The Meeting
The meeting was scheduled for one hour. Inside the meeting, three years passed.
Lydia watched her colleagues age. She watched careers begin and end. She watched the fluorescent light above Derek's head flicker through four different presidential administrations.
"As I mentioned in the email," said her manager, Kevin, who had been speaking continuously since the Paleolithic era, "we need to align our synergies going forward."
Lydia tried to nod. Her neck had forgotten how.
Somewhere in the room, someone was feeling anxious. No—everyone was feeling anxious. The anxiety had formed a kind of weather system that circulated between the eight people at the table, passing from nervous system to nervous system like a cold no one could shake.
Lydia absorbed it all. She had always absorbed it all.
"Any thoughts?" Kevin asked.
The question landed in the room like a stone in still water. Ripples of discomfort expanded outward. Lydia felt each one.
"I think we should," began Derek, and then he said more words, and each word meant something and nothing, and Lydia's brain tried to hold them all simultaneously while also monitoring Kevin's reaction and Michelle's body language and the distant sound of someone's phone vibrating in their bag—
"Great point," said Kevin. "What about you, Lydia?"
The room turned toward her. Eight nervous systems pivoted. Sixteen eyes landed on her face.
Time stopped.
Inside the stopped time, Lydia processed:
- The question itself
- The subtext of the question
- Kevin's likely preferred answer
- The political implications of agreeing vs. disagreeing
- Derek's probable response to anything she might say
- The fluorescent light, still flickering, always flickering
- Her own heartbeat, suddenly audible
- The temperature of the room, which was wrong
- The fact that she hadn't spoken in 47 minutes
- The growing expectation in the silence
- The memory of every meeting she'd ever been in
- The awareness that she was taking too long
- The awareness that she was aware that she was taking too long
- The —
"I'm fine," she said, from very far away. "I agree with Derek."
She had no idea what Derek had said.
Kevin nodded. "Great alignment."
Time resumed.
The meeting continued.
Outside the conference room, the sun rose and set. Seasons changed. Children were born, grew old, forgot this meeting had ever happened.
Inside the conference room, Kevin was still speaking.
"I think we can wrap up," he said, finally, at the heat death of the universe.
Everyone gathered their things. The meeting ended. Lydia walked to her desk on legs that belonged to someone who had been sitting for three geological epochs.
She sat down.
She opened her laptop.
She had another meeting in fifteen minutes.
She would be ready.
She was always ready.
She was never ready.
She was fine.