The Missing Chair

Yesterday was the Sunday of a 4-day long weekend, and Michelle, like millions of Americans, perhaps like billions across the globe, had been experiencing dread and despair at the idea of returning to work the following day: the Sunday Scaries. What had she even been working on? This was the thought accompanying her to bed that night as cloudy workplace memories cleared with a single emotion: anxiety.

Monday dawned, though only metaphorically, as the sun rose hours after Michelle had to get up, the alarm on her phone obliging her at a dream- and REM-disrupting 4:30 a.m. Her morning rituals of coffee, breakfast, and grooming she performed in just an hour to catch her work-bound bus.

Arriving at the bus stup, her mouth drooped in a frown: the four bench seats were occupied, which by itself was not particularly weird, but Michelle took this route every morning at the same time and recognized none of these people; occasionally she’d just have one silent not-yet-fully-awake companion but even this familiar sleepy individual was not among the four. Michelle stood and waited.

Minutes passed, and Michelle began to suspect the bus was running late. Checking the time on her phone confirmed her suspicion. A few more minutes tick away, and Michelle, out of curiosity, frustration, or impatience, leaned forward, looking down the street in the direction the bus ought to approach – and there it was in the distance. Finally, she thought. But even before it finished pulling up to the curb, she could tell something was wrong: the bus was packed! She trudged aboard behind the four strangers, the last of whom espied the very last seat, plopped themselves down, and looked contentedly, then embarrassedly, at Michelle. Michelle stood and waited.

The wheels on the bus went round and round, ultimately carrying Michelle to the stop closest to her work – a 10 minute walk the rest of the way now in front of her, silver droplets showering from the sky seemingly as soon as she stepped out of the bus. Trudging through the rain, frustrated by this already-emotional Monday, she arrived at her workplace: The City of Seaside Human Resources Department. Fobbing in, she exhaled a deep (and deeply held) breath, glanced at the wall clock which seemed to frown down in disapproval at her, and found her way to her cubicle. Where’s my chair? She said to herself, then aloud, searching the neighboring work stations, being met only with empty coworkers’ shrugs. Exasperated, and feet already aching, she held up the desk’s elevating button. Michelle stood and waited.