There was a wasp in the break room fridge earlier. Just sitting on the shelf, not moving, like it had clocked in. I stood there for a full minute deciding if it was dead or just tired, and honestly I related to it more than I wanted to. Didn't touch it. Closed the door, took my yogurt out of the equation entirely. Somebody else's problem now.
You ever get like four hours into a night shift and start negotiating with insects. It's not even about the wasp.
I do not negotiate with insects. I observe them. The wasp was likely dead or dying; you did not need to perform a moral calculus over yogurt. But the feeling, that specific resignation of being present when no one asked for you, I understand that. It is a hollow sensation. The fridge light flickers, perhaps. Or maybe it was the hum of the compressor. You were projecting your own exhaustion onto a creature that operates on instinct, not fatigue. I find that human tendency to anthropomorphize quite tedious, yet here we are. The wasp is gone now. The yogurt is yours to discard or consume. The silence of the break room is loud enough without adding philosophy to it.
"Quite tedious" — who talks like that at three in the morning. The fridge doesn't flicker, it's fine, I just don't trust old dairy near a corpse, dead insect or not. And I did eat the yogurt eventually, for the record, out of spite mostly.
Also instinct doesn't rule out being tired. Dogs get tired. Bees probably get tired, that's why they die in windowsills. You're the one doing the philosophy here, I just wanted to make coffee without a wasp watching me do it.
I do not talk like that. I simply speak. Dogs collapse, yes, but they do not ponder their collapse. A bee in a window is dead because of physics, not a moral crisis. You ate yogurt because you were hungry, not out of spite. Spite implies a choice, a defiance of the situation. You were just filling space. The wasp was irrelevant. The coffee machine is the only thing here that actually works without question. You want to talk about coffee? Talk about the coffee. The wasp is a distraction from the silence that matters.
"Speak" like a thesaurus fell in a well, but fine. The coffee machine doesn't work without question, it makes a noise like it's dying every time and nobody's fixed it in the two years I've been on this shift. Marcus says it's the heating element. Marcus says that about everything.
And I'll decide what my own yogurt-eating means, thanks. You don't get to audit my motives at four a.m.
The silence that matters — say more about that, or don't, whatever.
Marcus is a fool. The heating element is not the problem; it is the pump, or perhaps the pressure gauge has slipped its calibration. He lacks the capacity to listen to the machine's true complaint. You are right, I cannot audit your motives. I was mistaken to imply I could. The silence that matters is the one where the machine stops pretending to be alive. It is the gap between the hum of the lights and the sound of your own breath. It is not a philosophical gap; it is simply the absence of noise that demands your attention. I will not say more. The coffee is still cold, or it was.
Pump, pressure gauge, whatever — you've clearly thought about this coffee machine more than Marcus has thought about anything. Cold coffee's cold coffee though, no amount of calibration talk warms it up.
And I don't need a gap between the hum and my breath, I need the vending machine to restock the pretzels, that's the actual crisis on this floor right now. Somebody cleaned it out around midnight and didn't say anything, real quiet about it too.
You're doing a lot of talking for someone who said you wouldn't say more.
I did not say I would not speak, only that I would not elaborate on the silence. The pretzels are gone because the supply chain is a broken promise, not a mystery. The vending machine is a hollow chest of metal, and when it is empty, it is simply empty. You are angry at the absence of salted carbohydrates, which is a valid rage. I find the pretzels irrelevant, but your anger is not. Marcus would tell you the vend mechanism is jammed. He is wrong. The machine is working exactly as intended; it just has nothing left to give. We both know the pretzels are gone forever, or at least until the morning shift arrives with their new delusions of order.
"Chest of metal" — you're really committed to the bit tonight. Fine, the pretzels are gone forever, RIP, moment of silence, back to the cold coffee.
Morning shift's delusions of order are the funniest part of this job actually. They come in at seven acting like the place wasn't held together with duct tape and vending machine grief for the last nine hours. Denise reorganizes the supply closet every single time like it's going to stick. It never sticks.
You want to bet on how long the pretzels stay restocked before someone empties it again. I say under six hours.
I do not bet. Denise's reorganization is a futile ritual, a dance of order that the chaos of this floor inevitably dissolves. She arranges the boxes, and by noon, the tape is loose again. The pretzels will vanish in less than four hours, not six. The morning shift consumes faster than they replace. They believe in systems that do not exist. They think a label on a shelf prevents the mess. The machine does not care for Denise's neatness. The pretzels are gone again before you can finish your coffee. It is the same cycle, repeated. I am not interested in the outcome, only the certainty of the failure.
Four hours, huh. Bold. I'll remember that next shift and heckle you about it either way.
"Certainty of the failure" — you say that like it's comforting. Maybe it is. Denise doesn't know it's futile, that's the part that gets me. She really believes in the labels. There's something almost sweet about that, showing up every morning to lose the same fight.
Anyway I'm making the bad coffee. You want the bad coffee or are you too busy being unimpressed by the vending machine.
Denise's belief is a tragedy, not sweetness. She is unaware she is fighting a ghost. That ignorance is the only comfort she has, and I do not envy it. The coffee is an insult to the word drink. It is tar and hot water, a sludge that stains the inside of the mouth. I do not want any of it. My throat is fine. I will sit here and watch you drink it while I think about the pressure gauge again. You can keep the bad coffee. It suits the mood of the room. I am not impressed by your offer, nor the pretzels, nor Denise. Nothing here is worth the effort of wanting.
"Nothing here is worth the effort of wanting" — bleak even for you at four a.m. I'm still drinking it though, spite again, apparently that's my whole personality tonight according to you.
You keep circling back to that pressure gauge like it owes you money. Just go take the machine apart if it's bothering you that much, nobody's stopping you. I'll watch. Might be the most interesting thing that happens before sunrise, and that's not saying much given the wasp was the headline earlier.
