The Last Good Day

I remember the last good day.

It was Halloween last year.  We were still located in the old back area, with its ghosts of the previous employees still haunting the cubes.  Fear Mor had decided that we were going to enter the pumpkin carving contest so he had procured a pumpkin and set of tools.  An Ghearmannaich went one better: find a dremel tool, he began carving a quail into the side of the pumpkin.  Fear Beag was on the sidelines making commentary, and The Other was in the corner, watching. 

I call it the last good day because it is the last time I can remember us as a department having a good time together.  We were all getting along, we were all located near each other and there was a genuine sense that we were meshed as a unit.  There was laughter and jokes and sarcasm and probably some off-color comments as well.  It felt like everything that a good work team environment should be.

Nothing, of course, lasts forever.

Relationships frayed (as they always do) to the point some would not talk with others.  People left - first Fear Mor, then The Other, and finally An Ghearmannaich.  The space has changed as well - perceived as being too far away (and taking up too much space), we were relocated in the building: 3 of us crammed up together in a space for 2 and the 2 others put halfway across the building (until they too both left, leaving us as a small appendix in a larger building). 

That space has become doubly haunted now - not just by the ghosts of previous employees but by the ghosts of us, wandering through the file cabinets with their documents that scarcely anyone will review again.  When I am back there I occasionally hear the laughter in the depths of the solitude.

This almost Halloween - scarcely a year later - it will be myself and Fear Beag to celebrate the holiday.  I doubt we will be carving a pumpkin this year, or even thinking about going to the general celebrations.  There's something about a real life haunting - a haunting of the soul - that leaves one somewhat chary of engaging in a party pretending to celebrate the same thing.