Louise and The Men of Transit

CCTV

Louise opened the CCTV door with relief. For some reason, her purse felt like she'd popped a bowling ball into it. Worse, the zipper kept undoing itself. She didn't want to give up her purse and buy a new one; it had served her well all these years. It was as comfortable and comforting to her as Marcia, her cat.

Louise halted just inside the CCTV door and stared at the empty office. No one was in yet. She surveyed their desks with dull eyes: Jim's with his neat stacks of paper reports in front of his coffee-stained keyboard and dusty display, Harold's clear of everything but his hulking monitor, and Andy's with nothing on it but a phone and a turned-off computer. She was the first in because she'd left home early. She hadn't been able to sleep and had gotten up as the sun was sending its first rays into the night sky. She'd spent her usual hour and a half spreading colour on her face, brushing and gelling every strand of hair to fall into place, yet it was still too early to leave. She decided she'd rather go into the office than sit at home staring into space. She wore her loafers, having the night before kicked her traitorous patent-leather shoes into the back of her tiny hall closet that she never used. She'd fished out her navy pants with their deep pockets to wear. She yearned for the safely familiar. But she slid her arms into her new black professional jacket with its single silver button, revealing the sleeveless pearl-grey polyester shell she was wearing underneath. She'd unpinned her nametag last night and dropped it into her purse. This morning, she'd picked up her purse without opening it. She didn't want to put her nametag back on. She didn't want to even risk seeing it if she unzipped her purse. She didn't remember the trip in; she wasn't even sure she pressed her Presto on the green machines. But it didn't matter, she thought now, as she made her legs move forward and hauled her purse to her desk, opened its drawer, and, from habit, lowered her purse gently into it. Her black Presto card was free for her.

Louise pulled herself towards her desk and reached forward to press her laptop's power button. A tiny sound like a . . . Louise frowned and stared around. The sound stopped. She shrugged. She returned her focus to her laptop's screen and watched Windows load itself up, her eyes half-closed, her body slagging onto the desktop.

Scrrrtttch.

Louise sat up, her eyes flickering. There it was again. She looked around. She bent over to examine the carpet under her feet. Nothing. No mice. No rats.

She stilled her body to listen.

The air hummed in her ears.

The laptop's fan whirred noisily, and its hard drive clicked along.

Louise sat back up. She returned to her glassy staring at the changing display.

Zzzzzip!

Louise started, turned her head quickly to the right and down to see into her desk drawer.

Marcia blinked up at her smugly from her seat inside her purse.

Her unzipped purse.

Louise's jaw dropped. She tried to speak. All that came out was a hoarse truncated rasp.

Marcia sprang out of Louise's rumpled black leather purse and landed on her scratched black metal desk. She bounded toward Louise's lap, bounced off her stomach, and thumped silently on the carpeted floor. Louise gasped, clutching her offended stomach.

"Marcia," she choked. Her voice sounded like sandpaper had gotten lodged in it.

Louise held on to her stomach, trying to catch her breath as Marcia galloped around the room, her nose in the air as if she was hunting a scent.

Marcia skidded around the window side of Harold's desk, leapt onto Jim's chair arm, and pushed off it with her powerful hind legs to send it backwards and herself onto his desk. She landed neatly in between his stacks of paper. She lowered her bum to sit facing the shortest of the three stacks. She waved her tail in the air then let it float gently down onto the metal top of his desk. Louise exhaled in relief. Marcia bowed her back. And opened her mouth.