Keep Me From the White Lights

It would be better if they could turn them down is what she said to me. But how we would see anything I’m not sure. I’ve come to think that. They can’t turn them down anyway. If it wasn’t for the overheads then I wouldn’t see the hairs beneath keys E and R and that wouldn’t be very useful.

And so they keep them on, and they whir, and they make me sweat slightly but awareness is always a good thing. She says: but the hum does my nut in. So I say: yes well complaining gets you nowhere and you won’t accept your day to day if you always bash up against it – except that’s not what I say. What I say is: complaining gets you nowhere. But I don’t say it fully. I don’t want to sound soft with floppy heart speak because that would nullify her white light complaint about the morning. So I remove the power from the second half of my sentence and she doesn’t hear it.

I get up and check the window so that I can see whether the gum that has fused with the floor on the pavement outside is still fused with the floor. Maybe an orange light wouldn’t be so bad and I’m pretty sure its flickering faster than I can catch it flickering. I sit back down. I hear someone’s keyboard dully clapping in the foreground behind my wall.

Complaining is bad for you, I say to her. I’m still on the topic and she was already thinking in that moment that she hated me and especially now so that I’m beating this dead horse. Give it a rest, she says to me. She doesn’t say this or actually anything at all. The silence hurts more than if she said she hated me. But she definitely does hate me and now she hates me in silence.

She gets up to leave and doesn’t check the window. Six times a backspace is slammed in the foreground and it breaks my focus.

I try to forget the hum but it doesn’t hum regularly. Outside there’s a work vehicle that all orange. An orange cone and an orange triangle sign – the truck is grey. I don’t and won’t read the sign but it means stay back is what I think. If it just hummed the same note forever that would be good but it keeps surprising me. The white light doesn’t change but she can still see it. Except that she’s gone for five minutes only to come back without looking at me.

She makes decisions with no second thought. I didn’t even see her decide to get up. So I get up and go toward the door but I’m split in my head between being by the window (and the orange) and knowing she hates me and, thirdly, tapping my key card against the plastic panel with the red light. I watch for it to go green and it does go green and the double doors start to push open, then stop, before continuing to open at a pace just slightly too slow.

I can choose to go left or right. Left feels exactly the same as right to me because there’s an untouched sofa on both the left and right with a little glass topped cylindrical side table that never has dust on it. I hear no one and I hum the white light’s hum but I can’t follow the rhythm. I choose right because there’s still milk there and instant in the bottom cabinet so I press my card on the kitchen panel and it goes green which means I get to bend down for the coffee in the cabinet. The spoon is slightly damp because it was alone in the sink before I picked it up. The coffee sticks to the wet bits on the spoon so I bang the spoon on the side of the mug while I hear someone drag a foot on the carpet in the hallway. I rub off the coffee with my thumb, middle and forefinger before crumbling it and flicking it behind me.

I use the spoon to get the sugar next and the sugar sticks to different bits as the coffee. I look at the clear panel on the kettle and see that the water is just peaking over the edge but is underneath the 500ml minimum line. I trust the water and flick it on. I’ll check a window while it boils to see what’s moving. I reach for the handle of the door and casually pull it but I pull myself toward the door because the panel is red. I pull the handle really hard again because why not and then make peace with the red light by tapping my card on it. The plastic sheath for my personal card is really sharp and I always press my thumb down on it so it leaves a mark. I bend it too. I take my mug with me but its hard to get because the door is heavy for just my left leg but I make it in the end and there’s a black scuff on the carpet from that person walking and it will probably set in soon. The rest of the carpet is pristine and the hallway is wide.

I sit down and she’s not there but the printer makes reloading noises so I sit down and its all white in front of me. I should tuck into the white paper but I get up and go to look at the window. It smells different to the area by my desk and I will remember the smell for a while probably.

I go back to my desk because its still only an orange sign out there by the van or truck with the piping (closer to tubing I’d say) resting on the chassis. Not chassis, sorry, the bed. And when I sit down she is walking over and she has a stack of paper but I think she still hates me.

Paper, she says as she hands me the top one because I have to sign it off. I scratch my roundabout signature on the bit that says signature and hand it to her. She says: thanks for the shit on it. And I say: what? while I look at her and she says: the shit on it, thanks for the shit on it. And I say: what shit on it? and she indicates toward the brown thumbprint on the right side. She goes to speak and stops and says: you are a stupid cunt sometimes you know that? But she doesn’t say that and now a humming has started outside by the window and my mug falls off the window sill. A mixture of coffee grounds and sugar clumps fall ahead onto the carpet. I hear a snigger behind the divider in front of my desk.

And so I say to her that she can’t talk to a manager like that but she says its a meaningless distinction because I’m shit. Although she doesn’t know what I’m talking about so instead looks at the coffee and sugar trail in silence before sitting down.

I move to the window to see that the work vehicle has moved and now four orange cones are placed around where it was parked. The fucking humming, she says as I get the dustpan and brush that has been placed on the empty desks behind me. I get the majority of it into the pan but the rest I have worked into the carpet. This I don’t like because I will have to see it from now on and its really visible under the white light.

Then I sit down and say to her that: complaining doesn’t get us anywhere. To which she huffs and glares to the right around the divider opposite me and I hear a nose loudly exhale and but I’m already standing to get a hot drink and I smack directly the red light on the panel with my hand and she gets scared at the noise. I properly scan my card this time. She now hates me but is mostly scared of me.

I’m bending the plastic holder of my card and I put the edge bit under my fingernail so I can bend it better. I’m already thinking about the next electric door panel because I remember it whenever the last one reminds me. I press my card and it goes green and as I move to go in I have to stop to let a pair of shoes walk out which makes me check mine for the coffee-sugar mixture, to which there is nothing but a inside-worn black heel from my weak arches. And the door has gone red again so I tap my card and go in but I make sure that I put the kettle on this time, like last time, because I intend to use the water.

I open the cabinet for the instant and scrape the sugar jar toward me and see the coffee specs I put inside it before. I take a spoon but my cup is still on my desk so I stare at the coffee for a moment and I think I will burst. I grab the door handle and it won’t open even with two hands and my foot against the wall but it really quickly comes off the door and I feel a numb thump on the back my head because I’ve hit the fire safety poster on the wall which makes my neck tickle because I feel a wetness of the collar of my shirt and its relevant because I’ll need a new shirt but I sit down and I hear someone scuff the carpet outside as they walk and I wait while I sit and eventually my neck feels dry but that’s the last thing I could tell you happens cause I sat there while nothing changed until the place flicked dark and the room was red from the panel.

And I can barely see the sugar jar and the instant jar on the counter but its fine(and I don’t usually like to complain) because its clear that the humming has stopped.