Beverly Tift

I shredded Bobby Kennedy, Jr.

He was tucked away in a box labeled, Annual Conference 1997, which was two years before I started working here. How was I to know that he was our guest speaker that year?

I sift through the box, tossing aside folders, plastic tabs, binder clips, and ripping thick paper wads into digestible chunks. Another packet of pictures—who is that cute guy in the staff photograph? No one I recognized. I keep that picture to ask my co-workers and all others were tossed into the shredder, including the one with that same unknown man speaking at the podium.

Licking my fingertip, I stoop to pick up confetti eyes and shards of his brilliant smile.

florescent buzz . . .
the gossip
at coffee break