The drive home, the empty seat

It's a Thursday, some weeks on. The meeting at ten past three went about as well as that meeting goes. At twenty past five you stopped, mid-task, and wrote on the notepad what's open, and under it, reconcile the March tab against the bank export, and under that, the client signed. You looked at the inbox once and closed it. You stood up.

At the roundabout the rerun started, because it does. You asked what's first tomorrow. The March tab. Back to the road. It started again at the lights and you did the same, and by the last street it had stopped trying, and you were listening to something about the Roman navy that you'll have forgotten by bedtime.

At the door the shoes came off and went where they go. The bag went where it goes. Your daughter has a story about a hamster that isn't the class's hamster, and it takes a while, and you're there for it, all of it, and it's a good story. Your partner asks about the boiler and you tell them the man's coming Tuesday, and you'll remember saying so.

At twenty past eight the meeting knocks. You name it. It's on the list. You say, out loud, that work's in your head, and your partner says fine, and it's fine, and you go back to the film. It knocks once more at nine, quieter, and doesn't get an answer.

You'll not do this every night. Some nights the meeting will overrun and the last ten won't happen and Friday will need to be ordinary. But most nights, now, the drive home has an empty seat, and the people at the end of it get the person who left work, rather than the one who brought it.

Tomorrow, ten minutes before you'd leave, stop and write the last line. That's the whole of it, and it starts then.