Temporary

by Hilary Leichter

“When are you going to take me about town?” the Chairman sometimes complains. “I’m a man about it and we never go anywhere.

I liked the feel of the cracked upholstery on his passenger seat, the kind of damage that suggests aggressive comfort.

not the way most people today would picture an office. It was a collection of matter and inertia that suggested the sensation of work.

we’re all standing there nodding in a small cluster of yes.

I shadow Carl when he buys his artisan panini, taking shadow money from my shadow pocket, placing the payment on a shadow counter that sits just beyond the real counter.

I picture her lungs full of the same variety of vicious growth. I feel her loneliness like a stalactite stuck to the roof of my mouth.