Sixteen Blank Pages After Hours

Everyone had cleared out by six.

I stayed with the quarterly summaries,

the fluorescent lights doing their usual nothing

over the partitioned desks,

the motivational poster

nobody had looked at in months.

At nine the printer in the next room woke.

No cursor blinked, no command went out—

just the mechanical pull and feed,

the warm dusty smell of toner

finding heat, and the first page

curling into the tray.

I went to the doorway.

Watched the second page land on the first.

The third. I picked the stack up—

still warm, that slightly synthetic heat

fresh off the drum—

and every page was blank.

Sixteen of them.

I counted twice.

Then the machine went quiet

and the office was just an office again,

and I stood there

holding a stack of nothing,

trying to figure out

what had just been asked of me.