It feels weird to say it, but’s it’s been almost a month now. Almost a month since I started my new job. My first “real,” “9-to-5,” “hard day’s night,” job. It’s been fun and scary and an adventure. Now that I’m a little more comfortable I find my mind sometimes . . . . drifting. Listening to the electronic operators asking me to leave a message, trying to figure out if “Lewis-Kent” goes after or with “Lewis,” standing in front of the fax. . . . .

Ah, the Fax and I.

I knew from the first time I heard his beep of greeting that we were destined to rankle each other’s souls. I’ll admit I was intrigued, I had never met someone like him before. I didn’t know what he was like. I thought he would help me connect with other people. But soon after I heard his dialing tone, like an electronic goose clearing his throat after swallowing bagpipes, I began to suspect otherwise. Soon the very mention of his name caused me to roll my inner eye. We differed on practically everything, bickered in a manner barely professional, and even grew to argue outright.

Through this process I could hardly help but get to know him, that Fax machine. I learned what buttons it was safe to press and which I should just let be. Suddenly, I found myself holding my breath when I heard him preparing a response for me, the sound of him printing seemed breath enough. The world seemed set on giving me excuses to visit him, and when he helped me get through, when we communicated together – I’ve never known such a beautiful sense of satisfaction. His simplest, most routine OK could make my heart soar. I began to notice a new tone in his messages. They seemed at times like a warm blanket to my sometimes weary soul. I  discovered – quite by accident, and yet inevitably, considering how often we were together – that he had a warm side. Hidden, but strong.

Though we still disagree, still end most of our meetings with him clamming up stubbornly and I stomping away to my desk, we can no longer pretend we hate each other. I can no longer pretend. He is no longer “That Fax” in my mind. Perhaps he isn’t “my Fax” yet, maybe he never will be. Fate seems to have other plans for us. And yet, we now belong, in a strange and crazy way, to each other.

I and the Fax.

The Fax and I.