Warnings from the Future

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At 7 p.m., three-quarters of the recessed lights in the main office space are programmed to turn off. What’s left is deemed bright enough for the custodial staff to do their work, but what I love, looking out through the interior window of my office, is that the glow of all the screensavers creates a faint aurora over the top of all the cubicle walls almost like that of a town at night hidden just beyond a ridge. I know it’s just a silly image, but it gives me the sort of comfort I imagine God would feel looking at a snow-dusted Swiss village and allowing himself to forget the rest of the troubled world for a while. I stay late like this because it’s the easiest time to handle the real, unbureaucratic work of thinking, planning, analyzing data, and so on. I also use the time to care for my Synsepalum dulcificum, misting it, trimming it, adding a little peat or some acidifying fertilizer, and for whatever reason these diversions provide me with the greatest clarity of thought I have all day. But I also like to stay late because, unlike at home, where my mother salts the air with her misery, the solitude here feels purposeful.

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