I find silence intimidating, it's too quiet—quiet enough to hear a pin drop. The vending machine in the corner hums lowly, but it's still deafening.

In the midst of reaching for a pen to scribble down a newly conjured idea that I never voice, I knock over my cactus plant—which then seems to start a domino chain reaction through all of the little figurines sitting on my desk.

Down goes Darth Vader, then R2-D2, then the Mandalorian, and the rest is history. I sigh quietly to myself as a few fall off of my desk, hitting the floor with a plastic-sounding crash which seems to echo tauntingly in the profound silence. A few co-workers glance over the half-walls to inspect the sound, I just give shy, tight lipped smiles along with an apologetic wave.

I resist the urge to screw my nose up; yeah, I have little toys on my desk instead of family photos like all you happy, partner-loving bastards—and what?

I gather the ones that fell and reorganise them on my desk before quickly getting back to work—we work in a very high demand environment, therefore require all hands on deck, all of the time.

And yeah, maybe I am a little odd—I don't have a girlfriend, or any kids. The last girlfriend I had was in high school and I'm pretty sure it was a dare anyway, so I don't count it. Sure, there's been eligible bachelorettes, but I don't float their boat the same way they float mine.

But of course, there's you. We work for the same journalism industry—I see you during meetings, and floating around the office, sometimes I occasionally bump into you in the printing room. You write up and design the editorial page to capture attention to the newspaper itself, your job is simply to give snippets of what the daily newspaper contains, and make the story previews more over-exaggerated than they are. You do a damn good job of it too, I reckon you're the only reason we still get physical copy sales—sure, you can read it online now, but there's nothing better than the actual rough copy with the inky feeling in your hands.

I like you—you have a real talent for what you do. There's really not much room for mistakes in our line of work and you never seem to make any, it amazes me. There's never typos or grammar mistakes in your work, you're so thorough, it's admirable. You can also make even the dullest stories worthwhile.

I make those basic mistakes and I passed my GCSE's with the highest marks possible—I was a bit of a nerd back then, and even now I still am. I'm quiet, I keep to myself. I have ideas for miles but never speak up in meetings, in the smoko room at lunch break, it's always bustling; I mean we work in current events, there's always something to talk about, a topic that always seems to make an appearance is updates on the Cynthia Linden case, it's been the talk of our small town for the past three years. But I never join in, I'm shy—introverted—if I try to speak I'd probably just word vomit. But I'm good at what I do and if it means going the day without speaking to anyone, just keeping my head down and go, go, go, then that's a life I'm willing to live.

I type up the last few sentences of my sector—the obituary page and send it forth to the printer. Most colleagues are headed home now, seems they've finished their pages for the day. I usually stay for overtime—not that there's much to do once the copies are finalised and ready for publication, but it saves me from heading home to my quiet townhouse—alone in my cold and unoccupied sheets, eating my depressing meals for one and drowning in a stack of my own thoughts. Besides, you often stay far past sunset as well, so I'm not alone.

I shuffle over to the printer room, only to find my pages haven't printed—no ink. I curse under my breath but you're already hovering behind me with a new ink cartridge as if you could read my thoughts.

"You're an angel," I speak lowly, plucking the ink from your hand to insert it into the printer, tossing the old one into the mesh trash can. I try to ignore the way you're able to send sparks through my body from just your touch alone.