Louise and The Men of Transit

New Computer

Day three. Louise trod her accustomed route down the gloomy corridor to the grey metal door of the Customer Convenience Team Vision office, through it, around Harold's desk — she glanced down to see what his breakfast was this morning — a fast-food egg sandwich — she thanked her memory she'd brought an air diffuser with her today — and over to her snug little desk in the corner. She sighed with contentment as she dragged open the bottom right drawer and lowered her purse into it. Jim wasn't here. Strange, he and Harold were always here before her. But she didn't want to get out of her new habit of lowering her purse down gently into the drawer. Jim's back stiffened every time she let things drop to their destination. She had to get out of that habit. Still bent to the side, she unzipped her purse and retrieved her new air diffuser. She held it up with pleasure as, with her feet, she rotated her chair around to face her desk. Her eyes focused on an object beyond the diffuser.

She froze.

That was a computer display facing her. It was flat. She leaned to the left, to the right. Yes, it was flat, not an old monitor like Harold had on his desk. She laughed at herself, suddenly, at not seeing it when she'd arrived. It was standing on top of a thick, black laptop with poorly wiped edges of fingerprint smudges and old dust. She craned to look behind the display and laptop. Yes, that was a docking station it was set into. She was blessed.

Recalling to herself that she was still holding the box with her new air diffuser in it, she hastily unpacked it. She pulled out the round white slightly translucent plastic device. From her purse, she retrieved a small bottle of peppermint oil and a bottle of water. She shook the diffuser's instruction sheet out of the box. She studied the instructions carefully. Her mother had always warned her: "You must read instructions twice or thrice, Louise. That's your calling. That's how you were made," she'd said. Louise touched each part of the diffuser and the oil and water bottles, as she read the steps over again to make sure she knew what was what and what she was to do with them. She let the sheet float to her desk's top to land near the forgotten box on its side and untwisted the top of the diffuser, sliding it up and off. She untwisted the water bottle cap and poured some water into the diffuser tank. She screwed the cap back on the bottle and set it aside. She didn't want to spill water here. Picking up the oil bottle, she untwisted its cap and upended it over the diffuser tank. She watched as one, two, three drops fell into the diffuser. She righted the bottle with a flick of her wrist and twisted its cap back on. Where to put the bottles, she wondered. Next to her purse? She considered that drawer and decided that might be too dangerous. Better to put them in the top right-hand drawer. She followed her thoughts.

Sliding the top of the diffuser back on and twisting it shut with a snap, she looked around for a plug. There must be one somewhere, she thought, for the computer to work. Holding the diffuser's plug, she stood up, leaned forward to find where her new laptop's electrical cord came out of, followed its route with her eyes, shoved the display and laptop over to her left and the diffuser to the right, pushing the box and instruction sheet to the far edge of her desk, and flattened herself across the top of her desk. She wriggled herself forward. She wasn't too concerned about her cardigan. She was wearing her old burgundy one. It was the only clean one she had left in this short work week. Before she'd begun working with her TTC team, she hadn't realized she'd need a whole week's worth of clean clothes. Life had been going on its usual jobless way; she could do her laundry anytime. That'll teach you, she thought. Her lips quirked up. It had worked out. If she'd been wearing her favourite yellow one today instead, like she would've if all her cardigans had been clean, she couldn't be wriggling across her desk now and reaching her arm down into the iffy depths to feel around for an electrical socket.

She found it!

Triumphantly, she began poking the diffuser's plug into it, trying to match up its flat pins with the socket's flat entrances. Louise grimaced as first one prong went in and the other one stayed stubbornly out; then it went in and the other stayed out. Get a hold of yourself, Louise, she admonished herself. Closing her eyes, she inhaled and exhaled, inhaled and let all her air out until her lungs were empty. She thought: feel the socket. See it in your mind. She breathed in. She saw it. The plug slid in when she tried again.