Office Notes

01

I slammed a heavy door shut and my finger caught. It turned purple then black. I’m waiting for the nail to fall off. For now the hinges are held together by a bright blue band-aid. The band-aid reminds me to anticipate the pain. When I’m typing, cooking, holding something heavy, shaking someone’s hand, washing my hair.

I’ve been spending more time than I should worrying how my hair looks. I think I’m due for a haircut. E says she thinks her hair is falling out. And she wonders what her dream meant, the one about a plane that crashes but all the passengers are okay. I’ve been having weird dreams too. Google says my dreams are my subconscious telling me I have untapped potential. K says there’s always untapped potential. That’s the point of potential, waiting to be tapped.

We’re talking as I’m trying to fix the printer again. There’s always something wrong with the printer. E swivels in her chair and reads more about dreams from the internet.

There’s a little key in my pocket for our floor in the elevator. It makes a satisfying click when it’s unlocked. Most days I’ll ride the elevator with the old Chinese people going to the Adult Day Care Center on the 2nd floor. We smile and nod to each other. One man sometimes asks me if I’m Chinese. Each time he asks as if it’s the first. And so I’ll smile and shake my head.

My computer blocks my view of the hallway. I’ve started to recognize people’s walking patterns. The way K’s boots shuffle across the tiles. The precise halt of J’s shoes on the wooden floor when she stops to read a text. The long and deliberate strides of C after he hangs his coat.

K says I’m the universal ear of the office. I listen to a lot of phone calls, most of them muffled by the thick glass of the call boxes. I hear small-talk in the kitchen and goodbyes in the hallway. The microwave beeping, the elevator dinging.

Lately, I’ve been spending most of my days at the office editing. K taught me all these keyboard shortcuts and I’m trying my best to retain them all. I’m not a very smart editor, but I like the tools in my tool kit. I like the finite and tangible feeling of a “cut”. I like chasing a feeling and following it until it’s gone.

Sometimes I’ll come into the office on a day off, needing some time to write on my own. Or maybe I just want to hear the elevator key click and everyone’s shoes on the floor.

I’ve been soothing my broken finger in a glass of ice water at my desk. The nail has become brittle, so I’m expecting it to fall off soon. Later at a bar, my friends inspect it with a flashlight. A says I should go to the doctor while I still have insurance. I bend my finger back and forth and tap it on the table, proving it’s working just fine.

Back at my desk, writing an email. I had trained my hands to type without my broken index finger and now I’m forcing it to reintegrate, but it keeps wanting to hover above the keys. I examine the back of my hands. I wonder if I’d recognize them if they weren’t attached.

I’ve been having that problem recently. Checking to make sure I know myself. Looking at my face in the bathroom mirror, noticing more freckles and deeper smile lines. If I think about my name too much it becomes a strange assortment of sounds and not a name.

Around the holidays the office got quiet. Old leftover lunches rotted in the mini fridge. My ears perked when doors occasionally opened and closed in the hallway. I started paying attention to my own sounds. How I’d often drag my heavy boots along the floor. Or drum my fingers on my desk.

The weird dreams went away. As did my dead nail. The new nail had already begun to grow underneath it. Wondering what that means for my untapped potential.