The Quiet Floor

John Croft is sixty-one years old. The old guy. And the office is dead. Proper dead.

Used to be you’d walk in, Derek’d have a jibe about your tie, your team, your missus. You’d give it back harder. That was the day, sorted.

Now it’s all Slack. Emojis. Thumbs-up rubbish.

He said hiya to the young one by the printer. She smiled like he’d coughed on her.

—Smashing weather, he tried.

—Mm, she said, AirPods in.

He sat down. Stared at the screen. Typed morning team in the group chat.

Three hours. No reply.

—Fuck, he muttered. 

—I’m a ghost.