It was Kimmy’s last night at work. Before the shift ended, she grabbed a box in her locker where she kept all the lighters random people had left lying around in the designated smoking areas in the building. At lunch break, she went around the cafeteria, handing a lighter to every person she’d ever smoked with.
That was the last time anyone ever saw her, but the first time that people found themselves asking, “Who is she?”
No one dared ask. What did that reveal about them, having the need to ask a coworker who she was on her last day of work. Instead, they made small talk. The smallest kind, the kind in which the response was never important, only the act of asking. Then the empty promises, the vague “see you around!” “don’t forget about me!” And then, as soon as Kimmy turned away, they promptly forgot about her existence. Until everyone showed up for their yosi break, each with a lighter in hand.
Everyone said it was funny. Usually, they had to scramble around for someone with a lighter. When no one in the group had one, they would scan the area for anyone with a lit stick. And then it was the matter of who’s shameless enough to approach that one person smoking on the other side of the room. But now, here they all were, ready to smoke within seconds of arriving at the smoking area.
The smoking area. Recently, their smoking breaks began with whining about having to go the long way around the building just to smoke, because apparently, they were going to close this one down. But that night, as they all regarded their individual lighters in silence, they all had one thought in mind: Kimmy’s last night.
“But where is she?” Jet asked.
“I think she’s having her exit interview,” Sara said. But she wasn’t sure.
They all scanned their brains for memories of Kimmy, but none of them could come up with anything worth talking about. They just remembered her being there, being one of them. They could not even remember which brand she preferred, or if she even had a preference.
Blessie then turned to her smoking buddies. Would they have any memories of her if she left? Would she?
Ram, for one, knew that these people were just his smoking buddies. On his first day three months ago, he’d vowed not to get too close to anyone because he knew that he was going to leave sooner or later. He no longer wanted attachment. At least not with his co-workers. The last time he did, he overstayed at a job where the pay was low and the working conditions even lower, just because he had fallen in love with a co-worker who consented to being his fuck buddy and nothing more. But of course, he knew how hypocritical he was, because on his very first week, he spotted Sara from across the smoking area and quickly fell for her. That night, he was so thankful for having a lighter when he saw her doing the lighter scan. He stood just a few yards away, trying to remain both conspicuous and inconspicuous as he lit his stick, careful to meet her eyes and smile at her as he took his first drag.
Sara, on the other hand, would not have any memories of that first encounter with Ram or with anyone. She’d been on this job for longer than she could even remember. Too long. So long she couldn’t quite divest herself of her fake American accent even if she tried. It had been hammered onto her tongue so firmly, that sometimes it made its way out even when she was talking to some random person on the phone. Muscle memory. “Mommy talks funny,” her daughter once said when she overheard Sara talking to a CS rep on the phone. She hadn’t even noticed. Now it was all she noticed all the damned time whenever she talked. Now instead of talking, she just smoked. She could go through two packs a day. She wondered if any of her smoking buddies even noticed how she no longer really talked anymore.
Jet noticed, but he didn’t care. He’d been on this job as long as she had, and he hated the fact that she made fun of their job, belittled what they did as “easy money” even when most nights she was so stressed out she would absentmindedly pull out her hair one strand at a time, her eyes glazed on her computer screen, always on the verge of tears. Was that what you could categorically call easy money? He noticed she stopped making these snide remarks, but did not wonder enough to ask her why she stopped. That was what this job did to him—it stopped his superficial curiosity. If he couldn’t do anything to fix an issue—or frankly, even if he could—he would simply take a long drag, long enough for the issue to be uninteresting, then he would exhale, and behind the smoke hide a smirk, then move on. Solving strangers’ issues over the phone for a living, he might as well be talking with phantoms about issues that seem always bigger than his. No, it was never just about their mobile phone accounts—it was always something else, something monumental or sacred. And they all felt the need to share them with Jet. It was tiring. But at this point in his life, it was the only thing he felt qualified to do. He was too tired, too old, too bored for a fresh start.
