Buzz by Randal Houle

It’s what my boss calls, “a buzz.” My work never changes from day to day, hour to hour, but apparently, at about 2:30 or whenever the spirit moves him, my boss stands at the door to his office and shouts: “Fifty bucks for the next sale!”

“I’m sorry about that shouting Mrs. Jones, there is a birthday in my office. Anyhow…” I continue with my conversation. Sometimes I tell the person on the phone what is really going on, “Well Mr. Sachs, the boss just let everyone know that there is a bonus for the next sale, but you already told me that you were fine, so don’t worry about that.”

I don’t care about bonuses. I like the job just fine. My cubicle is a corner unit on the outer end, not next to the wall, but out where the traffic is. There are lines of cubicles facing away from the center as if the business needed some sort of bulwark to defend against invaders, but no other clusters like mine exist, and no other cubicles in this cluster stick out into the pathway between the copier and a row of offices.

The footsteps fall in that familiar rhythm I’ve learned to recognize. I know the footfall of every employee here, but this rhythm matches the beating of my heart. She slows. I turn, smile — she smiles back. She picks up her pace and continues to her office.

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