It’s strange how certain topics get lofted into the air, and begin to catch fire due to their momentum, when you’ve mentioned your own recent preoccupation with them to no one. Of course, skeptics will claim that it’s only because you are currently paying attention to this subject, that these perceived coincidences do not exist. But while that’s certainly true to some extent, and while there are also unseen threads connecting chain reactions invisible to you, this can’t possibly explain away everything.
Edgar’s over in the managers’ office at Southside, one afternoon immediately following the Sean incident. He’s listening to Dale and Barbara playfully bicker, from the desks at opposite ends of the room. The whole reason he has drifted over here is because, while he can technically VNC into this computer from his office on the other side of the wall, to use the Hobart ScaleMaster program, it ends up being a bigger hassle than just walking over here. If he doesn’t lock the keyboard or black out the screen, a different person will continually drift into this room, one approximately every three minutes, and begin attempting to work on this device themselves. Some, like Craig, will mess with him on purpose, as a joke, but for the most part they seem kind of oblivious, as though not even noticing a cursor bouncing around and typed words magically appearing on the screen. But then if he does lock the keyboard and/or black out the screen, then they simply reboot the machine.
He’s sitting here typing away, while these two volley their argumentative banter, and thinks that there’s one thing which has completely disappeared from the office equation: jokes about your significant other. Edgar has worked off and on in offices for the past twenty years, wrapped around his stints as a meat cutter, and this was once a commonplace comedic thread, everyone sitting around bemusedly grousing about their spouses and boyfriends and girlfriends. It’s just gone now, and the thought makes him vaguely sad.
This episode is also available as a blog post: https://jasonmcgathey.wordpress.com/2021/04/24/tales-of-a-scorched-coffee-pot-chapter-36/
