Quarter past three.

He looks at her desk, cluttered with reminders of the empty life she has built: outdated photos, expired jellybeans, the “Reception” sign with too many scratches on it. She sits, clicking, oblivious. Solitaire, maybe. Possibly Freecell. Yes, Freecell, with that crinkle of intensity embedded in her brow. He wants to wave and get her attention. He wants to shake her awake from the conscious coma she is in. Her eyes, bright blue reflecting the computer screen, hold the saddest sight. All of her thoughts, creativity, wittiness, intelligence, crumpled into a ball and thrown for an imaginary buzzer beater into the trash can.

He doesn’t realize he’s up there until the stale jellybean squishes reluctantly under his teeth. His eyes sail over to her, expecting something back. But she’s still glued to her pixely screen. His expression dies when he realizes she is indeed not playing Freecell. It’s her wedding picture: the groom, so happy, the bride faking the same emotion. He leans in closer, the desk pressing tightly against his abdomen, to take a closer look at the eyes of the bride. They are not on the lense, but rather through the camera, looking to the world, the world she could have had. He notices the same set of eyes beside the computer screen, lost in the realm of the intranet. He looks down and slightly drums his fingers, remembering days when there was something left in the eyes of the receptionist, sparkling above this bowl of expired jellybeans. Days of periwinkle dresses and eyes shimmering for all the wrong reasons. At this desk, she should have listened to him.

He walks back to his desk chair, its stitches struggling at the seams. He sits and types away. Tap tap tap.

Twenty past three.