Lost

I didn't even notice when she left this morning. It wasn't until after lunch that I realised she hadn't returned, and the others didn't know why.

When the office had emptied, later on, a little while ago, there were two of us that remained. It becomes a larger place in the afternoon, the morning smells of coffee and background chatter fade and I have the urge to freewheel about on my wheeled office chair. We talk to fill the empty space the others have left.

And then it is time for us to leave too. As my colleague packs up she asks me to field calls for the other woman, the one who left this morning, for the next few days. Sure, I say. And as an afterthought, is she alright?

It's the pause that makes me look up. She is putting on lipgloss, slowly. When she finishes, she puts it away, with the mirror, carefully.

I think so, she says. I think so.

She looks at me for a moment, weighing something invisible in the air betwen us.

She says, it was only the early stages, but they think she may have lost it.

She says, she hadn't known very long, but you start planning, even then.

I nod. Because I can think of nothing else to do.

She leaves.

I sit in the silence, alone.

There aren't any goodbyes for these losses. There aren't any markers, or masses, or family gatherings. There aren't any epitaphs or eulogies for those the world hasn't yet known.

She said, it only takes a few moments.

It only takes a few moments to lose everything.