10 Minute Quick Write: Candles on a desk.

What do you think of when you think of candles on a desk. I think of Lalo. He died. He was a co-worker who worked at Library where I worked for 4 years only about 10 hours a week. I saw him every day almost and then one day I never saw him again. We got the news that he died. I used to slightly hate my job. No, I never really hated the job. But I knew it was not a career and I thought I would die if I were to work there full time. However, now I think back fondly. When Lalo died an impromptu alter arose on his desk, no one gave instructions or thought it would be nice. Just one by one, people came by his desk trying to imagine an un-empty chair and left parts of themselves behind: lighted candles, flowers picked from the trees outside the libraries, or their own home gardens, printed out emails and a Xerox copy of his will. His mother came by to pay respects to us, the co-workers who had to mourn and to change his voicemail and hack into his computer to put an end to his incoming emails. How beautiful that an office could do such a thing as put flowers and candles on a desk. In my office now, I try not to but can not help to think what would happen if I were to die. I picture a scraping of the desk, a pulling off the notes of my cubicle walls, there would be no actual sterilization, but the actions would have a sterilizing effect. Only gray desk, grey walls and black computer would be left. The things people would say as they quickly got back to work would sound like the signatures in your senior year yearbook from the people you never really knew. “I wish I had got to know her better” “She seemed like such a nice girl”. But maybe I am underestimating the humanity of this place. They might tear up as they thought about the life insurance claim process and my boss would ensure that it ran smoothly. Its my birthday today, and I’m trying not to be morbid. But its not my party and I can’t cry if I want to.