1. No Sign Up
It was afternoon. The room was dark. I was starting at the computer screen. I’d been working on this query all day, and it wasn’t coming together.
In the hall, some people were talking. Something about coming up from downstairs. Something about not signing in. Something about a chair massage.
“What?” I said, turning around and looking at them. “We don’t have to sign in?”
I had seen the email about chair massages and signing up. But as with so much that comes into my inbox, it went in one ear and out the other, and I never did sign up.
“No,” Terri said. “Not many people signed up. They’re just standing around down there.”
“What room?”
“Harris.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice.”
I heard them laughing as I turned the corner.
2. In Harris
Harris was dark.
Was it too late? Had they already left? I pulled the frosted glass door open.
There was soft music playing somewhere in the front.
In a corner in the back, there was a massage chair with someone in it. The therapist looked up at me and smiled. I waved back.
In the front, there was a second chair with someone in it. And there was a third, empty chair and a woman in scrubs sitting next to it reading.
She heard me coming and stood up smiling.
“Are you ready?”
“I didn’t sign up.”
“That’s ok. Have a seat.”
3. Died And Gone to Heaven
I have heard of this before. Stories of software companies in the peak of the dot-com boom. Startups treating their employees to chair massages. I had a friend who left the space business to work at one of those companies. He used to tell us stories about those heady days.
But I missed those days, making the jump just as the bottom fell out. I missed the chair massages.
Until today.
Ten minutes. A perfect way to get that query out of my head.
Afterwards, as I was returning to the quiet and the darkness of our corner of the second floor, I passed thru the kitchen, and there on the counter were two big plates of fruit.
Apple slices. Pineapple chunks. Purple grapes. Big read strawberries. Sitting there on the counter. There for the taking. After a chair massage.
How about that? I must have died and gone to heaven.