A silence of many parts fills the halls of noise. Everyone is saying something but never what needs to be heard. As he passes to and from, circling around conversation that is doing the same, he is able to pick up small snippets of passing stories.

“Yes, but….”

“If only it was that easy…”

“I need a drink and for this day to be over…”

He dreads this week most of all, this semi-monthly walk he must make, from the front of the building, where the documented workers fret over matters that never matter, all the way to the end of the hall, where a janitor's closet that belongs to people that don't appear to clean takes you through a door and out into the real purpose of the building-his den. Where his people fester over what they believe truly matters.

As he makes his way through the pseudo-janitors lounge and into the hallway, a largely built man with a rectangular face, the kind that would coach football teams perks up at his arrival. This man's name is Howard, and Howard always seems to be exactly where he needs to be at exactly the right time. A trait that he thinks to himself is probably one of the greatest powers that no one ever asks for. Why fly and be shot down, when you can be where you need to be when you need to be there.

"Just the man I needed,” Howard said with a candor that truly meant every word.

"Morning, Howard. And why am I just that man?" He replied.

"Well, Kat. It seems like I have need of those skeleton keys you call fingers," Howard motioned his hand in a mimers attempt at telling a story. A story that was obvious, regardless of his lack of skills. The vending machine had eaten his dollar again.

"Why, is it only ever you?" Kat questioned in a tone that hinted but never blatantly declared annoyance.

"You know what, I've been starting to think the same damn thing. I woke up this morning and told myself that today wouldn't be that day, that today things would begin to go my way. You know, putting it out in the universe, what are all the young kids calling it nowadays….manifestation. Yeah, that’s the word..”

"So, Bullshit." Kat responded.

"Every word has its synonyms, but if it works. Why be so cynical? Anyway, you think you can help a coworker out, or what?” Howard always knew how to push the envelope but never enough to where you feel harassed. Another trait that Kat mentally jotted down for later.

Kat looked at the machine a bit closer and saw that there was a Snickers bar that looked like it was teetering on the edge. Howard hadn't been lying. A part of him thought he had, because every time he saw Howard at the machine he always claimed something was caught. Even when they weren't at the office and they ran into each other it was always the same. A gumball machine was clogged and wouldn’t release his ball, his car keys fell into a sewer gate and he needed Kat to hotwire the car, his houskeys weren't under his potted plant and he needed desperately to get in to feed his cats. Each time he was met with speculation, but offered his coworker the benefit of the doubt, but as the coincidences began to pile up; doubt was beginning to sway atop the pile and pretty soon would crash down on Howard.

For now he deftly reached into his pocket for his tool and as if someone was watching, made a motion so quick that all you would describe was that the vending machine door simply swung open on its own accord. 

A faulty screw had had enough.

Howard, having seen this a dozen times now, simply moved in and grabbed his Snickers bar, and then attempted to grab a bag of chips as well, as if Kat wouldn't notice.

"Did the machine swallow two dollars?" Kat's eyes narrowed like a cat in an alley, watching, waiting for his prey to respond.

"It's for my trouble," Responded a tentative Howard.

"It should be for my trouble, no? And I didn't find it much trouble."

"Fine you sour puss, I'll put them back."

Once he had, Kat closed the door and relocked the machine with the speed and efficiency of someone whose job it was to work on the machines.

"You know, you have such a high moral compass for someone who works in our business."

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"Gotta make up for it somehow." Kat said as he walked away, leaving Howard alone with a Snickers bar that he wasn't too sure he had paid for.

But he wasn't sure, so he gave him the benefit of the doubt because he felt better that way. 

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Kat made his way through the halls of offices that were mostly empty, cleared out, and free of people pretending to work. In their line of work, an office sounds ridiculous, but the boss was a meticulous business man that thought it beneficial to have his employees around every once in a while. This way he could walk in and ask for updates on hits that were on going. People like Kat and Howard and the rest of their coworkers were not the call in and check up with the boss type. They were like kites in the wind set off in a general direction, eventually reaching their destination, but not in any sense of hurry or urgency. 

