Back-to-Back Desks

The office is a shoebox on the fourth floor of the building that smells permanently of damp wool and stale tea, squeezed between a printer that jams if you look at it wrong and a window that doesn’t open. There are two desks pushed back-to-back, a compromise of geometry that means if I reach for my stapler, I knock his elbow, and if he leans back, he bumps my knees. There is one kettle, a cheap plastic thing with a blackened heating element that sits exactly in the center of the shared space, a neutral territory we both claim and neither of us owns. The light is fluorescent and unforgiving, buzzing with a low, electric headache that has been the soundtrack of my life for four years.

I am sitting at my desk, staring at a highlighter-stained draft of my conclusion like it’s a foreign language I forgot to learn. My hair is up in a claw clip that is losing the battle against gravity, and I have three empty mugs on the corner of my desk, a graveyard of caffeine that has long since stopped helping and now just serves as a reminder of how tired I am. My viva is tomorrow. The word sits in my chest like a stone, heavy and cold, making every breath feel deliberate.