24 Hours

We are two ships that pass in the night.

I see her every day at 12pm. She clocks in as I clock out. We stand around by the machine, just waiting for the digits to change. At first we stood in awkward silence. One day I offered a shy smile and she smiled back. Now we have progressed to idle chatter.

The few minutes I spend with her are always the best of my day.

At around 11, I stop being productive and start thinking about her. She captivates me. She is beautiful. It’s all in her eyes. They sparkle and shimmer and are bluer than any other eyes I have seen. And when she smiles, I feel it in my stomach.

I don’t know her well, but it certainly feels like I love her.

At about quarter past 11, I start to daydream. I wonder what would happen if I said this, or that; how would she respond? Would she smile that perfect smile? Would she grace me with a laugh?

By half past, I still pretend to work, answering phone calls and making arbitrary notes on scraps of paper. They almost always end up as sketches of her. I gaze longingly at the paper, willing it to come to life and love me like I love her. It never does, so I throw it in the shredder.

When quarter to 12 comes round, I begin to get restless. I shuffle in my office chair and fiddle with my headpiece and sigh whenever I look at the clock and only another minute has passed.

As the clock hits 11.56, I call it a day, remove my headset, and leave my desk. Nobody else looks surprised. They are all still working, after all.

My heart begins to palpitate as I head through the ‘employees only’ door and towards the clocking-in machine. She is there, just like every other day. She glances up at me and smiles a little. My stomach dips and rises and churns but it feels wonderful.

“Shouldn’t you still be working?” she teases, playfully flicking her blonde curls behind her shoulder.

I grin and shake my head. “You caught me,” I admit, holding my hands up defensively, as you might do if a gun was pointed at you. She is close enough.

She tuts and rolls her eyes. “Slacker,” she smiles. “How was your shift today, anyway?”

“Oh, you know,” I reply. My hands are shaking so I conceal them inside the pockets of my trousers. “I answered some phone calls, got some abuse from housewives who don’t understand how their computers work, the occasional prank call from kids on their school break.” It is 11.57 on the machine now.

“The usual, then,” she nods, folding her arms across her chest. The white blouse she is wearing fits her shape very nicely, but there is a small brown stain near the collar. I guess that this could probably be from trying to drive and drink coffee at the same time. She sees me notice it and smiles sheepishly. “I was in a rush this morning,” she explains. “Tea stain.”

Of course she’s a tea drinker. What was I thinking?

“It happens,” I shrug, with a small smile.

A short silence passes, but it doesn’t feel awkward. The clock ticks over to 11.58. It is too close to goodbye. I want to stay and talk to Lucy forever but time is against us. We have never spoken outside of these three minutes a day. Why should today be any different?

It doesn’t seem fair to me. It doesn’t seem fair that I can just fall in love with this beautiful woman who is always coming as I am going. It doesn’t seem fair that I can’t ask her out for after-work drinks, or take my lunch with her, and get to know her properly. It doesn’t seem fair that my heart can swell within my ribcage when I am standing next to her, for these few precious seconds, and I can’t reach out and touch her and tell her all of this.

Because we are little more than strangers, really. I don’t know her darkest fears and secrets and memories and she doesn’t know mine. I don’t know if she has brothers and sisters, or a pet, or a disease, or 6 children. I don’t know anything, really, except that her name is Lucy and she is beautiful and she works in a call centre from 12-6pm from Monday to Thursday.

And yet, despite this, despite all of this not knowing, I still know that this is love. It is love in its purest form, when none of that other stuff matters. All that really matters is that Lucy makes me feel like nobody else in the world can, and surely that could be nothing else.

It is not yet 11.59. I still have another minute with her and I want to make it count.

“Any crazy plans for this weekend, then?” I ask her.

She looks a little surprised, but smiles again anyway. I start to feel seasick. “Oh, of course,” she says. “Tomorrow night I plan to stay in with my cat and watch Law and Order.” I give a small chuckle. “On Saturday I have a date with my mother for lunch, so that she can tell me that I’m a failure for not being married yet, and how bitter she is about wasting her money on my archaeology degree. And then on Sunday, I have pretty solid plans to stay in bed all day.”

I give another shy laugh and shake my head. “That sounds electric,” I say. My heart is pounding because I know that this is my chance. My chance to say something cool like, ‘Well how about you come out for dinner with me tomorrow night so you have something to tell your mother about?’ or something of the sort. 11.59 comes around. I don’t say anything at all. I hate myself for it.

She shrugs and laughs a little. “What about you?” she asks, cocking her head to one side. Her blonde curls escape from behind her ear and fall across her neck, but if it bothers her then she doesn’t show it.

“Oh, my weekend is going to be a big one as well,” I say, and she giggles a little. I know that I will overanalyse that giggle as I drive home and probably for the rest of the day. “I, just like you, will be tuning into Law and Order. And then on Saturday and Sunday I wholly plan to avoid leaving the house if possible. I may even make a fort in my living room.”

Lucy grins. “That sounds like fun,” she says. Her eyes are sparkling and glimmering. “This may sound crazy, but maybe, since we’re both planning to watch Law and Order, we could watch it together.” She pauses nervously and bites her lip. “To save on electricity.”

I blush and beam and nod. “Electricity prices are getting pretty steep,” I say. “It would be nice to have one less thing to worry about.”

She laughs and nods. “Okay. Sorted.” She grabs a scrap of paper from her jacket pocket and whips a pen out from her bag. “This is my address. Be there for nine on the dot, or I’m starting without you.”

She hands me the paper and I can’t believe that this has really happened. I glance down at her handwriting; a collection of swirls and loops as messy as her hair, but every bit as perfect. I grin as I put the paper in my pocket. “Perfect,” I say. I wonder if she can hear my heartbeat like I can. “Shall I bring anything?”

She considers this for a moment. “I like Chinese food,” she smiles.

“Consider it done,” I reply.

We stare at each other for a couple of seconds, both grinning like maniacs, and then it is 12.00.