Dana looked at her watch. 8pm. She looked the around the office. Empty. She heaved a sigh as she rubbed her temples. It had been a long day at work. She arrived at work at 8am, and hadn’t had a rest since. She had to attend to the requests from other departments, mainly marketing, to provide some documentation to the customers. Then there was this technical issue one of the customers’ facing in which she had to investigate the root cause of the failure. She went through and forth between the lab and her workstation, testing the failed devices and compiling data. She had lunch in between, but after sitting in the cafeteria for only ten minutes, she received a phone call from her superior asking her to perform some other measurements. She hung up, walked towards the conveyor to place her tray and went back to work immediately. There she was for the rest of the day, taking a short two to three minutes break for several times in between to ease her eyes after staring at the screen for hours, e-mailing and compiling data.

Now that most of the people had already went home, and Dana had completed all her task for the day, finally she shut down her laptop and closed the lid, ready to head back to her condo. On her way out from the building, there were only a few lights illuminated along the corridor. It was what she had gotten used at for years. She said goodbye to the security at the lobby and walked towards her car. Another day has passed; she thought and smiled to herself.

After her long shower Dana slumped onto her couch staring into space. She looked around her condo; there was only one word to describe. Loneliness. Most of the time she dreaded going back to her condo because there was nothing she looked forward to. No greetings, no hug and kisses, the place was just simply quiet. Sometimes Dana wondered how it felt by yelling ‘Baby I’m home ’after she opened her front door and then came the response ‘Go freshen up hun, dinner will be ready soon’.  Then she would walked into the kitchen snaking her arms around her lover kissing her neck and feel the warmth of her body after a hard day work. Dana always smiled at her imagination and hoped that one day it would become reality. Not that she did not enjoy being single but now that she was already in her thirties she thought it was time for her to really think about a serious relationship. And not because she didn’t have friends, she had a lot but all her friends were either already married or involved in a relationship. It was hard to ask them out regularly for a cup of coffee like the good old days because most probably they had plan with their partners already. Dana had dated a few times before, but none of it lasted. The last one was two years ago. She broke it off because she didn’t feel the connection. They were just not the kind of lover she always dreamed of.  Not that she had a high expectation on them no; she just wanted someone who made her heart skipped a beat whenever they locked eyes and someone who made her looked forward to go home everyday. It was that simple. But that kind of person seems to be in extinction nowadays.