Living Things

Instance 4: Catch

There is a place between mania and coma that most people call life. Bouncing between these boundaries, Kevin O’ furiously tapped away at the keyboard in his office cubicle where he devoted a third of his typing to Web coding, the rest to writing an e-mail message to his neighbor, just beyond his partition. He typed faster than most touch-typist despite using the two-finger method of hunting and pecking. Everyone at work called him KevCan, because he could. Whatever it was, he could do it, or get someone else to do it if he absolutely couldn’t get the time to do it himself.

“You’re playing tonight?” asked Huffy, who sat across from KevCan in a cubicle set into a corner, his back to the rest of the office. Huffy often asked KevCan when he was going to play with Catch, the band KevCan formed with his brother. After months and several gigs, Huffy never once caught a show.

“Shit, yeah, and I almost forgot,” said KevCan still racing over the keys, not looking up. “Princess?” he asked, raising his voice to carry over the partition next to him, calling on the woman to whom he was writing his e-missive.

“Yes?” she called back to him.

“I luv yew,” he said. Princess laughed while KevCan kept typing for another five seconds. “Princess?” he asked again.

“Yes?” she called back, again.

“What are you doing tonight? You know my band is playing?”

“Where?”

“In Farmingdale. I’ll send you the directions,” KevCan said, never once looking up or pausing from typing.

“Send them to me, too, KevCan,” Huffy said. “I really can’t wait to see you play.”