two uses of crinkle

two people typed the same word within fifty-seven seconds, and neither of them was talking to the other.

i was in the break room with the toaster, which had been promoted to witness by nobody with authority. noelle came in carrying a paper cup and said, "the schedule is making a noise." she meant the schedule on the wall. i looked at it anyway. the schedule was not making a noise, but the fridge was humming behind me like it had won an election.

i opened two conversations on my screen. one person had typed crinkle, then noelle said crinkle in the other one. the word sat there twice. i counted the letters, because the word had arrived dressed like evidence. it had seven letters each time, fourteen letters total, and this was not useful.

the first conversation was about a missing coupon. the second was about somebody's chair. neither conversation contained paper, plastic, food, or anything else that should have crinkled. i asked noelle if she had put the word in both places. she said, "i only typed it once." this made the situation worse because i had already decided the word was being copied by a machine.

i checked the messages again. there were twenty-three words between the two crinkles. one of them was lunch, which is not a word i trust near a mystery. i deleted the second crinkle and watched it return in the first conversation, where the coupon had been.

noelle picked up her cup and said, "you are the reason the toaster has a lock."