Laura glanced at the newspaper on the receptionist's desk.

"Ghosts Haunt Downtown"

If she had been a more confident person, she would have commented wittily to the receptionist: "Wasn't Halloween last week?"  Instead she kept it to herself and waited for her cheque.

She let her eyes wander. The atricle went on to explain that there had been several ghost sightings of historical figures in the downtown area.  Tiring of the article,  she looked across the desk and took in the name plate.  Sara McCurty.  She could face a name plate, but not the actual person.  Her mind tried to figure out  the manufacturing process that created the  name plate.  She had developed three different methods when she suddenly became aware that Sara was looking at her with that I-ve-just-asked-you-a-question look.

"Sorry," Laura apologized, pushing a strand of hair out of her face. "What was that again?"

"Are you sure you filled out your timesheet?  I don't have a cheque in your name anywhere."  She waved a fistful of envelopes in front of Laura's face. If there wasn't a envelope with your name on it, it must be your fault.  The company did not make mistakes.

Of course I did, Laura thought.  But the words wouldn't come out.  They never did.  Laura lowered her head and hid behind her curtain of brown hair.  She muttered something about checking her desk and hastened to her cubicle.

The large open area where the workers were corraled was always a source of amusement for Laura.   Today she thought that the cubicle farm would make a good paint ball arena.  The idea of her coworkers dressed in fatigues and sculking around the plain grey wall sections tickled her funny bone.

The modular walls were rearranged on almost a monthly basis.  Departmental shuffles kept people on their toes and provided the data for many office pools.  Laura always figured that only 20% of the time was spent on actual work that brought in money, the other 80% was spent trying to earn points in some elaborate political game that Laura had no sense for.

Her position as webmaster caused much confusion.  Was she part of the IT team, Communications, or Infrastructure?  No department wanted to have her. They didn't understand what she did.  And if they didn't understand, they could not reprimand her thouroghly.  She was always left until the end of budget discussions.  It always reminded her of schoolyard basketball games.

Laura had always been short and skinny.  She was not athletic in any manner. She often hid behind her medium length straight brown hair.  Her main outfit was a lumpy sweater and slacks.

She was always amazed at how corporations tried to make every one fit into slot.  It didn't matter if you were a square peg or a round peg or whatever, you got one cubicle, one desk, one phone, and one chair.  Didn't matter what you did. You always got the same thing.  I guess that that was because any deviation ranked of staus.  If you had TWO chairs you must be more important than someone with only one.  And if you had an office?  You must be super important.

Laura's cubicle was her tiny domain.  She was tucked away in an awkward corner, which suited her.  She managed to keep two Superstore plants alive under the fluorescent lights.  She had no idea what type of plant they were.  They were green and leafy and softened some of the corporate edges.  Friendly stuffed animals bedecked her dual monitors.  Reference books were piled on every available surface.  The whole effect was like a castle wall.  Laura did not encourage visitors.  She encouraged managers to leave her alone by continuing to type on her computer when they came to visit.  This was very effective.  The manager would end up walking off with a dazed "what just happened" look on his face.

Laura settled into her chair and checked her email. Her spam checker filtered out most of the junk, but a few strangenesses came through.  There wasn't enough time left in the day to get into any real work, so Laura amused herself by developping new regular expression to filter out the spam mail.  Just how many what was there to spell viagara?

The day finally ended and Laura gathered herself together.  She waited a bit for the rest of the people to clearout before she made her way to the stairwell. With her slight 5' 4" frame, people tended to bump into her and knock her off her feet.  She had learned too remain very small and not touch anyone.

Eventually, the way was clear and Laura managed to escape without making eye contact.  Outside, the air was crisp and immediately brought her to life.  She loved the air in November.  The wet leaves, the wood smoke smell, the crisp wind. She loved the line from Watership Down: "Like trees in November".  She understood that feeling of loneliness mixed with hope.  Like going to bed at night and thinking to yourself: "Things will be better in the morning." 

It was a quick walk from downtown to her apartment on Charlotte Street.  The section of town she lived in was an interesting mix or grand old houses and student ghettos.  Laura liked looking at the houses and imagining the lives of the people who lived there.  Sometimes she just mused on the personality of the house itself.  Some houses looked sad.  Some looked comfortable. Some even looked hopeful.

