The Curious Mr. Tong

Amidst the long hours among cubicles, Mr. Tong found his grooming was slipping. He noted this on a sticky, placed it on the right bezel of his monitor and returned to work. “Perhaps an affirmation is in order,” he muttered to himself, wrote this on another sticky, and placed this below the first.

“Ah, here we are,” and he pulled the second sticky off, replacing it with still another that read, “Hunger should be scheduled.” He nodded as he caressed the gummy edge a second time with his thumb to assure this one stayed affixed to its new place.

A message popped into his email. “Ms. Zine,” he muttered and quickly inhaled. He read the subject header several times: “Your indifference to our tattered love is a torment that I shall not continue to endure.”

Mr. Tong sipped his coffee, sat silently watching the steam rise from his cup, and then gently returned it to the folded square of paper he had assembled as a coaster. He sighed, lifted his coffee with both hands and sipped. He returned it to his coaster, turned to the message and read, “Love, Stella.”

Mr. Tong felt his left eye twitch. He reached for his coffee but didn’t drink. He deleted the message and moved to his cursor down his inbox, deleting by sender and subject, occasionally placing items in junk.

Another message from Ms. Zine appeared, bold, at the top of his queue. “Quilts are made from scraps of cloth.” Mr. Tong opened the message, “Love, Stella.”

Mr. Tong inhaled and blew across his coffee. As he sipped, he stared at the screen. He deleted the message.

A message popped up with the subject: “Languid moments are expected in the eternal flow of time - you can drift or swim through them with love.” The message read, “Love, Stella.” Mr. Tong stared at the screen, as if contemplating, then clicked “reply.”

“Re: Languid…” he cut the subject short and began to compose, “Hello Ms. Zine, your persistence, although an admirable quality in itself, is at this time disruptive. This is a place of business, a place of work. There is filing to be done, forms to be populated, and patience to procure while waiting for others to send in forms, then correct forms, so they then can be sent to the executive team where they will be either approved, denied or modified for further filing. Of course, whatever is decided also has to be conveyed to the original provider. This conveyance, of course, also has consequences of its own, which also must be documented and filed accordingly.

Your input, albeit appreciated, is disruptive to process and I must insist that a more appropriate time be found or set aside for your profligate messages. I cannot be a party to such things at this time.

Finally, please use proper email etiquette wherein a subject is short, perhaps pithy, but short, and the message is used to express a complete thought.

Respectfully,

Mr. Tong,” and he hit send.

Sighing, he sipped his coffee and checked his watch to see if it matched the time at the bottom right of his computer screen. He tapped the crystal and shook his wrist. He removed the watch and adjusted the time by two minutes and wondered where his time had gone.

Tong glanced at his screen and realized that there was an almost immediate response to his message, “Subject: What began as a mere dalliance of minds amidst the languor of habituation sowed seeds in what was thought barren land, yet now we have fields of blossoms.” With a click into the message he found in standard 12 font Times New Roman, the words, “Love, Stella” staring back at him.

His coffee had become tepid, and his Fitbit was telling him it was time to move. He grabbed his mug, made his way silently among the rows of cubicles to the office kitchen, put a quarter in the can and poured himself a new cup of coffee, and this time, kept it black. He inhaled, counted to three and returned to his desk. “Of course,” he muttered.

Stella, new subject: “The double helix is the foundation of life, four proteins locking each strand of chromosomes into an embrace, intertwining, wrapping, folding, and bringing something significant to the world, chemistry and coincidence coming together and we call it fate.” Mr. Tong glanced at his inspirational sticky and consulted his calendar. The rest of the afternoon was scheduled as “Focus.”

“I should have put something in earlier, there is so little flexibility.” He grabbed another sticky, scrawled “Hunger doesn’t wait to be scheduled” and placed it on the upper bezel of his screen. He removed his previous aspiration, sighing, and stared at the new one. He clicked on the message.

“Love, Stella.”

Mr. Tong tapped his watch, noted that he really had lost no time and cleared his throat. He hit “reply.”

“Hello Ms. Zine,

Please understand that at this time I must attend to numerous reimbursement requests, none of which are delinquent and thusly deserving of my fullest attention. I thank you for your thoughts and concerns about science, more people should turn to science in times of uncertainty as there, of course, are attempts at understanding and iterative challenges to evidence as it becomes known.

Be well,

Mr. Samuel Tong,” and with a touch of the mouse, he hit send.

Mr. Tong’s email was silent, although his stomach growled, for several hours while he studied and balanced his reimbursements. His coffee was gone and he hadn’t paid his dues for the water club. He sat, dehydrated. He stared at his screen for an hour, and nothing changed. He blocked out the 11:30 am -12:30 pm time slot on his calendar for the week and nodded to himself. He noticed a quote accompanying his last reimbursement and jotted it across a new yellow post-it, “There is always something to be busy with. -Being Right Here: A Dzogchen Treasure Text of Nuden Dorje entitled ‘The Mirror of Clear Meaning’.”

“Indeed,” he muttered. He placed this over his top bezel post-it. Taking a deep breath, he banged on the partition of his cubical. “Stella!”

“Yes,” she replied.

“Would you go to dinner with me?” He found himself on the edge of tears.

“Samuel Tong, this is a place of business,” she replied.

“I am sorry I didn’t speak sooner, I had no confidence someone with your intellect would have a genuine interest in…”

“Of course I will have dinner with you. Let’s get out of here.”

Mr. Tong locked his screen and took his leave.