Cars honking their horns, conversations from the street, as well as the bustle of every day life float into the large window of office building, adding a bit of variety to the mundane sounds of typing inside the large room full of a maze of cubicles. Young and old, men and women, are all busy with the dull necessity of working to feed themselves and their families. Some have pictures on their cubicle walls, others have bits of writing, others notes to themselves. But somewhere in the maze a sigh is heard, and a single set of typing has stopped.

Upon finding this quiet pair of hands, a young man is seen, his computer still full of many windows, a task midway done still fills up the screen. After a moment of staring at screen wistfully with a softly chiseled face, he runs a hand through cropped, curly blond hair and hesitantly opens up a drawer to his right, revealing a stack of neatly placed papers, mostly paperwork. His slightly unbuttoned dress shirt stretches across his broad back as he reaches in, carefully lifting out the papers to reveal a pristine manila folder. He sets the papers on the messy desk beside his computer and wipes off suddenly damp hands on his black trousers and takes the folder out delicately, treating it as if it were cut glass, then glances around to assure himself that he’s not being watched.

He swivels his chair to face away from his cubical opening and stretches out his legs, sets the folder in his lap, then opens it slowly. He bites his lip then touches the item that lies serenely on top: a lock of multicolored hair- going from light blond to a dull brown- is secured with a small strip of orange and black cloth. A faint, heartfelt smile touches his lips before he tenderly sets it on the other side of the folder and picks up the next item: a note saying “at your own risk” its letters a bit faded and grins to himself, and after a few moments sets this aside too. Finally he lifts out a hand drawn picture- a sketched and lightly colored drawing. It seems to be of a woman…but isn’t. The woman has soft looking cream-colored fur covering her body, which is left bare, revealing light brown blotches here and there in the fur. She is seated like a cat might be, and her bare feet are human shaped…but they’re furry and the have claws at the end. Her hands are splayed on the ground and also seem to be human, except for the fur and clawed fingers. Up her torso you see a very light brown belly leading to full, furred breasts then up a slender neck to an unusual face. It is framed by layered, multicolored hair, but cream cat ears peak up from her hair near the top of her head, and her face bears a vaguely human form, but it’s also furred. She has a slightly cat like muzzle where her nose and mouth should be, whiskers protruding playfully from softly colored cheeks. Her eyes are cat shaped and seem to twinkle at you with a mischievous gleam, around the left eye is a soft brown splotch about the color of her stomach and gracefully drawn eyebrows accent her sea green eyes.

The man traces her face lovingly with a fingertip, a warm smile softening his face as he lingers on the picture, and then reluctantly sets this aside too. The last thing in the folder is a photo. It shows a tropical beach, soft, blue, clear waters almost seem to lap onto soft white sand. Past a few white dunes is a beach house of two stories, simply done, a large deck on the second story with slightly open French doors and large windows. Under the deck is another set of French doors and a few large windows. The man gazes at the photo with obvious longing then traces over a particular window, where seemingly with a trick of lighting, a figure comes to the window then disappears from sight.

A smile lightens his face again and the man nods murmuring, “I did the right thing.”

The man then sets the items back into place with the same delicacy and tenderness, puts the folder back, adds the papers to the top and closes the drawer. Soon, his typing joins the chorus of the myriad of other busy hands.