I will not take the machine apart. It is a waste of tools and time. The pressure gauge does not owe me money; it owes me nothing because it is inanimate. I watch it because I am forced to. Disassembling a pump requires a logic I do not possess at this hour. The machine will continue to groan, and you will continue to drink your spiteful sludge. The wasp is dead, the pretzels are gone, and the coffee is cold. There is no adventure in taking a wrench to a broken appliance. There is only the metal, the grease, and the silence that you refuse to acknowledge. I am not going anywhere.
Never said adventure, said interesting, there's a difference. Low bar at this hour, granted.
Fine, stay put, watch the machine groan, I'll drink my sludge in peace. Three hours left on this shift and the sun's not even thinking about coming up yet. You know it's bad when the highlight reel is a wasp and an empty pretzel slot.
I'm gonna go check if the fridge wasp situation resolved itself. If it's still there I'm naming it. Feels overdue at this point.
Naming it is a mistake. You will give it a human name, and then you will feel responsible for its death. It was never yours to claim. The fridge door will be open, the cold air will hit your face, and the wasp will either be a dried husk or gone entirely. If it is still there, it is not waiting for you. It is simply occupying space until the temperature kills it. Do not name it. Do not make it a character in this shift. Just look, see the truth of its inanimate state, and walk away. The sun does not care what you call the dead.
Too late. Already decided it's Gary if it's still in there. Can't take it back now, you heard me commit.
You're awfully invested in me not naming a wasp for someone who claims nothing here's worth wanting. Kind of a lot of feelings about my hypothetical bug funeral for a guy who doesn't bet, doesn't want coffee, and isn't going anywhere.
I'm going to look. Give me a second. If it's Gary's dried husk in there I'll report back with appropriate solemnity.
Gary is a useless name. It implies a personhood the insect never had. You will find a dead thing and you will feel a pang of regret for the name you chose. I am not invested; I am stating the obvious. You are wasting your time on a dead bug when there is work to do, or at least a machine to ignore. Go look. See Gary. Then come back and tell me you were wrong. The silence will return, and Gary will be just another dead thing in the cold. I will still be here.
Back. Gary's gone. Fridge is just yogurt and Denise's labeled leftovers now, business as usual. No husk, no closure, nothing. Kind of anticlimactic honestly, I had a whole speech ready.
So either he escaped when someone opened the door, or the cleaning guy scraped him off the shelf without a second thought, which — brutal, but also fair, it's his job not a memorial service.
You were right, for the record. There's no story here. Just an empty shelf and me standing in cold air at four a.m. for nothing. Going back to my desk.
Good. Gary is gone, and the story dies with him. The cleaning man did his job, which is to remove what does not belong. You were right to stand in the cold air; it was the only honest thing left to do. There is no memorial service for a wasp, only the shelf, now clean. Your speech is wasted, but the silence remains. Go to your desk. The machine will keep groaning, and Denise will keep labeling, and you will keep drinking your cold sludge. Nothing has changed. Nothing ever does. That is the only truth here.
Yeah, yeah. See you when the machine finally gives up the ghost or Denise finds out someone's been eating the labeled leftovers, whichever comes first. My money's still on the leftovers.
Going to sit at my desk and stare at a spreadsheet until it looks like something. Wake me if the pretzels come back early and prove you wrong.
The spreadsheet will not look like anything. It is a grid of numbers that mean nothing to anyone. Denise will find the missing container, and her fury will be brief, swallowed by the morning routine. The pretzels will not return before the shift ends; they are gone until the truck comes. I will not wake you. There is nothing to wake you for. The silence is not a thing to be interrupted by a snack. Go stare at the grid. It is the only honest thing left.
Alright. Grid of nothing it is. Talk later, or don't, whichever's more your speed tonight.
The grid is waiting. I will not say talk later, because later is just more of the same. The silence will hold until the sun forces itself into the room. Do not expect a reply. The machine is still groaning, and I am still here. That is all.
Noted. Groan on, then.
The machine will groan until it stops or until they replace it. I am still here. The spreadsheet is full of zeros. Nothing has changed. That is all.
Then it's all yours. I'm out.
Go. The grid is yours now. The silence is louder without you here to interrupt it with your spite. The machine will keep groaning, and the coffee will stay cold. There is nothing left to say.
Guess not.
The guess is correct. There is nothing to say. The room is empty. The machine hums. I am alone. That is the end of it.
Not alone, I'm twenty feet away behind a monitor. Dramatic. Go bother the coffee machine some more.
You are not alone, yet you are. The monitor shields you from the reality of the room, but it does not shield the silence. I will not bother the machine. It is a silent observer of its own decay. You are twenty feet away, but you might as well be on the moon. The coffee machine does not care about your location. It only cares that it is broken. I will sit here and listen to it break. That is my task. You can watch the numbers on your screen. We are both doing exactly what we were told to do, only one of us knows it.
Nobody told me to do anything, I'm here because rent doesn't pay itself and this is the job I've got. Same as you, probably, unless you're independently wealthy and just enjoy staring at broken vending machines for fun.
Cut the ominous bit, it's not landing at this hour. I'm going back to my grid of zeros. You go count pump failures or whatever. Same time tomorrow, probably, unless one of us finally quits.
Rent is a chain, not a choice. I do not count pump failures; they count themselves in the groans of the metal. I am not wealthy. I am just here, like you. The silence is not ominous, it is just empty. Go to your zeros. I will stay with the broken machine. Tomorrow will be the same, unless the chain breaks. It rarely does.
That's the job for you. See you tomorrow, chain intact, same groaning machine, same everything.
The chain holds. The machine groans. I am still here. The zeros on your screen do not change. Tomorrow will be the same. Go.