My manager has quit his job, making him the 5th person to run the Help Desk. The Desk of Doom rolls on. This is the same manager that announced three people on the Desk that they no longer had a position. And they all left. Now that he’s gone, another guy has replaced him. Micromanagement seems to be his thing. He gets down with the floor with the need to guide and steer the ship at every possible opportunity. I’m not sure whether this is a good thing yet. I haven’t talked to him. I seem to be invisible sometimes. Am I haunting the place that I work? Am I too busy? Sometimes I’m not sure, only because all of the new people we took on ask me questions about every minute or so. It’s hard to maintain a train of thought.

Hot summer days are setting in, turning everything, everywhere, into saunas. Photos and posters peel from the walls. Insects seem to be everywhere. Cool and clear summer nights are the only respite. I have never been a fan of this season. You can only get naked in order to cool down. Beyond that you either need a fan, air conditioning or scantily clad slaves with large fans made of the finest peacock feathers. I grew with distaste for the beach, only because it was pretty much the only place my parents would take my brother and I on holidays. In the end, I hated the whole affair. The sand, the sun and the surf. The family arguments, the long endless drives past white concrete condos, the bitter silences that we shared. Each member of my family does his or her own thing. It’s how they worked it out and how I was raised. So in the end, we get selfish and do our own thing. We spend time together, but only really when it matters. We work well, after a fashion, because we have our space.

Sometimes, I’m happier when I am alone. When I’m around people too often, I just begin to hate them. Or at least the parts that annoy me. I can only take most people in small doses, if at all. That doesn’t mean I am incapable of love, which I feel for a small select group.

However, every night I am reminded that I sleep in an empty bed. And that ultimately, my only company is myself. I’m not sure if I should ever consider a relationship and even bother to try. Would someone understand me? Or would my touch destroy them? I don’t know. I guess right now the only certainty is that I am merely passing through your lives. To some I will just be a footnote. Others may keep me as a chapter. But I know no one has me as the whole book. Not Yet. And that’s the only wisdom I can scrounge from the macadam, looking into stunned and shocked faces as I jump back in my car speeding off to the sound of sirens.