A Microwave
*BEEEP* *BEEEP* BEEEEEEEEEEP* The microwave. Your food is done. You sit up quickly hoping that your boss wouldn’t notice the extra five minutes you’re spending on break. They would notice of course, but might as well dream a little. Besides, you had to eat sometime and goodness knows it wouldn’t be after work.
It’s hard for you to do much after work these days. Ever since they left. After eating what you could, and thanking Patricia for sharing her leftovers again, you sit back down in your cubicle. You can’t really remember what you’re supposed to do at the computer, so you just click back and forth between a few work sites, trying to look productive. You check the clock again. It’s only Tuesday. It feels like a week ago you saw your kids, but no. It was only a few days. And you still had most of the week before you got to see them again. The clock chimes for five pm, and you put your coat on with a sigh and start walking back home.
Work was miserable, but you preferred it to the deafening silence in your apartment. You check another day off the calendar and settle into your cold bed. And so the cycle repeats.
Finally the weekend rolls around, and you get a text saying the kids don’t really want to come over this week. That happens a lot. So you stay in bed most of the day. You glance over to the presents you had wrapped for them. Maybe it would be better if you mailed them.
That’s what you set out to do on Sunday. You try to take your time, enjoy the walk, but it’s still gray outside. Still cold. Still empty. Suddenly a thought occurs to you. You had all day, and you knew the kids would be home… at their other house most of the day. Maybe you should deliver them in person! It’s probably not the best idea but it couldn’t hurt. Right?