Fiction

Changing the paper in his printer one day he dropped a few sheets, and one drifted down and stuck in the leaves of a fern that sat next to his desk. His back ached as he leaned out of his swivel chair to retrieve it. His hand stopped above it. The sheet of paper looked like a square area in the middle of the plant that had been erased, the white walls and cream carpet showing through.

He adjusted the sheet so that it erased more of the plant.

He stood up, pushing his chair with the backs of his knees so that it rolled backwards across the plastic carpet protector and banged into the computer stand behind him. He bent down and grasped the edges of the fern's pot and lifted it to the desktop, remembering, as he did so, that you are supposed to lift with your legs, not your back. The tearing pain made him step back and sit down heavily in the chair. He slid forward to his desk. His telephone buzzed. He began to rest sheets of paper on other branches so they projected out to the sides, forming a white background for the green leaves, erasing the window, the framed Hawaii poster on the far wall, the door.

He had never seen so many shades of one color in one place. There was the pale foamy green of the veins, the vivid grass green of the largest, jutting leaves, the darker, smaller, under-leaves.

He began to arrange a backdrop, a v-shaped wall of white paper scotch-taped together, supported by discarded fax-paper rolls he retrieved from the recycling bin. It grew some three feet high and took up much of his desk. He straightened the outlines of the plant with more paper. He used up the stack of sheets in his printer and opened another pack.

After some minutes working standing up his back ached again and he lay down on the couch and stared up at the white ceiling. It was the most peaceful feeling he could remember in a long time. He could see faint swirl marks in the plaster, a cosmos of faint strokes that faded into the luminous glow. His shoulders relaxed. He remembered faintly playing football with his brother when he was about ten and running the length of the front lawn in an imaginary touchdown and collapsing flat on his back, staring up.

His eyes were filled with the deep blue whole of the summer sky. He spread his arms out in the grass and felt as if his weight were holding down the earth so that it wouldn't fly up into that impenetrable, empty color field, so things would maintain their weight and proper place. He moved his arms up and down like wings in the grass.

The telephone buzzed again.

He was sitting at his desk behind the paper tower taping two sheets together when his secretary opened the door.

"Mr. Phillips?"

He could see her face just against the right white edge. He squinted and lifted the sheets of paper and fitted them into place. Erasing her.

"Lost my appointment book again," he said.