It’s difficult to cook an exceptional scrambled egg because your brain thinks it’s simple so you’re overconfident and mess the whole thing up – dry them out, over-salt, drop an eggshell in the yolk. A lot can go wrong with eggs. And if you think about it, cooking eggs is a lot like living life. It’s part of the adventure.
My marriage was an adventure, but it’s not something I want to tell everyone about. It wouldn’t make a good movie because the last forty-five minutes would be Alice and I silent in the kitchen, eggs twitching in a pan. Besides, I’m trying not to think about her anymore. I’m starting my life over.
But I’ve only known Alice as my life. You could say since the divorce I’ve been floating, suspended, in my days. I need to concentrate on what the world has to offer and move forward. So from here on out no more thinking about Alice.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about conference calls, which is when everyone lives in different places but you call a number and you’re on the phone together. How the phone’s fibers can withstand so many voices I’ll never understand. Typically, two or three people do all the talking. It’s never the smartest people. And if you want to be taken seriously you need to talk over everyone else. You need volume. The louder you are the more powerful you are.
When you arrive at work today shout, “Good morning!” and walk in exaggerated strides while staring intensely at your phone. If done correctly and with enough force you’ll be left alone for hours.
I don’t remember how long I wasn’t paying attention on the conference call, but I woke up when I heard my name, Vincent. In my professional voice I said, “Please repeat.”
Imagine thirty separate laughs rushing through a single hole and into your ear. Imagine working seventeen thousand hours in the same office. Imagine Alice saying she’s leaving you and you know it’s your fault.
I put the nail clippers back in the medicine cabinet. When I closed the door I was looking in the mirror.
“Vincent,” my boss grumbled. “Your opinion?”
Certain images you remember forever. Every person has maybe ten slots to fill and you die and the slots, the images, flicker around your eyeballs before it’s dark. What would I see? Dirty cubicle walls, Xerox light, neon screensavers, Mom and Dad driving, their sunny funeral, the podium incident, coworkers eating zucchini bread, Alice saying it’s over, and me, standing at the bathroom mirror on a fucking conference call.
I’m not sure why, but what I did was laugh. Not laughing at the call itself, but at how I appeared in the mirror, and the idea I participated in something like a conference call. No one would be holding the phone if they knew it was their last day alive. Those who preach carpe diem repeat the same tasks their entire lives. Like a weekly conference call. But this was our job and we were doing it, and hanging on the line by its claws was the meaning of life – strange, terrible, and slipping.
My eyes were just watery, not crying over Alice, I told myself.
“Everything will be fine,” I answered.
“What?” my boss replied, followed by more laughter.
I wasn’t thinking about Alice.
“I’m on it,” I continued.
My boss sneezed. “Um, elaborate?”
I placed my mouth an inch from the mirror and spoke into the phone, “Going forward I will implement synergy to achieve results.”
I didn’t want to be there, but I didn’t want to be anywhere.
“Thank you,” said my boss, relieved. “Thought we lost you there for a second. Everyone hear Vincent?”
My breath created egg-shaped fog on the mirror so I wrote my initials on the glass, and over my initials a question mark. Then I said goodnight and hung up.