A Random Thursday
She pauses, and leans back fully into her seat.  The back of the black leather chair is so high that from the rear, no one can tell that she’s sitting in it.  She presses her left foot against the stool on the ground, then bends her right knee and rests her right foot on top, in a completely casual and slouchy manner that hardly befits the corporate setting.  But with the big wooden desk to hide it all, she enjoys great freedom to even go barefoot under that desk. No one knows. And therefore, one cares.
Wrapped around her hips and partially covering her legs is a fuzzy blue blanket, the one she bought down in Union Square when she realized — soon after starting work — that the office was way too cold, all the time. She has since discovered that between the space heater and cups of hot tea, she can stay reasonably warm through the day — but at night, the blanket is key. And the softness provides a sense of comfort. She likes soft things. And she likes cute things. She keeps a koala bear, a ladybug professing love, and a stuffed animal on her desk every day — because she is a completely sucker for inanimate objects with cartoony-looking eyes. They give her comfort too.
Her eyes wander to nowhere in particular, flitting around and resting on random objects, seeing but never really looking. Finally she focuses on the crane-mobile hanging from the ceiling in front of her. It brings back good memories of the friend who passed it on to her, after he left. The eight rainbow-colored paper cranes gently float through the air, drifting and turning ever-so-subtly — providing evidence that the ventilation system is actually working.
Then her eyes, as if by default, glance back to the two glowing rectangles upon which her attention is fixed for the majority of her waking hours, five to seven days a week. The cursor blinks steadily, expectantly. Blink. Blink. Blink. Still leaning back against the chair, she takes in the silence of this not-so-late, but late-enough hour. All she hears is the steady hum of white noise.
The world is silent, and she’s all by herself — and she can hear herself think:
This is it.
And she decides that when her world changes drastically in exactly two weeks, she will take that opportunity to discover this world for herself, to build an independent life, to create meaning to fill the gap.