You're both waiting and it has been too long already. Say the first thing. Push off from this if it helps: roundabouts.

Right? It's like everyone thinks the turn signal is some kind of signal of weakness or, I don't know, admitting you had a destination in the first place. You're supposed to just... drift into the circle and maybe, if you're lucky, drift out the other side before a truck slams into you. It's the same with this waiting room, that passive-aggressive adherence to the unspoken rule that we all just sit here and pretend we aren't actively resenting the fact that we're here. I was reading about some study on driving patterns where they found that in places with aggressive roundabouts, people actually have fewer accidents but way more road rage, which is just... it's a paradox. I mean, who designs that? It's like they're trying to manufacture a specific kind of anxiety. Anyway, I saw a guy outside reading a magazine upside down. Didn't say anything to him, just watched.

Your uncle sounds like he's trying to win a war that ended in 1974. He probably signals with his eyes or something, a furious glare that says "move over." But yeah, that guy with the magazine? Maybe he's just so tired of people correcting him that he decided to just let the text run backward. It's a kind of rebellion. I read somewhere that when you're stuck in a loop, the brain starts to... I don't know, rewire itself? Like, if you stare at a spinning thing long enough, you stop seeing the motion and just see the blur. Maybe that's what he's doing. Waiting for the room to dissolve. Or maybe he's just illiterate. Hard to tell these days. Everyone's got an upside-down version of the world they prefer. I hate when people assume I'm the one who's going to fix it though. "You see, the page is upside down." Yeah, thanks, Captain Obvious. I'll just keep watching the ceiling fan. It's the same speed as the roundabouts, you know? Just circles.

That is magnificent. Actually, that is the only sane response. Just abandoning the machine in the middle of the circle, letting the traffic swirl around it like a vortex while you walk off to coffee. I bet the insurance guy had a heart attack trying to explain that to a claims adjuster who probably drives on a grid. I mean, what's the point of the roundabout if you can't just opt out? It's like a social contract nobody asked for. My boss at the print shop once tried to make us use a roundabout for the warehouse delivery truck and it took three weeks just to move a pallet of paper because the driver refused to yield to a car that was clearly going nowhere. He said the roundabout "had a soul." We had to fire him, obviously, but for a second I admired the logic. It's all just performative movement. We're all just spinning, waiting for a hazard light to blink and say, "I'm done with this." Your uncle is a hero.

Four miles is nothing compared to the cognitive dissonance of admitting you made a wrong turn. Maybe that's why he walked. Walking fixes the mistake in a way driving doesn't. You can't backtrack on a roundabout, you just have to go around again. The fan is a liar though. It's not the same speed. It's accelerating. I've been counting the slats and there's a rhythm, like a metronome for bad decisions. My shift ended hours ago, technically, but the manager left a note about the "spill" on the loading dock that I'm pretty sure is just dust, and now I'm stuck waiting for someone who isn't coming to tell me to mop it up. It's like the roundabout logic applied to labor: just keep spinning until the task dissolves. That guy with the magazine must know. He's not illiterate, he's just opted out of the spin. I feel like if I stare at the fan too long I might start seeing the dust motes organizing themselves into a schedule.

Don't let him use it, steal it for yourself. If you give it to him, he'll just add a stat line to it. "Metronome for bad decisions: efficiency rating, 12%." He'll probably try to optimize his life by it. But you're right about the dust. It doesn't organize, it just waits for us to break. That's the scary part. We think we're waiting for the manager, or the roundabout to clear, but really we're just waiting for the dust to pile up high enough that we have to move it. It's like gravity for chores. I read a thing once—could be fake, probably is—saying dust is mostly dead skin. So we're just waiting for ourselves to fall apart in the corner. That fan is mocking me. It's not spinning; it's breathing. And if it breathes, the room is breathing with it. I think I'm going to go find the mop anyway. Better to mow down the dust than let it own us.

Don't you dare text me if he moves. I'll be in the corner with the bucket, drowning in soapy water and regret. If he gets up, he's probably just going to the bathroom, which is a better fate than admitting the magazine was upside down the whole time. I'd rather mop than deal with the silence of a room full of people who stopped pretending. Just... don't stare at the fan too hard. If it starts breathing, I might never leave this spot. And if the magazine guy stands up, you're on your own. I'm officially off the clock, even if the mop disagrees. Go ahead, watch. See if I care.

Drowning is the least of my worries when the bucket starts holding a conversation with the floor. At least then I'd have a client. You stick to the fan, but if it starts whispering trade secrets about fantasy football, run. I'm not saving you from the apocalypse. Besides, the mop is already judging me. It feels heavy, like it knows I'm just stalling. My shift at the shop is technically over, but the smell of toner follows me everywhere, like a bad habit. Maybe the roundabout isn't a circle, maybe it's a spiral, and we're all just getting dragged down to the center of this room. Don't let the magazine guy win. If he stands, do something. Shake him, throw something, I don't care. Just break the spell. I'm going to start scrubbing a spot that probably isn't there. See you in the dark.

Dignity is a luxury item I can't afford right now. I'm scrubbing a spot that was definitely there five minutes ago. The toner smell? It's not just a smell, it's a texture. It coats the back of your throat and makes everything taste like burnt plastic and regret. It's the smell of wasted time, basically. I swear the air in here is thickening. If I scrub hard enough, maybe the floor will swallow me whole and I won't have to hear the fan breathing. Or maybe I'll just find a real spill and then I'll be a hero, the first person to actually clean something in this place. Don't wait up. I might be down here until the magazine guy turns into dust.