"Darkness comes at 3 in the afternoon"

It's not exactly dark at 3:00 in the afternoon, but its starting.  I watch it seep in each afternoon from the window of the 32nd floor of the Washington Mutual building. Within an hour, I will be able to see my entire reflection peering back at me as I finish the last of my client calls to Dutch Harbor, Prince William Sound, Kodiak. Sometimes I put on lip gloss. I cannot believe how often I run my hand through my hair, pushing back bangs that I grew out years ago. The habit never broken.

As the late November, early December afternoons progress, I scan the lighted windows from the building across 3rd Avenue.  Sometimes I will see a woman walking past a window, but the offices, mainly, look empty.  I wonder who is in there.  What they do. Do they see me?  What would they think I was doing?

City workers have hung Christmas--I think we're supposed to say holiday--lights in the bare trees lining 3rd.  It's beautiful when I am up here. Seattle's towers are twinkling. Streetlights and headlights punch little circles of yellowish orange into pockets of blackness. But I am waiting for five o'clock so I can write out my time sheet, shut the light to my office that is much too big and empty for what I am doing. I will wave good night to Sandra at the front desk as the elevator doors seal shut with a soft little whoosh. Once I've pushed through the brass and glass revolving doors, I will walk north three blocks and catch the 5:17 home.

On the bus, if I get a window seat, I will look up from my book every now and then and look out the window.  I will see myself in the reflection. I am still there.

I get off at Ken's. It's a market on Greenwood, four blocks from my house. I will stop there and buy a steak and some veggies to stir fry for dinner.  Gareth and I might come back up to Greenwood later on tonight and have a beer at the 75th Street Ale House. We've been trying for a year now to get our regular server, Cat Woman, to smile at us, act as if she knows us. I might not be up for it tonight.  I don't know, Gareth can be pretty persuasive.

Right now I am walking home. I cannot see myself in this winter darkness.  But I know am am still here.