Microfiction: Fallow
"It was as if the wide room was haunted by a religious ghost..."
His boss had sent him on a wild goose chase.
“My boss has sent me on a wild goose chase,” he told the receptionist at the student housing office with a smile. She laughed politely. He took a look around the office. It was as if the wide room was haunted by a religious ghost: arched doorways, a single stained glass window, a crucifix on the wall. Thin metal wires hanging from the ceiling held up a line of boxy office rooms, and the furniture was irreverently modern, light gray with accents of cheerful blues and greens and yellows. Soulless, he thought. He turned to her. “We have a cohort coming into town for a conference, and we are hoping there might be a way to house some of them on campus here.” She blinked, waiting for more. “I know the summer is probably a bit of a f---”.
“Oh yes,” she interrupted. “People think that when the students leave everything slows down, but really we dive into a lot of planning for the next semester. A lot of behind the scenes stuff. Busy. Super busy.” She seemed especially eager to convince him, the words spilling out in a rush. He had been intending to say “fallow season,” so he held back. Then again, isn’t that precisely what a “fallow season” entails? Millions of microorganisms at work in the soil, making it fertile again, “behind the scenes”? He resisted the urge to look around the quiet office for signs of life. Busy? He wasn’t so sure.
“Oh, I’m sure,” he said.