Ghostly

In the past 2 weeks, I’ve been to the office 4-5 times. The building is eerily quiet.  The predominant noise is nothing but white noise. It’s the kind of noise that can set your ears ringing because the sound is so subtle yet ever present—like that of a medical office waiting room with no one else but you sitting there. It’s a solitary existence encapsulated by sounds produced by the HVAC system.
This is all very different. The office tower and the parking garage are like ghost towns.  Prior to this new reality, I’ll see people gathered around, waiting for the elevators, shuffling into one only to find that your stop is after 4 or 6 floors. It’s like the local train versus an express. Regardless of the time of day, there’s no avoiding at least one or two persons involved with an elevator: waiting, stepping in, stepping out and being closely woven in with others, some being inadvertently bumped by a briefcase, a backpack or a lunch bag.

Similarly, once inside the office, this ghostly motif persists in all the spaces. Now, there are signs reminding staff to heed the rules of social distancing and the wearing of masks.  Individual office doors are closed. Open spaces have boundaries defined by 2-inch wide vinyl tape stretched across the floors as well as on the table in the common area.

The common area is perhaps the most ghostly of areas. Here on the first Friday of each month, our president would buy everyone lunch. Typically standing room once the seats were taken. It was a chance, albeit brief, to talk about life beyond business matters. It gave each of us a chance to kid around, make each other laugh, to feel, well, connected and relevant.

Like a dreamlike narrative in a Dickens or Bronte novel, what remains now is what you see. And what you hear, is the odd hum of the fluorescent lamps and the HVAC system.