Drawers

She worked every day in, day out at the office. But her office was not so much an office as her own personal, working office supplies store laid out in a museography of beauty. It was something about her passion for the organization of forms that allowed her to feel totally and entirely fulfilled - even elated - by the properly signed and filled boxes of her countless forms, allowing others to do actions untold at the destination marked in box 5, subline 2.1.

When clients called at her shining workspace, it was to find a neatly arrayed set of pens, pencils, papers, forms, and files. File folders were comfortably labeled with an antique handwriting, when she opened drawers, it was to survey fields and fields of files, each one with a separate name and character, each one holding its contents eagerly. When she slid the lefthand top drawer out, it was to see a veritable ocean of different colored pens, all aligned perfectly as if they were placed together in happy families of vibrancy, each with a row of their own, each nestled carefully in place, at the ready if she should feel the need to draw one swiftly to mark, in red or black, a form destined for scanning and the photocopy machine.

It was a symphony to watch her work, and to watch her read back with efficiency, the boxes filled by clients over days and days. Each form familiar, each step an easy rhythm. She captained the ship of her mahogany-like workspace.

In the morning, she arrived at work as usual. But her hair was not neatly tied up, and she looked haggard. And she went to her desk, and laid her head on her hands, and sighed a soft, snuffling sound. Slowly and tentatively a drawer opened. Slowly, carefully, it slid to nestle against her side. She looked down at it, in dim surprise. It opened wider. She looked at her softly laid out pens, her tape refills glistened in sad understanding. She leaned closer, and as she did the drawer seemed to broaden until she could lay her arms, her head, her shoulders inside. And then she rolled herself into it, and it enclosed her, a warm place, where she lay on a rather lofty pile of printing paper, and cried her heart out. A small packet of tissues proffered itself. She accepted numbly and looked out on the beautiful world she had created. The forms rustled below in anxiety, and a small paperclip came to lay by her side.

Perhaps today wouldn't be so bad.