7.19.99

If I close the door to my office and tilt the blinds up in the long window beside the door, I can sit in secretive silence and what gradually settles in my belly as a feeling of safety. In the late afternoon, there are hardly any passerby to create noise outside the door. Only the ventilation speaker overhead blows too-chilled air with a hollow rattle. There is no direct line to the phone on my desk, all calls go directly to voice mail. Occasionally people other than me are paged on the overhead intercom, otherwise there is nothing else to interrupt. It is quiet here. As far as anyone knows, I'm not here at all; for that matter, most don't even know what it is I do so I am not missed or suspected if I disappear behind the door and the canted window blinds. So I sit in my chair, swiveled obliquely from the desk, and ruminate toward the window, whose houses never change and wherein no people seem to live, for I've never seen a soul. I like to leave the lights off as long as natural light permits. It falls softly onto the desk, the papers, and me.

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