feeling listless

Life I never say a permanent goodbye to people. Anyone who's aware of A Dance To The Music Of Time will know why. It's because you'll always bump into people again and sometimes in the strangest of places. This helps me to cope with the kind of emotions I experienced today, my first day back at work. Much of the day had slipped by as I'd expected. Then I turned to a colleague and asked, jokingly whether anyone had been fired in my absense.
'Oh -- Liz has left...' He says. For him this was old news. For me it was a breaking story.
I liked Liz. We hardly ever said much of anything to each other most of the time, but she always had a glint in her eye -- she's destined for something special. I used to pass my morning paper on to her every day so she could check the job ads.
My first thought was about that paper and where it would go now. But then I remembered she hadn't gone. For now perhaps, but not from my life as whole. I know that in about five years I'll be standing on a street corner in New York and she'll pass me by on her way to a bio-mechanics conference. I know this because it's happened so many times before...