Louise and The Men of Transit

New Desk

Louise sat down and landed on the ratty carpet. Oomph. Her eyes stared at the dingy space in front of her as her brain tried to process what had happened. She twisted her head around, then her shoulders, then her body at the waist, to look for her errant chair.

No chair.

How did she miss that? She'd been so excited at having her own desk at the TTC and mooning over it, she'd assumed it came with a chair. Louise laughed at herself as she untwisted and stared into the space underneath her desk. Shapes emerged out of the gloom. Fat tangles of dust. Bits of carpet. Gobbed-up tape. A broken spider's web. Louise shot up and fell forward against her desk, her palms slamming down, fingers splayed, to stop her momentum. She panted. She lifted her head and looked over at the men, her chest heaving. Jim had a black plastic pen in his right hand, his elbow planted on the desk; he was spinning the pen, pausing it, spinning it, pausing it, spinning it, his solid back angled forward, his head disappearing downward as he focused on his now two stacks of paper. He stopped his pen's movement. With his left hand, he slipped one sheet from the tall pile to a thin pile. He began reading and spinning the pen again.

Louise shifted her gaze towards Harold, who was sitting in a sort of half-profile to her. The white stick of a lollipop stuck out from his profile. He seemed unconcerned. His lips disappeared into his mouth, the stick following; a slight sucking sound wafted over to her. His lazy left hand pushed a glossy page of his magazine over. Her gaze took in the round charcoal-metal garbage can next to the side of his desk closest to her. Crumpled paper with foil insides rose above its rim and teetered on its edge. Luckily, the can was kissing the desk, so the burger wrappers were able to lean against the desk instead of falling to the puckered carpet underneath the can. Harold slowly pushed another page of his magazine over, his body unmoving except for his left hand and arm.

Phew. No one noticed.

A rumble began; the floor shook. Her eyes grew big and flicked over to the men. They kept carrying on. The rumble stopped. She glanced down at her feet and noticed the carpet: multi-hued browns and reddish brown splotches on grey blotches, its weave worn thin. Louise's eyes opened wide. She sat on that! She twisted her head around and down to check out her bum. Maybe her navy pants would hide any stains that had gotten on to her. But was her favourite blue cardigan okay? She grasped its back hem to inspect it. Yes, it seemed to be okay. Nothing she could do right now, anyway, she shrugged to herself. She untwisted herself again, nodding happily. The distant underground thunder began again. She froze. What was that? Her heart beat. Why was the building's internals rumbling? She inhaled short little breaths. The men didn't seem to notice. She wasn't hallucinating. She wasn't! But she couldn't ask them! Could she? She could be all casual like, she decided. She flattened her palm against her chest and sucked in air.

"Uh."

Neither man moved.

"Um. I have a question."

Jim lifted his head but didn't turn it.

"What was that rumble?" she asked, her voice rising to a higher register.

Jim's pen stopped spinning. "The train," Jim replied. Jim lowered his head again. His pen began its rotation between his fingers again.

Okay. That made sense. The station was right there at the entrance, so of course there was a train. She laughed at herself. She shook her shoulders and smiled. She could deal with this. She was capable. And she could deal with those webs and dust bunnies, too. That was what her purse was for.

Standing, leaning against the front of her desk, she pulled her purse forward, and a streak of reflective black in grey coating appeared behind it. Louise reared away from her desk and looked down at the front of her cardigan. A nice horizontal smudge of dusty grey decorated her pristine sky-blue cardigan. Louise grimaced. She quickly unzipped her bag and dug both hands into it. She rooted around, pushing aside her wallet, her keys, a couple of pens. She lowered her head to look closer into its depths. A rectangle of white reflected some light out of the obscure shapes that filled her purse. She shoved the notepad over. Ah-ha! She pulled out a packet of wipes. She bought baby wipes to use on her clothes. They smelled nice. Made her feel safe. Besides, Marcia seemed partial to them. Nightly, after using a baby wipe to wipe off some part of her dinner that had somehow leapt onto her clothes, Louise would get comfortable on her sofa and Marcia would curl up on her in that exact place where she'd wiped her clothes.