Janine hated Thursdays. It was the day of the week that her boss began to panic about their department not accomplishing their checklist of goals for the week.

Nevermind that they had never completed everything for the week; not to mention that no other department in the company had either. Yet somehow, her boss liked to pretend that it actually mattered for them.

So, sometime around 10 am on Thursday morning, an unplanned emergency meeting would be called (Janine put it on her online calendar in advance) where her boss would breathlessly ask for updates and progress reports, cajoling them to make better progress.

And every Thursday for lunch Janine made her way to the “artistic” concrete slabs in front of the building, sat on one, and ate her tuna fish sandwich. But today was different.

As she ate and watched her shadow slowly lengthening on the concrete in the blistering afternoon sun, she saw her shadow calmly scratch its nose.

The only problem was that Janine hadn’t. And there was no one behind her.