WIP...breathing.

Sitting there, listening to my father breathe on the other end of line.

All the references to breathing I've ever heard rustle through my head--Counting Crows, that drug song from Soul Asylum, waybackwhen, Tom Hanks and reminding himself to breathe, which I later ripped off in a song with my high school band. I remember in undergrad, when I took part in a "mindfulness" study. It was about relaxing, and quasi-meditational bullshit, or whatever. I fell asleep. They thought that was pretty good. I had a crush on the girl who was observing and giving me directions. I didn't tell her, and it probably wouldn't impress her to know that I fantasized about her instead of focusing on my breathing. Come on, though, it was a dark room with a recliner in a college study--I've seen porn that started off WAY worse than that.

I'm holding my breath, I realize, and let it out, as slowly as I can, like that "secret" way that you get rid of hiccups. My dad asks, "are you still there?"

"Yeah."

"So you hadn't heard the news yet? His mother just called. She said you'd want to know. I said I was sure someone would have notified his workplace. She said she was--"

"No, dad. No one said anything. No one but me even noticed he wasn't here." It wasn't quite true. I hadn't noticed Michael was gone either. Not because I didn't care, but because our cubicles weren't close, and I'd gotten to work semi-late, as usual. So, I'd stared at Marvin's story for the better part of two hours, when my phone rang, which i knew to be a bad sign. It was dad. He'd used, "Are you okay?" as his opener. It was a bad sign.

"Oh. I'm sorry son."

I breathed. Michael was dead. We held the line for another fifteen seconds. The only reason I know it was that particular length of time is because my computer, still logging my progress through the morning, beeped to tell me it was break time. The time when Michael and I would make, drink, and subsequently hate, the coffee. It's not like we're lovers, but we are...were, are, screw it...nerds. And we disliked most of our co-workers due to their inability to see us as humans.

"Thanks for calling dad. I appreciate it. Really. I gotta go."

"Yep. His mom said she'd love to hear from you."

"Okay."

We hung up. I said, to anyone who was within earshot, "I'm taking out the trash."

...

Taking out the trash, which is one of the few things that ALL of the people in our office understand, happens for two reasons. One, it needs to be done, and because the people in charge of us refuse to pay a cleaning service (waste of funds) we (underpaid copy editors) can do it. ("I mean, you've got college degrees right?") Bastards. It also happens, because someone is pissed off at someone else in the office, and under what appears to be an office-wide understanding, no one else makes any bones about it. (I have no idea what "making bones" might entail, but no one seems to care about that either).

I grabbed the two giant green trashcans, and wheeled them out the back door, taking very little pleasure in heaving them into the local dumpster. I would, actually, have to climb in to get them later. Walking behind the dumpster, I found the "office garden". It consisted of a ten by ten foot area of rocks and what appeared to be grass, and a single bench capable of fitting two normal-sized people. It was a replacement for the bench, which, two years ago, would not fit two normal-sized people. I hate this place.

I remembered the one and only time I'd been here with anyone, in this case, Michael. We had had the following conversation:

him: Dude, I think I'm in love.

me: Really?

him: Yeah, a girl.

me: Wow. That's a fairly new population for you to be considering. (Michael was in fact, not gay, but that didn't stop me from making jokes at his expense.)

him: Shut up. I'm serious. She's, she might be, I think she's, you know, the one.

me: That's pretty impressive. Does she know she's the one?

him: Yeah. We made out.

We then went back to work. It was nice that at least one of us got some that year. Michael and I had been friends for three years, as we had been hired during the same week. We also had in common that everyone else at the office either didn't notice us, didn't like us, or didn't care.

The girl had indeed been the one, I might add. It's not a brilliant story of unrequited love--it's certainly not the Marvin-Sue-Jennings love triangle, but it was love, and I both hated and loved him for it.

I miss him already.