Mortal Arcana

They hand you a badge, a laptop, and a password you'll forget by lunch. You nod through the whole meeting understanding maybe one word in ten, thrilled to be there.

Three months in, someone drops the acronym like everyone knows it. You nod again. You still don't, and you stopped asking weeks ago.

You hate to have to call him… but you're so glad you have him. His one commandment: have you rebooted?

He's on vacation.

You've eaten lunch alone at your own kitchen table for two years straight, and somewhere in there you actually started liking the company.

The blinds haven't moved in a week. Open a door.

No recycle bin, no confirmation dialog, no coming back. Let it actually be gone.

Turns out it's still in two backups and the cloud. Nothing you delete ever really dies.

After forty minutes of lobby purgatory, the pager erupts in light in your hands — hope, glowing and vibrating: your table is ready.

It's been an hour. Parties of six who came in after you are eating. The hostess has stopped making eye contact.

Every person you actually wanted here made it, the plates are cleared, and nobody's checking the time. You just sit in it.

One chair's already pushed in and someone's stacking plates before dessert's done. The circle closes early.