i got off work at almost seven. a co-worker called in sick; her daughter, the one who just got back from a trip to beijing, figured in a road accident the night before.
we work on almost the same stuff but covering for her made me feel so inadequate for not being a parent. the way she orders her stuff, so her. she has these folders of probable problematic cases to her right, just behind her desk phone, as if she, the neurotic single parent that she is, expects at any moment of the day a call from the principal of her child’s high school, telling her her daughter got knocked up by one of her gym teachers. or something.
going home, the bus i was in was less than half full. the blue of the empty seats looked deeper in the early evening light, as if coated in ground lapis lazuli like in so-called primitive italian predella paintings. and a mother--she certainly is one--for her own reasons, stood by the door.