"You wouldn't have found a power adapter on your desk this morning?" Alison asked Carl. She was standing by his desk, looking annoyed.
"No," Carl said. "Why? Were you sitting here the last time you had it?"
"I don't know!" Alison exclaimed. "I can't remember! I think this is where I was sitting, but I can't remember. I wish that that stupid booking app kept a history of where we've sat so we could go back and find our stuff. But no. That would be too much to ask. Fuck I miss my desk." She put her hand over her mouth. "Sorry. I didn't mean to swear."
"It's fine," Carl said. "I miss my desk too. I don't understand why they don't just give us back our desks."
"It's because they hired too many people during the pandemic, Carl," Alison said, oozing sarcasm. "I can't believe they fed us that bullshit and then had the audacity to move reception from the second floor to the third floor."
"They said it was because not enough people were coming in to justify keeping those desks."
"If we had our own desks again, maybe people would come in!" Alison sighed. "It doesn't matter. We can complain all we want and it won't make a difference."
"No, it won't," Carl said. He had never even bothered complaining to anyone in charge about it. He knew it was a lost cause from the get-go. "Anyways, about your adapter, did you check the lost and found?"
"I did, but it's not there."
"Did you put it in a drawer? I don't think the cleaning staff check the drawers."
"Is it in your drawer?"
Carl opened his drawer. There was a pen and some post-it notes, but no adapter. "Apparently not."
"It was a brand new adapter!" Alison whined. "I guess I know what I'm doing for the next hour."
Alison left, Carl watched her go from desk to desk, opening and closing drawers.
Carl opened his drawer again and looked at the post-it notes. They were light blue. The pen was purple. It was a nice kind of gel pen. He was almost tempted to take the post-its and the pen, but someone else might be missing them.
He took them out and, for a reason he couldn't explain, he wrote "Hi there" on the topmost note.
YOU ARE READING
Missing Things - FIRST DRAFT
General FictionA first draft of a mess about a guy, a pandemic, and an empty office. It's about missing things. One of the things that's missing is a plot. As I said, this is a first draft and it's here for funsies. At some point it'll be taken down because I'll w...
