Free Why Are You So Sad? by Jason Porter

expected would sell well, but they had anticipated, and correctly so, that people would want to look inside, and would then find themselves purchasing brand-new picnic baskets and collapsible furniture. When they finally discontinued the Winnebagos, a manager in a meeting decided that using one would spice up our workspace while saving on the expense of renovating the old break room. He was promoted the next day.
    There was barely a kitchen in the room. There was a microwave, and a toaster oven, and a vending machine where the toilet once had been. There were packets of instant coffees and powdered sweeteners arranged in tidy rows. There was a half-size refrigerator that was dangerous to open, because it was filled with forgotten yogurts. And there was Nora, standing alone by the sink, humming quietly to herself in a minor key.
    Her back was to me. She was facing the fake window above the sink. As I moved in past her toward the hot water tap, I noticed that she was removing bread from a sandwich she had purchased in the vending machine. Nora was like a surgeon with that sandwich. Precise and focused. In delicate, uniform strokes, she was now using a paper napkin to dab the mayonnaise off the orange cheese.
    â€œLooks like it’s going to be another sunny day,” I said, gesturing to the photo of the Swiss Alps printed on the cardboard window. She didn’t laugh. She didn’t respond in any sort of way. She simply kept dabbing, staring at the American cheese.
    â€œJerry’s looking for you,” she finally said.
    â€œI’m on my way to see him, after I make him this cup of coffee.”
    She looked at her cheese.
    â€œAre you doing all right?” I asked.
    She looked up. She looked back down. She must have heard me, but didn’t seem to care. I sprinkled instant coffee into a mug of hot water. The flakes turned to blurry dashes, the dashes turned into dark spots that sought each other out, the brown consumed the clear: coffee.
    She walked over to the small dining nook and sat down. She had her survey there. She must have been working on it during her snack break. I had to join her. I could not imagine not joining her. It was a bold move for me, considering how all her cheer made me talk dumb, and feel dumb. I sat down and casually took a sip of the coffee. The nook was cramped. My knees pressed against the bottom of the table. There was nothing in the cushion to keep me from feeling the cheap wood of the bench.
    â€œI’m not sad,” she said, holding on to her inner sandwich.
    â€œI didn’t say you were.”
    â€œYou asked me if I was okay.”
    â€œJust curious.”
    â€œI am fine. I don’t know. Maybe this survey”—it seemed like she wanted to say
fucking survey
—“has gotten under my skin.”
    I liked what she was saying. Her recognition of her dismay. I smiled. She didn’t like that.
    â€œWhy am I talking to you? I don’t even know you.” She said it, and then looked at me and must have detected some fraction of humanity in my face. “Oh gosh, I’m sorry. Why did I say that? Don’t tell anybody I said that. It just slipped out. I like everybody. I really do.”
    â€œWe belong to the same credit union.”
    â€œHuh?”
    â€œYou said you didn’t know me.”
    â€œRight.”
    â€œBut what were you saying about your skin?” I looked at her skin, freckled and athletic, slightly sun-damaged. I imagined biting the gold chain off of her neck and spitting it out. I wanted to put a finger to a freckle on her cheek and see if either of us could feel something from the inside of the other. I also wanted to read her survey, which helped me remember what I was going to say. “How has this gotten under your skin?”
    She didn’t answer.
    I said, “I’ll tell you about my feelings if you tell me about what’s gotten under your skin.”
    There is an attitude children have,