NOTICE

None of us knew what it was referring to, which of course led to speculation. We sat in the staff room, on the old sofa, on the cheap plastic chairs, coffees and teas going cold in our hands as we discussed it. Old rumours and half-jokes evolved into potential motivations. Perhaps one of us was more aggrieved than the rest had ever realised. Why didn’t they speak up now, we wondered. Just say something, no need for this. The opacity of its wording didn’t help. It could have been about anything, or nothing, although it was clearly about something. The only certainty was the tone: polite, but curt. Formal. That special kind of hostility that maintained its deniability and was therefore all the more hostile for it. We began to worry, gradually, like the winding of a spring. Was one of us not here, and could it have been them? But no, we were all present. We each sat there, anxious, mulling it over, combing through past slights and faux pas we each feared we might have committed. What was it that had come back to haunt us, exactly? When, finally, we got up from our chairs and headed out, back to work, it hung over the rest of them like an awful cloud. You could see it. I was glad.