The building she lived in was a converted three story house with a widow walk crowning the roof.  Each of the apartments had been carved out of the building in a different configuration.  Laura's apartment was a large room with a non-working fireplace and a bathroom.  The kitchen was an aftertought and was the hallway between the main room and the bathroom.   Laura dreamed of someday renting the top apartment with the widow's walk.  The thought the idea of women waiting for their husbands was romantic.

Laura was met on the steps by Demitri and Tomo. They lived accross the hall and down a bit  from her.  Demitri's mother was feicely independant.  Today,  Demitri was dressed in a second hand snowsuit and had on brightly coloured hand-knit mitts and hat.  Laura knew that his mother had knit them for him from old seaters.  Tomo was looking like a fierce ball of fluff.  He was a black and white tuxedo cat and was starting to get the lanky long legs of anadolesent. Demitri and Tomo were devoted to each other.  Laura was always amazed at what Tomo put up with.

"Miss Laura, are you _sure_ your kitty doesn't want to come out and play?"

"No, Liz would be too scared of Tomo."

"But Tomo would be On His Best Behavior."

"I think Tomo would be a little too energetic for Liz."

"PL--EEEE-ASE."

"Some other day I'll invite the two of you over."

"When?"

"Sometime."

"Tomorrow?"

"No not tommorow."

"Next week?"

"We'll see."

"Promise?" Demitri gave his best puppy dog face and hel up Tomo to do the same.

"Promise."  What have I gotten myself into.  Laura doubted that Demetri would forget.  Giving Tomo a quick scritch on the head, Laura grabbed her mail from the collection of mailboxes just inside the door and headed into the building.

Once again, the beauty and grandness of the stairwell entranced her.  Dark polished wood was everywhere.  Laura felt like a grand lady as she assended the stairs to her apartment.  It was in sharp contrast to the drywalled walls that created odd angles in the hallway.  She wondered who had originally owned the house and what they would think of it being chopped up into tiny apartments.

She entered her apartment and immediately hung her coat and keys up on their hooks.  Mail had it own basket on a table beside the door.  Her apartment was sparse but neat.  She had a cherry wood bed, a butcher block table, a painted dresser, a side table, a student desk with computer, and a couple of miss-matched kitchen chairs.  Everything had a place and everything was in its place.

Laura grabbed a frozen dinner bowl from the freezer and popped it into the microwave.  As if by magic, Liz suddenly appeared from her hiding spot and meowed for her share.  She was a white cat with dusty borwn splotches on her back.  Her most notable feature was her stubby tail that she had been born with.  It was only 5 cm long and she was curently wagging it with such speed that it looked like she was a mad conductor.

"It's not ready yet," Laura explained as she scritched Liz under the chin.

"MIAAAAT!" demanded Liz.

"Just be patient.  According to Demitri, Tomo wants to meet you."

"MIAAAAT!" demanded Liz again.

"Just a second, I still have to stir the contents."

"MIAAAAT!"

"Nobody believes me when I say that you are this bossy.  Hold your horses.  Almost done."

Laura took the bowl from the microwave and stired the concoction of pasta, chicken, and vegetables until it was one solid temperature.  She grabed a random chair and sat down at the table.  Liz jumped from counter to chair to table with practiced grace.

"MIAAAAT!"

"Your turn is second.  When you start earning money to buy yourself dinners, you can be first."

The dinner bowl didn't last very long.  Liz made quick work of the remaining sauce.  Dishes were easy -- Laura rinced out the bowl and put it in the blue recycling box then she rinced her fork and put it back in the silverware drawer.

"What's on tonight?"  Laura asked Liz ash she flopped on her bed and turned on the TV.  Getting digital cable was definately filed under luxery.  But Laura had calculated that it was the cheepest form of entertainment she had.  She didn't like going to movies by herself.  She was too tired at the end of the day to take up any hobbies.  Gym membership was right out -- it involved energy and strange people.  She did own a PlayStation2 but she couldn't get into the imaginary worlds of video games.  Television was just her speed at the end of the day.

Laura flipped on the interactive TV directory and paged through her choices.  She had it narrowed down to a CSI repeat or a Mythbusters repeat when there was a knock at the door.