Trade

Blue Fifth Notebook Australia 2015

At lunch everyone in our IT section leaves our cubicles and goes to the lunch room and the eight of us sit at the same back corner table and chat and eat. Today five of us had brown bags and the other three had lunch boxes –  Sponge Bob, Spidey and a pond scene from a Monet painting. Before opening our lunch someone asked, “Trade?” (someone always asks) and two brown bags were exchanged. This day there were three trades, two bags and a lunch box and there were lots of good-natured nasty food comments. After lunch, we went back to our cubicles and I looked over at Marty, who finally opened his lunch bag, took out his sandwich and drink and laid his head in his arms and wept just as he had been doing every day since the lunch “Trade” began.