Missing Things

was this what you were looking for?

"Kevin lost his headphones," Alison said to Carl as they walked back from Sam's desk after getting their adaptors for the day.

"Really? When?" Carl asked, juggling his borrowed adaptor in his right hand.

"Two weeks ago. He checked the lost and found last week, but they weren't there. He said he puts them in the desk drawers sometimes, so they might still in some drawer somewhere, but he can't remember where he was sitting. I don't think it really matters if he can remember where he was sitting. I think someone found them and kept them."

"Are these new ones? Or are these the old ones he had all through lockdown that made that weird crackling noise whenever he took himself off mute?"

"I think they're still the old ones. I think he would be more upset if they were new. I know I'm still pissed about my adaptor, and it was just an adaptor!" Alison threw her head back and groaned. "I can't believe someone took my brand new adaptor! Who would do that?"

"Someone who had just lost their adaptor and was all, 'Oh my god! The universe just gifted me a replacement adaptor!'"

Carl and Alison both laughed.

"I'll check my desk drawer for Kevin's headphones," Carl said. "I'll even check the drawers of the desks around me, too. Maybe with some luck I'll find them."

"Hopefully you have better luck than I did. All I found in my desk drawer was a half-eaten Twinkie."

"Ew! How did you get rid of it?"

"I didn't."

"You didn't throw it away?"

"No! I'm not doing free janitorial work!"

***

Carl stared at his desk drawer. He was concerned about what he would find in it. Would it be food or more post-it notes?

"Who the hell would even leave a half-eaten Twinkie in a drawer?" he said to himself. "There's a wastebasket right under the desk! Why put it in a desk drawer?"

That was when he noticed there was no trash bin under his desk.

"What the hell?"

He looked at the other cubes in his area. None of the desks had wastebaskets under them. He started to wonder if he had only imagined there being wastebaskets under the desk. But no, he remembered that only two weeks ago he had eaten his lunch at his desk and had thrown his trash in the basket under the desk.

He checked his mail for any communication from about wastebaskets being removed, but found nothing.

Now he was really hesitant to open his desk drawer.

He scrunched up his face, closed his right eye halfway, pulled his body away, and opened the drawer.

He let out a sigh of relief. There was nothing in it.

There probably wouldn't be anything in any of the other desks either.

He got up and went to all the other desks in his area to look for Kevin's headphones. He found a pack of gum, a highlighter, and two Sharpies, but no headphones.

He decided to go check on the desk where he had found the post-it notes weeks ago.

No one was sitting at that desk. He told himself that he was looking for Kevin's headphones. He opened the drawer.

The pen and post-it notes were still there, but the message he had left was gone. Now there was a new message.

"Hi right back at you," it said.

Carl smiled.

He took the reply off the top.

"Hope you're having a good day," he wrote back.