The Coaster

I was sitting in a conference room at work yesterday, where we have these leather coasters that we use to keep water rings from appearing on the conference tables. I slid one of the coasters across the table to another associate on the other side. But the coaster took on a life of its own and headed in a completely different direction.

Down it plunged into the dark void, also known as the one-inch crack between the table and the wall. The table has a back on it, so I couldn’t just crawl under it, and there was no way my arm could fit down the crack to reach it. So, I left it there; sitting forgotten, collecting dust, and useless.

I was in the same conference room today, and I couldn’t take my eyes off the crack. I knew the coaster was sitting down there, barely visible in the half-light shining down from the fluorescent bulbs overhead. I felt a knot, tight and bunched in my stomach. I had robbed that poor coaster of its single purpose in life: to sit on a desk and hold someone’s drink. Something had to be done.

How could I sleep at night, knowing that coaster lurked at the bottom of the crack, and that I had been the one that had turned it to a life of crime, of violence, of darkness? It hadn’t asked for this fate, but life is sometimes a cruel mistress. So, it did whatever it could to survive, to make it from day to day, to eke out a sad existence in that hell that I had subjected it to.

It was driving me crazy! Who was I to determine a coaster’s fate? Am I so cruel and heartless that I could do that without feeling guilt or remorse? Alas, no! I sighed and shook my head. Like Reverend Dimmesdale from the Scarlet Letter, I may not wear the red ‘A’, but I was being persecuted by it nonetheless.

I waited until my meeting was over, and then I crawled under the table. I wedged my pen into the tiny gap under the table’s back, and inch by inch I guided the coaster to freedom. You’ll be relieved to know that the coaster is once again lying on the desk, waiting to fulfill its single purpose in life. Now, maybe I can sleep tonight.