To Be Invisible

Why is it she thought she would be invisible? When she saw Rita walking across the corridor (and she had the advantage of seeing her first,) her mind went to “What if she doesn’t remember me? Maybe I could just walk right on past her like the others who don’t acknowledge me.” Only that didn’t happen this time. Rita stopped right in front of her, shaking her finger. Carrie knew that it was her face Rita recognized, but that she was hung up on the name. To help her, she supplied it in her greeting.

“It’s Carrie and how are you doing?” she said.

“You should be so glad you here in the home office. When did you get here? It’s just awful in the field offices, with all the constant work and people leaving for the home office every week.” She hardly takes a breath as the words tumble out. Carrie realizes that nothing has changed much in the nine years she has been gone. It was the same complaint back then and the same complaint now. They chatted for a few minutes with Rita speaking only in negatives.

After making motions to show she had to be on her way, Carrie continued on to her intended destination, the snack food stand that was run by a blind man. He could be seen walking down the corridors from time to time, making a wide sweep with his cane. It reminded her of the way blind people used to walk. She had noticed in recent years that blind people with a cane used a shorter sweeping motion as they navigated their way so the blind man at work with his wide sweeping moves seemed almost comical as he walked down the wide, empty space of the building corridor.

She decided on peanuts. She noted on the back of the package that if she consumed the entire package that would be a third of her daily required caloric intake. She reasoned that peanuts had the good fat and that it would grease her insides and keep things healthy and moving. It was sugar that she needed to stay away from and its addictive qualities. In the past year she had make a strong connection between the sugar she ate and the headache that followed ten minute later.

While paying for her peanuts, she ran into yet another person from her past. She did not want to explain herself or play that game of career geography that invariably ended up with how much power you wielded and how much money you made. She was one of the few people that had a promising start to her career only to see it all but fizzle to nothing, not much advanced beyond the new recruits. In fact, older than most, she was a bonafide washout among her peers. She was now hanging on to her job (no longer a career) for reasons known only to her. It was always hard having to explain herself and watch the surprised recognition of her failure in the eyes of former peers. Today was no exception. When he asked where she was now, she deflected to the one thing everyone, man or woman, loved to talk about: their children.

“So where are you now?” the inevitable question came at her like a strong gust of wind, nearly knocking the wind out of her.

“Don’t ask,” she said laughingly, all the while knowing this answer wouldn’t hold for long. She could see the questions in his eyes so she quickly said, “So how are your girls?” With that, he went on to tell her about his oldest daughter (local graduate school) and his younger daughter (which she didn’t realize he had) who was still in high school. She collected her change from the blind man as he leaned over the ice cream case, following her voice to gauge her location. Normally she would tease an acquaintance about middle age and ice cream, but she didn’t want to prolong the contact. She wanted to go back and hide in her cubicle.