The words on her computer screen are no more legible than zebra stripes, and she blames the online news article she can’t unread. Grocery Greg Tells Good Samaritan, “Go Back to Africa”. The title lured her like a ten-car pileup, made her stop working and rubberneck. She studies a muted video clip of the incident for too long. The Good Samaritan was born in Detroit, like her. An affable Black man with Groucho Marx brows and Will Smith ears. He looks like he could be her son.

She can’t sit still. Nor can she move. Her chair is a shrinking cage she must escape—but to where? Back to Africa, she thinks and her bitter laughter echoes around the office. Coworkers pop out of their cubicles like eager prairie dogs, and one of them shouts, “Whatever you’ve got, please share!” Without a word, she flees to the bathroom.

 What is wrong with her? She stares dumbfounded at her reflection, then paces. Splashes water on her face, then paces. Her Blackness earns daily micro-aggressions, so many injuries she sometimes needs to shove herself into anger, into a place where rebuking those wrongs is worthwhile. It makes no sense, how threatened and undone she feels now. If the Good Samaritan had been her brother or murdered, she would not suffer greater sadness or indignation. Her connection to that man is as distant as her African heritage, a watery thread to an ancient ancestor whose real name and birth country she will never know. Yet, a short, thick rope ties her to the Detroit man. The rope is a dizzying chokehold.

She slips outside and walks behind her office building, where she expects to be alone. Instead she stumbles into the smokers’ sanctuary. In an odd coincidence, all six smokers have icy blue eyes. Or perhaps she is the oddity. She is one of only three Blacks scattered across the corporation. But she is Black, not African. The smokers frown and huddle into a chimney, maybe out of self-consciousness, maybe against her invasion. She should smile—kindness begets kindness. But the Detroit man was smiling before Grocery Greg screamed at him. How many of those smokers are Grocery Gregs?

She retreats across the parking lot, sinks onto a concrete block, and stretches the suffocating collar of her turtleneck. Perhaps she will go home sick. Her sense of defeat is sickening. She doesn’t register her coworker until his shadow blocks the sun.

“Needed a break?” He is Finance’s Black unicorn. His name eludes her. They have never worked together, but often exchange passing hellos.

She nods and he sits. They say nothing more, but his company makes her feel less endangered. Together, they belong. She watches the smokers watch them, until their faces lose distinction, until the tightness around her throat recedes, and she resettles into bearable numbness.

THE END