Six Forty

Six forty in the morning. The office is still dark, and only my footsteps echo in the corridor. The air conditioning is off, so the air is a little cold. I boil water in the kettle and stand by the window; the sun has barely caught on the glass of the building across the way. Washing the tumbler I left yesterday, my hands sting in the cold water. He arrived five minutes later. "You're here already?" he says in a husky voice, and sets his bag down at his desk. I pour a cup of coffee and set it on the corner of his desk. He gives a small nod and turns on his monitor. In the office where no one else has come yet, only the smell of coffee and the sound of keyboards remain. I didn't see whether he drank that coffee. The paperwork will pile up again today. But even thinking of that, it was all right. The light outside the window settled a little lower.