Late To Work

Every morning, the same size little cups of coffee. Years this went on. His wife had made the coffee but he creamed it himself. Herman would drink the little coffee with creamer with his wife who also drank a little cup of coffee while reading bits of the newspaper, sometimes aloud. This was in the little side kitchen that was on the western side of their house.

Beyond the window the rising sun had made of the tree in their yard a sofly lit picture. The tree was a scene.

But so the wife of the man had begun a job that required her to travel and he suffered through his breakfast alone with both his coffee and his thoughts. Herman it would appear could not handle his own thoughts so clearly heard as his thoughts up till then had always been poured to him like hot water over grounds and through a filter. But now it was as though the filter had had gotten worn.

And so it began thusly. For his method of curing the loneliness and his grainy thoughts was to pour a second cup of coffee, as per usual and set it where she would have sat, if there. He later took it farther by reading aloud in the cup’s direction and finally, drinking of the cup himself, as if that would heighten the illusion.

The first time the man was late he felt sick to his stomach as he arrived to look at the clock, not even realizing until that moment his folly. But nobody thought to yell at him as he had such a strong track record and it was only human that he should at least sometime be late. Besides he was only a few minutes late and that meant little to the work he did.

Herman’s job title was chief inspector of collation and his office name, for some reason, was Ned Sheehan. Office walls the color turquoise, the color of which he had chosen himself during the annual redesign. Also the office was larger than most at the business, it being able to hold a long leather couch.

The couch came in handy at first since also because of the coffee he was restless in his bed, couldn’t sleep, and he’d nap on the couch during almost the entire hour long break, eating little for lunch. That was obviously part of why his sleep cycles had got messed up but also why he took on a crumpled- but also soft- and rested- looking appearance during the second half of his workday. Also after the nap he heard things differently as if he had come out of water after being underwater. Life became rather loud. His phone made ringing sounds that were almost intolerable and he left his door wide open so that the opening and shutting sounds of the door would not impede.

Herman that morning awoke in darkness, awoke one more day after weeks of having been late, still somehow with still a job, but getting on the bad side of many of his coworkers. And he thought, “this is it.”

“This finally is the morning that normalcy returns, aside from the wife being gone that is.”

And he prepared to get up but found he could not move. He was just so very comfortable then in his warm bed and it seemed to be so cold and unpleasant outside his bed. And he remembered how his wife had looked at him in the morning in bed back when before the travel, when he just woke up and she was looking at or in his eyes as if she had been studying his face in the near total dark all night while he slept and still had not come close to figuring him out, and at how her looking at him in this way had almost made him late rather often, as he was transfixed by her yellow eyes. Eyes that followed after him as he dressed and fixed himself, and then went downstairs with him to share a breakfast.

Herman spent a good half hour in this way, but then got up, and went straight to work without shower or breakfast. Only coffee.

On his way, he looked vacantly outside the window of the train. His clothing was even more crumpled than usual and he feared his train mates were judging him. Many of them were people who were often on the train at this time of day, this being a time of morning slighly later than he used to ride the train, so a whole new group of people than the people he used to ride with, these, the new people, and this group of people being, it seemed to him, a slight more impoverished and frowny looking bunch, for example the elderly woman who sat right beside him, her mouth a prune, her two eyes turned away from him both without any color at all it seemed. Her hands were claws that clutched the newspaper she almost hid her face behind. One of her pant legs was stained with something pinkish.

“I couldn’t help noticing.” said the woman. The woman was not turned towards him nor did she openly acknowledge him in any way. But by her voice Herman could sense at once that she was speaking to him, as it was as though she was a pro at voice projection.

“Noticing what?” said Herman. In the manner of the woman he also did not openly acknowledge the person he was speaking to and was still facing the window.

“My name is Vinegar,” she said.

“Vinegar?”

“That was a joke. My real name is Camille. I am 87 years old. My children have all died, all ten of them, all in different ways. My husband, Bill Krill, he also died, but only recently. I am now a widow.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“No you’re not. Not yet anyway. Because you don’t understand. You don’t know the details. I am a tired person anymore. This to explain why I must rest for awhile before I speak again. Will you be here tomorrow?”

“Seems likely.”

“We’ll continue the subject then.”

The train came to a stop and the man hurried to his workplace. Outside the building there were people gathered outside. They were workers there and had been funneled out in reponse to an alarm, he soon gathered. Nobody, he figured, would have noticed that he was late. In fact, some people had already absconded to a cafe nearby. This cafe’s name was Noses. It was supposed to be a fragrant place and it was, though after you’ve been there awhile you cease to notice it, and Herman went there.

He felt good somehow. The weather was mild and a verse of flying geese was descending upon a pond nearby. Parts of the sky were milky colored with clouds and a large oak tree overhung the sidewalk he walked upon.

Noses was uncrowded. Herman took a seat on the patio out back and sipped the margarita. His wife had only called him once since her departure and they had a long and glum conversation with several long pauses and clearings of throats. While they spoke he looked at the muted television, and, sitting there at Noses, he could not for the life of him remember a single thing they had talked about.

A coworker asked Herman if she could sit at his table and he agreed. The woman sat across from him. Herman looked at her big head of red hair stacked tall upon her head and sipped from the margarita.

“They’re meaning to kill us,” said the woman. Her name was Bernadette, Herman remembered.

Herman looked at his margarita.

“Pardon me?”

“The terrorists. They wany to get us. They hate our country and what it stands for.”

“What does the country stand for?”

“We don’t stand for no terrorism. I have three kids. You think I want to see them all blown up, their limbs sprayed across the yard. Our dog in the tree. Mayhem.”

“What brings this up. The alarm at the building?”

“It was a bomb threat,” said Bernadette. “This is not uncommon.”

Herman sipped the margarita faster than he intended. He was thinking about his own anxiety, his pulse rate, how swollen were his veins. He felt something throb betweem his eyes. His eyes began to dart, but not wildly. His wife was on a business trip.

“Are you okay?” said Bernadette. ™Are you stressed out? I know I am. Do you think my hair sticks up like this for no reason? It is the constant aggravation.“

"Then we are aggrieved.”