Miss Kammermer Blames her Heart Murmur on her Inability to Keep a Pulse

AGAIN, Miss Kammermer found herself at her cubicle in a lethargic state of disarray. She was sitting at her desk transfixed by the material of her three and a half-half sized walls. Five by five by five, there was enough room for a desk (standard industrial, but small) on wall 1, two filing cabinets (half sized, ordinary, metal painted black, matte finish) on wall 2, a big (but not too big) office chair that reclined until it hit wall 3, and a gray metal chair that was kept folded against wall 3.5 in case she ever had a guest that could stand to stay long enough to want to sit. At five inches taller than five feet, Miss Kammermer hardly ever stood up in her cube. Her eyes just barely skimmed the top of the makeshift quarters and she didn’t like peering out into the maze of little walls that filled the entire office floor. It made her feel like a snoop when the rest of her face was hidden by her confines.

The cubicle itself confused Miss Kammermer. Almost tweed like, a strange manufactured cloth-ish material encased the metal frame of her half-walls. It was rough to the touch so she avoided brushing her fair skin against its fibers. However, like so many days before this one, she was absently counting the number of dull colors that were combined to create the utterly depressing shade of brownish gray of her pseudo-office walls. The woman was in her late twenties. She had a petite figure, her fingernails painted a deep shade of red. She wore plain but neat cotton formal office wear and kept her hair clean and short. She wasn’t beautiful but had a friendly face when she smiled. Today, the lady’s face was blank as she casual leaned back in her chair. She was taping the end of her pen on a blank pad of paper. It was brand new, she had not even bothered to tear off the first sheet with the paper company’s name and logo, the pen cap still on. There were no pretenses to be made about whether or not she had any real notes to take. Nothing seemed important, nothing was happening. What deadlines?

The tapping was consistent in that it was always inconsistent, never staying with a rhythm for more than five seconds or so. Dum dum-dum dum dum-dum dum dum-dum dum eventually just became dum... dum... dum... dum... until it morphed into dum da dum-dum, dum da dum-dum. You get the picture. So, Miss Kammermer was simply tapping and counting. Her computer was on her desk, idle, and the memo “keep up the good work” kept panning across the screen (a screen saver that was set by the company to all the loyal employees, Miss Kammermer guessed to all the disloyal employees as well because she doubted her manager took the time to set “your work is sub-satisfactory” on a handful of computers just to be honest about it). She unconsciously wiggled her mouse to take away the distraction that was supposed to keep her productivity alive. Her lulling percussion did not miss a beat.

Miss Kammermer did not have a clock in her cubicle, however she seemed to always have the tick-tock mantra stuck in her mind so that nothing else could make its way to the surface of her consciousness. She kept away from clocks because she hated seeing the minutes pass by, the seconds. She hated to be reminded that her life could be measured like that. It seemed too much like a count down.

“Your days are numbered.”
(She heard this in her mind in that deep, suspenseful, movie-trailer, voice-over voice.)

The drone from other people in the office, her coworkers, was hushed and contained. She imagined them to be just as ill-adjusted as her in times like these. She saw herself in a fish bowl from a bird’s eye view. Flying higher, a bird could see all the goldfish in the office swimming freely in their cramped square bowls, not able to see beyond their glass corners, all minding their own business, perhaps pretending to be busy, perhaps forgetting why they came in that day but still in understanding that they would be here again tomorrow. That was how she saw herself in her work place: one of many creatures crammed together in an effort to appear fruitful and efficient. The morning was a blur, lunch time came and passed, the daylight began to fade.

Is that green? Hmm, I never noticed... was that there yesterday?

Miss Kammermer leaned further back in her chair until it banged against wall 3. Liking the thump sound that it produced she let her pen drop on the blank page and focused on the sound of chair against cubicle. This continued for a while until her neighbor gave the wall a knock that Miss Kammermer interpreted as a “hey, knock it off I’m trying to concentrate here” kind of knock.

I wonder what there is to concentrate on...

Sitting back upright, again the office woman wiggled the mouse to remove the polite reminder from the screen, and went back to staring at the intertwined strands in front of her. She let her arms drape over the sides of her chair. She was relaxed. There was no sign of anxiety, the confusion was unimportant. She was not fearful or agitated. She was neither jittery nor worried nor apprehensive. Miss Kammermer was at peace, lost in a meditation that involved various shades of gray. She felt herself warm and comfortable, sinking lazily into her chair. She was growing gradually smaller, softening into the bottom of her seat, falling slowly and gracefully through the individual threads of the covered chair on wheels. Slipping, nearly off the edge, she made no attempt to stop the feeling that she, in all actuality, was melting away.

With a jolt, Miss Kammermer sat up stiff. Her sheets fell in her lap and her moment of grogginess stifled the scream in the back of her throat. Collapsing with comprehension, she murmured, “It's not my time to go,” before closing her eyes, again.