She loved her cubicle. It was right next to the copier machine. She loved seeing all the people who came to copy, scan, print or just fix a jam.

She played out stories in her head about all of them. Hushed conversations on cellphones, snatched bits of office gossip shared over the whir of the machine added spice to the narratives.

He came to the machine for the first time on his second day in the office. He caught her sneaking looks at him. He smiled, just to be nice, she turned her face the other way. He did not take offence, he knew she was discomfited.

But it was too late for him, he had seen her eyes, her lips pursed in concentration, the dimples on her chin, her hair curling all around her face.

She was surprised he had seen her watching him. No one ever noticed her. She looked up only when his retreating back was visible over the top of her monitor.

He started coming everyday. He never looked her way. She never turned to watch him. But he always caught her profile while turning to walk away. She always looked out for his retreating back over her monitor.

Then one day he didn’t come. She waited. He was absent the next day. She was curious. He stayed away for a week. She was anxious. She went through the discarded papers at the machine. No clues.

She looked out for the familiar back at the cafeteria, during walks through the office, in the elevators, in the reception, in the subway, on the streets, in her dreams….

Two weeks after the last time the back had vanished beyond the range of her monitor, she gave up. She stayed home to mourn the end of her affair.

Next day she took her seat in the cubicle beside the machine. Her screen had a post it stuck to it smack in the middle.

It had a name and a number

…….and a sketch of the machine.