Round Table
Riley Bowen

I am sitting at the New Hires Orientation waiting to begin round table introductions. I’m told the numbers are uneven and Rob H. is out sick, so it’s just me and Sheila at table number 3. Sheila seems to be around 40 years, maybe spent those years West of the Mississippi, maybe her niece was born on this side, maybe she had always hoped to see the Atlantic, maybe this is how we are both here looking out the same 12th story window of a tech startup.

We forgo the instructions and jointly determine that intimacy is the most efficient means of getting to know one another. So we kiss on the mouth. Suddenly we remember how we are not stupid and take it outside, past the dumpster in the car park. The earth is soft, even in November. When I get home I am covered in grass.

On the phone I tell Sheila that I’ve decided movie theaters and microwaves are going to stick around a while, at least until we die. And now that I’ve got soup and cinema squared away, we can focus on the bigger picture. Problem is, the other stuff: the right ratio of resting to running, of meat to bread, of longing to an alternative yet to be identified. I tell her how exhausting all this is for me, the constant calculations. Sheila nods. I hear her hair rustle across the wires.

I begin calling Sheila nightly. I tell her that at some point I'm going to have to start cutting back, refocus the balance. I have considered becoming marginally more monastic, taking ‘the body’ out of the picture. I tell her I’m worried our intimacy is no longer efficient, is becoming disorganized. What I mean is, I cannot see where I am going. 

Sheila never speaks back to me on the phone. The next day in the break room she tells me it’s because the words will not seem genuine unless I can see her moving her mouth. She says she hopes this won’t stop me from calling.

I don’t mind too much. And in a secret and shameful way, I like her because of it, her carefulness. Then sometimes, I say something that I believe is truly devastating or exceptionally humorous, and I pause for a few moments after the fact. I think that maybe this time she’ll say something, laugh, cry, anything. Instead I can only hear her living. I can hear her turning on and off light switches, walking on hardwood, then on carpet. I hear her petting a dog maybe, or a cat. My favorite part is when she climbs into bed. I hear the sheets lift and fall. I hear her breathing slow. And then the call ends. The call ends and I say     “Goodnight Sheila.”    I do not care that she cannot see me.