A fresh start. That was what this job was supposed to be for Blessie. But now it felt kind of stale, like a day-old bread. “You’ve only been at it for a year,” her mother said. But her feet itched and with each passing day, she felt restless, picturing herself elsewhere—but where? It was a kind of sadness she couldn’t explain, a longing. A sadness for life’s reality. Is this how it’s supposed to be, waiting for the next payday, spending too much money and then instantly regretting it, working to meet the targets of a company and to what end exactly? One day, she took her brother shopping for a new phone, and she felt like crying upon seeing him look at the phone in seemingly endless wonder. Is that really what brings you joy? she wanted to ask. But she knew that that was inappropriate, borderline cruel, and unnecessary, so instead, she went out of the store and watched him by the railings. She looked at Sara and Jet and wondered how they could stay on just one job, growing older in the same building, doing essentially the same things day in and day out, complaining about them regularly, yet never leaving. Unwilling cogs in the machine, but cogs nonetheless.
So many of their smoking buddies had left. Some of them announced it, but most of them just disappeared one day. Kimmy did tell them about it or at least they thought she did, but not in the showy way that Arnold or Miriam did or else they would have remembered, right? Miriam actually treated them all to Starbucks, but only because she needed the stickers for the Christmas planner. Arnold, on the other hand, smuggled vodka in his 2L Klean Kanteen. Then he proceeded to spike the coffee of everyone on his floor and walked out without finishing his shift. There was a rumor that the company had chosen to forfeit his last pay because of what had happened. They collectively agreed that they hated whoever betrayed Arnold, swore if ever one of them performed a similar stunt on their last day, that none of them would rat the person out. It was a joke! Couldn’t people just lighten up? It wasn’t as if they were first responders or doctors—no one was going to die from a bit of alcohol, right? At some point in the conversation, they’d lost the thread, and were afraid to consider the other side, afraid to consider that they might be wrong.
Not one of them could remember when or if Kimmy even announced that she had handed in her resignation letter and that it had been approved. For some reason, they all felt her impermanence, always sensed her one foot out the door instead of her entire person. Now that they thought about it, they had no idea how long Kimmy had worked there. Not even an estimate. It kind of felt a little like the bystander effect. They all took for granted that someone must be taking note of everything for everyone, like a human repository of a fellow co-worker’s memories, but it turned out none of them took note.
They looked up from their reverie and then at one another. Was it the cold night air of 2 a.m., or the fact that they were still wide awake, jacked up on caffeine from a wide range of sources not limited to coffee, while the rest of the congested city slept under starless skies? Why did it feel so lonely just then as they regarded each other, knowing just how anonymous they were not just to one another but to themselves, how they were all on the precipice of leaving, each one of them considering this job, this building, and even this city as a stepping stone, even as they knew it was their last and only resort.
Just then, Kimmy approached their group with a wave. They all waved back. They all then mentioned the lighters, thanked her for them or else berated her jokingly. How could they now approach that new hottie from HR and use his lighter as a pretext for a chat? Kimmy laughed. Then as she lit up a stick with her own lighter, they all wondered who among them would ask her what job she was transferring to next or what her family thought about her resigning or how she felt about resigning herself. But when she took her first deep drag and looked out, it felt like she was no longer there and that it was too late for the conversation. They all then vowed that they would do better next time. Until they recalled that just a few months ago, one of them also resigned—John or Jan or June—and now they couldn’t remember his last name or if they even knew it in the first place.
This would happen a few weeks before the lockdowns were imposed.
Years later, as they all slowly stepped out to reclaim their spots in the system, Kimmy would show up in their peripheral memories. Her ordinary moments of kindness that no one ever stopped to acknowledge like how she was always the first one to wave or break the ice with a newcomer, how she often had extras of everything in her cabinet that was always open to everyone or how she was always the first to notice whenever someone was having a bad day. Sometimes it was the random details about her that showed up: the way she dressed up in the weirdest way, not because she meant to, but because she really didn’t have any fashion sense; how there was always a palpable hush in a room whenever she spoke; and that one idle hour when she played “My Cherie Amour” on loop, much to everyone’s initial irritation and eventual LSS. First they would wonder where she was, and how she was doing. A few of them might do a quick Facebook search and realize they couldn’t even remember her face. Then they would begin to wonder whether those memories were of Kimmy or an amalgam of all the people who have come and gone, unnoticed in their lives. One of them might even think, was that me? Was I ever like that? They would laugh about the many versions of people they’ve been, the many versions of selves they’ve discarded for better or for worse. They would then miss those people, many of whom might have existed during their many past graveyard shifts, one of whom might have even shared a cigarette break with Kimmy. Then they would remember how they had never managed to throw away the lighters that Kimmy gave them on her last day. Those lighters could still be inside their old lockers, for all they knew, languishing like their memories of people they once knew but never acknowledged, their own selves included.
