© 2012 Phylicia Joannis
Chuck sipped his already cooled coffee and meticulously fingered the buttons on his mouse. He quietly pressed the mouse, selected the red diamond queen, and placed her onto a black spade king.
“Hah!” he chuckled to himself as all the cards began to fly into place. The words “You Win!” scrolled across his computer screen, and he linked his fingers behind his head. Leaning back in his chair, Chuck twirled until he was dizzy. It was the last hour of his shift, and it always went by slowly.
“What are you doing?” his supervisor’s shrill, nasal voice rang out and he stopped his chair mid-twirl.
Chuck quickly straightened as his feet slammed to the ground. His right arm nervously scrambled for the computer mouse to switch back to the database, but it knocked over his coffee instead.
Chuck’s face buzzed with humiliation as he desperately searched for napkins, paper towels, something. His supervisor quietly stared. She didn’t offer to help, just moved out of his way as he searched for something to stop the steady flow of coffee running over his desk and on his pants. He finally grabbed the morning’s newspaper and swatted his desk with it, careful to keep the keyboard and mouse clear from the coffee.
“Why are you playing games?” his supervisor snarled. “You’re supposed to be monitoring the train cars.”
“I, uh,” Chuck stammered as he quickly clicked over to the database screen. “I’ve been monitoring, it’s just that nothing’s going on, so I was taking a little break.”
His supervisor shook her head. “I swear, every time I come over here you’re goofing off! Clean this mess up, and if I catch you taking any more breaks you will be written up. You understand?”
Chuck nodded and cleared his throat. “Could I just…”
“What?” his supervisor frowned. “Spit it out!”
“Could I take a… a quick break to clean up?” Chuck looked down at his khaki browns, now covered in dark, sticky coffee.
His supervisor sighed loudly. “You’ve got two minutes.”
Chuck leaped away from his desk and sprinted towards the bathroom.
His supervisor pursed her lips and glanced at his computer screen.
“Okay, Chuck, what’s been going on while you’ve been playing FreeCell,” she whispered to herself.
She briefly checked the status of all the active trains.
“Okay, no delays, that’s good. Everything’s running smoothly. We have car nineteen at the end of the line, car eighteen right behind it and car sev –”
She pursed her lips as she checked the traffic logs. Cars 19, 18, and 16 were at or near the end of the line, so where was car 17?
She checked for incident reports, in case 17 was rerouted for repairs, but there were no logs.
She heard Chuck’s clumsy footsteps return to the dispatch area and she turned angrily.
“Where’s Car 17?” she demanded.
“I, uh,” Chuck’s eyes grew wide with bewilderment. “I don’t know, I mean, isn’t it there?”
“Come see for yourself!” his supervisor moved out of the way for Chuck to see.
Chuck frowned as he perused the screen, then checked the logs.
“I don’t understand, there must be some mistake,” Chuck whimpered. “There haven’t been any warnings or alerts, and traffic has been passing through smoothly.”
“You idiot!” his supervisor launched a verbal assault. “You should have been watching!”
Chuck acquiesced and hung his head. “I’m sorry.” His supervisor scoffed.
“Keep your apologies. Just find my train!”
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