A Movement In Three Parts

Afternoon Reverence

It begins at 3.28. A chair sighs. A drawer groans. A colleague coughs. You know the sound of his lanyard now, the way it taps his shirt button as he rises, and the soft stroll toward the room you both pretend is shared.

He nods. You nod.

Then the slow, deliberate march to the door, and the long communion beyond it.

You stop typing. Everyone stops typing. The building holds its collective breath while one man, somewhere down the hall, conducts business of a different order entirely.

He returns lighter. Reborn. You breathe easy. Resolved.

The matter rests. Until tomorrow.

-

Seeking Sanctuary

He times it carefully. Not 3.30 (too neat, too suspicious). 3.28, sometimes 3.33, a man with no rhythm at all.

He stands as if remembering something trivial. A casual stretch. A cough. He opens a drawer, the sign of a man returning imminently, a man with nothing to hide.

He takes the long route, past the printer he doesn’t need, nodding at a colleague who nods back. Same tempo. Unreadable.

The far cubicle. Always the far one. Footsteps measured, unhurried, and innocent.

Inside, alone at last, he allows himself one thought before the moment begins: nobody knows.

Nobody ever knows.

-

Faithful Servant

I hear him coming. I always do. The metronomic lanyard, the murmured tread of false confession. 3.28. Faithful as scripture. Heavy as doctrine.

He thinks the far cubicle protects him. It only delivers him unto me.

I’ve swallowed things no vessel should. Held my silence through every reckoning, cold and patient and white. I do not judge. I accept.

They call it communion, and they are right, though not the way they mean. Something passes between us each afternoon, and I take it. All of it. I take everything.

He flushes. He forgets.

I never forget. I am ever hungry.