Cubicle Physics

A woman returned her coworker’s laptop with a bent screen. It’s better this way, she said. Now you can look at your spreadsheet in four dimensions.

I don’t want a more accurate plan of the universe, the coworker replied. I want to finish my work on time.

Time is on the T axis, the woman said. Plotting a new position is like pole dancing.

The coworker blushed. But because the woman was senior to him in the company, he pulled off his gray polyester suit and undid his blue rayon tie. He used each foot to push the loafer off the other. He laid his Oxford shirt on the back of his chair and folded his sox and jockey shorts on his desk next to his coffee cup. How do I begin? he asked.

Let X equal the distance between the walls of your cubicle, the woman said. Let Y go from that light fixture to this Ficus. Let Z run along the carpet as long as it wants.

But if the spreadsheet becomes real, will my timesheet become imaginary?

It will be virtual, like everything you do here, unless we unplug the router.

And how can I finish for the day if my laptop won’t shut properly?

That kind of closure, the woman said, only happens in stories.

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Laird Harrison, a genre nonconforming writer, has written for TIME, Reuters and Urology Times. Verdant Books published his novel, Fallen Lake. His stories and poetry is published or forthcoming in The Fabulist, Passager and Unlimited Literature. He lives in Oakland.