White Collar

by Naomi Rochelle Garnice

The florescent lights in the building wash people out starchy and white like ghosts and the cubicles hold them frozen at their computers. You don't know names; you know the details that scatter and roll across their desks every day. A Styrofoam coffee cup with the shaky outline of red lipstick pressed firm like a post mark at the lip. A glossy picture of a girl who has stared out at you from a smooth magazine cover once, centered by a metal push pin she'll never see. A crushed cardboard pack of Marlboros and a photograph of two figures kissing held quiet and still behind a frame. The best workers always bring their dreams with them to work.

6S

Naomi Rochelle Garnice, who made us Shiver, is the author of many other stories only slightly longer than this.