Any Coincidence Is | Page 8

into combative silence. They never settled that argument - it just kept going on its own, to the detriment of everyone's sanity.
Whether she was getting a real education or not, Julia found herself constantly searching for meaning. About what governed reality (whatever that was), about what was human will (assuming it existed), about the elusive qualities of soul, and about the urge to bury one's face in Godiva chocolate every twenty-eight days. The last question was more easily answered than the others. She took a long drag, determined to make this one last. One a day was bad enough for her. And she'd probably need another one after work, if Denny was in one of his moods.
She leaned back on the toilet and stared at the pale, sodium light spread out across the ceiling. Deja vu. Something from a dream about lying back and watching the sky. Of course, how the sky and the ceiling in an Osco restroom were connected was beyond her, but what the hell - there would be an entire evening for worrying about mundane problems. But like most of her dreams, she remembered it as another memory, one as real as a memory of a waking moment. And as usual, the memory of the dream seemed more vivid than her memory of what she had done this morning. That was it - the light in the sky had been yellow, almost gold, with a brown tint. That was what made it look so unusual, this dream-light. It wasn't the sunlight of the world when everyone is awake and concentrating on whatever was going on beneath them. A light reserved for people who didn't deserve it, or know what it was, or what it meant. At least, that's what it seemed like in the dream. Or maybe she had made all that up after she woke up. But she did remember it had altered into a haze, growing more uniform, covering the world in a grey aura. The white of the clouds gave way, under pressure of a great and unstoppable force, to something else, which she couldn't describe. This, whatever it was, blanketed the sky, offering neither snow nor rain, instead smothering the world below from whatever was above. Except now, the clouds began to descend.
In parallel streams, this gray sky, this aura seemed to move toward her. Julia felt herself begin to giggle, that nervous giggle when she knew something was terribly wrong but didn't know what. And then she realized that she wasn't just remembering the dream - the haze had seemed to pierce the ceiling and was beginning to cause the restroom lights to bend and shimmer. Julia stopped giggling and stood up, her eyes fixed on whatever it was that she had to be imagining. But the gray haze remained until it finally began to back away into the unknown sky beyond.
Julia felt her body constrict itself to form another giggle, but none came. She dropped to the seat and quickly lit a second cigarette. Nicotine euphoria swept through her body, but it would not take her to wherever it was she desperately needed to go. She dropped the cigarette to the floor and crushed it under her foot.
"How disappointing," she muttered. She felt her throat knot up with sadness until she heard someone move outside the door. She looked at her watch - she had wasted fifteen minutes, and now the restroom smelled terribly guilty.
The bathroom door creaked open. The fan located above Julia's well chosen stall expelled the smoke and Julia began flapping her hand as quietly as she could to speed the smoke on its way.
"Julia?" asked a voice.
"Rhonda?" Julia whispered conspicuously. The restroom door quickly closed and Rhonda scuttled into the stall next to Julia.
"Quick! Give me a drag!"
Julia, heretofore holding her breath, exhaled in relief and passed another cigarette and the lighter into Rhonda's hand hovering under the partition.
"I thought you were Farthead looking into the restroom again," Julia said.
Julia heard Rhonda inhale and exhale in rhythmic, sage-like fashion. "No," Rhonda finally answered, "somebody said he called in sick."
Rhonda's hand appeared under the stall again holding the lighter. Julia took it from her as they both heard a man's voice from outside the door.
"Rhonda? Julia?"
"That ain't Farthead!" whispered Rhonda. Both toilets flushed, as if their unison action would suddenly provide an air-tight alibi which, notwithstanding the stern tone in the voice outside, caused them both to giggle. They emerged sheepishly from the restroom as Supervising Manager Denny frowned and shook his head disapprovingly.
"Rhonda, where's Kurt?"
"Sick, I think. Someone said he called in with a stomach ache."
"Then he's fired too."
"Too?!" exclaimed Julia.
"Well, let's see, Julia. You missed your shift yesterday without calling in..."
"I did?"
"You did. And that's the third time this month."
"I can't believe I did it