. I have children of my own, Ash was like a child to me.”
“Do you have proof?”
The woman reached a thin hand into her back pocket and retrieved a phone. It came alive with a click. In it was a picture she showed to James. She was cradling the dog and it was trying to lick her chin. What he wanted was evidence that the dog was really dead. he stamped her form. APPROVED.
“Thank you.”
Next was a man whose girlfriend had left. James denied him. Then it was a woman who’d lost her business. APPROVED. It took him long enough. Done, he went out for a quick lunch . At the table next to him someone was complaining about their job.
He returned to work at two. The DEPARTMENT OF UNHAPPINESS was on the fourth floor. He took the elevator. He got in his chair behind the window.
Soon a lady of similar age to his grandmother came to the window. Her form was filled out. She’d done this sitting at her kitchen table. She was unhappy because she had lived for too long. James looked up at her. He tried to smile.
“Did you fill this out by yourself?” he asked.
“Yes.”
She gave off an air of someone you could trust. Perhaps it was her age.
“Ok. I would hate to deny you over a flimsy technicality. Would you be kind enough to grab another form?” James said in a suck-up kind of way.
“Why?”
“Living too long isn’t a recognized category.”
“Why not?”
“Ma’am, I don’t make the rules.”
“Who does?”
A laugh escaped James. He didn’t know who made the rules. This was just how things were and would remain so long after he’d left.
“Do you have a medical condition?” James asked. He’d noticed the unease in the small line behind.
“No.”
“Are you lonely?”
“Not that I can say.”
“This isn’t sufficient,” James said, handing her back her form.
“Have you tried filling it out yourself?” she asked.
No one had ever questioned James like this. Something tightened inside him. After she’d left, the day seemed to drag on, imposing on him a detached obligation so that he worked as if in limbo. Around closing time, he went down a floor and grabbed a form and filled it out : James Wangare. In the section that required his reasons for being unhappy, he hesitated.
He lived alone and had no wife or children. His apartment was small with a potted plant he kept hydrated. He had no specific ambition, joy, nor hatred. He crumpled the form and threw it into the wastepaper bin.
About The Writer
Oduor Otieno is a Kenyan writer whose works adhere to the canonical minimalist traditions. His works explore the human condition and have been published in Lolwe, the Kalahari Review and The African writer. He is currently working on a short story collection.
This Piece Was Read by Lergon Parris
" I have decided to accept the piece on the basis of originality. It depicts a unique concept that shows a deep dive into the writer’s imagination to create something so extreme, yet grounded in its running metaphor.
© 2026 Penned in Rage. All rights reserved.
Comments