Those who were innately born with the journey mentality, they just didn’t know it themselves.

This is of course a generalization, for with all stereotypes, there lies those on one side of the horseshoe and those on the other.

Kat passed the office of one such man. His name was Jimmy, but everyone called him rarely. 

Jimmy was the type of guy that in school would start his homework before it was even assigned. That, if paired with, would make you feel like a lazy sack of shit for not being done with your work before you even had a chance to breathe.

Jimmy was to most people, Kat included, a reminder of how efficiency does not suit man. How being a workhorse means you aren't much fun to play with at the park. 

As Kat walked by, Jimmy stopped from his incessant typing and said,

"Kat, how's the hit coming along?"

"It's coming along Jimmy, it's coming along." Responded Kat in a far away voice, one that wanted to be…far away.

"It's been two months, you'll be breaking your record at this rate." Jimmy replied as his bifocals began to slide down that ratty little face of his. Jimmy had a face that a mother lied about loving, that a father reminded those around him that his son had brains, as if answering the comment before it was even uttered.

"If it happens I'm expecting balloons and a cake."

"I think the boss would gladly throw you a going away party."

Kats eyes narrowed, searching the room for something that wasn't there. After a few seconds he had found it, noted it in his mind, and went back to answering Jimmy.

"We'll see. I gotta go. Don't want to keep the boss waiting."

As Kat began to take his leave, Jimmy added one final comment.

"By the way, we are the Roundish Table now."

"What?"

"The company name is no longer the Rounded Table, me and a few others, Howard included, that the table is more Roundish than Rounded, so we proposed to the boss for a name change and the paperwork has just gone through. So from now on, you work for the Roundish Table. Just letting you know."

"Jimmy, I don't give a damn what we are called, for all I care you can name us the spherical counter for all that changes."

To this Jimmy quickly brought out a pen from his chest pocket and a notebook from his pants pocket and scribbled what Kat assumed was what he had just said.

"Now why are you writing that down?"

"Sometimes brilliance is found in the unaware."

Kat left Jimmy to himself, hoping that Howard would also be caught in Jimmy's web when he returned with his complimentary snickers bar, but he knew it wouldn't happen. For as dumb as Howard appeared to be, he sure knew how not to talk to Jimmy.

Kat stopped in his office. Envelopes and packages had filled up his desk, and with one quick motion, he swiped them from the desk and into the waste basket placed perfectly at the desk's edge. It was a cathartic exercise that almost made him forget about Jimmy, almost. But with what he had noted in Jimmy's office, he would be getting his with time.

Placing his satchel down, Kat began to fiddle with his fingers, thinking about his report. He was supposed to update his boss, at the minimum, twice a month, so he came twice a month. Each time he was expected to have results, or at the very least, some leads. Some hits were harder than others, and some were so easy that he overcomplicated them for the sake of not being given a harder task.

His office was a representation of how he viewed work, as most due, dull and not worth the investment of time that would be needed to transform it into “his” office. If tomorrow someone needed to fill his seat they would find nothing to clear off the desk: no pictures of a family that cared, no mug that had a phrase that wasn’t true, no knick-knacks that hinted at some hobby of his; it was as if the office itself was still being rented and not owned. The walls were bare for the most part, there hung a portrait of a ship and waves that crashed against the ship, and sometimes he even stared at it and thought of what it all meant- some days he thought it was of the battle that rages in us all, the struggle to continue everyday, the struggle to simply stay afloat- and other days, other days he wondered why he still hadn’t taken it down. On those days he came to the same conclusion for not taking the picture that belonged to the room and not himself down, that reason being- the other days.

If you were to take Kat’s room and Jimmy’s and place them next to one another, it would be akin to having someone that only works out his mind and someone who works out his body in a room and asking them to compare themselves. One would have made dents inside, while the other outside. So, more like Howard and Jimmy. Maybe that was why the two could never talk for more than a few sentences, two forces of opposite flow detest the other, not out of hate, but out of ignorance of how the other operates.