Smile

 

“Why? Which way did you take?”

He asked feigning interest. He was good at that.

“Well it depends on the time of day.”

Dorothy was a small, strange woman. Her bowl cut graying hair and long bangs obstructing part of her vision only served to highlight her unusual choice in clothing; long, floral, dark colored dresses that extended past her knees, but not enough to cover her lightly torn leggings and her red and violently purple corrective heels.

He hadn’t thought about it before, but now that he did, he didn’t know they even made corrective heels. It was hard to place her in time and space. She could have been 45 or 75 years old, her choice of clothing certainly looked like it was from a time in which women were not allowed to look men in the eyes when spoken to.

Sometimes he liked to imagine that she was a witch in a sitcom who was kicked out of her magical world and was just learning how to behave like a normal human being, except she was constantly failing at it; a flat-footed Lucille Ball with none of the humor or personality.

“Mornings are usually the worst so I avoid the highway and take some backroads through to Andrews, at that point I like to…”

She looked around the counter, finally locating the creamer after a few seconds. Her faint, cordial smile widened as she generously poured the creamy, off-white liquid into the steaming cup. It looked like cum.

“.. go around through 2nd, because traffic is always bad on third avenue.”

He had stopped paying attention long before she began her rambling. He’d heard it all before, not from her, not the same combination of words, not even about the same topic, but he’d heard it, he’d heard it way too many times.

“But traffic is crazy at that time anyways…”

She continued

“…that’s why I like to get here real early which is a shame because I always end up leaving late. I’m not one of those who leaves work at 4:58 you know”

Dorothy let out an uncomfortably joyful giggle.

He looked up with a practiced smile, one he’d perfected. Years of lying to himself had taken a toll on his mental health, but practice makes perfect and goddammit he had that smile down.

“Well, I’m taking notes!”

A half-hearted chortled escaped the back of his throat as he made his way out of the cafeteria.

The pleasantries of the monotonous “water cooler” conversations were beginning to grind him down like everything else. Every “Happy Friday!” and “Ugh, feels like a Monday!” felt like water droplets of a never-ending rain, slowly forming puddles, puddles forming creeks, creeks forming rivers, rivers that carved through earth and stone, eroding whatever sanity he had left.

Often he’d find himself looking passed whoever he had been talking to, his eyes wondering to that great big window. One of the perks of working in an 18^th floor was the view. Probably the only true perk of working in an office building really. It helped on the bad days; and lately there seemed to be a lot of those.

It was more than just the view. It was the landscape and what it meant. It meant he was small, one of billions, insignificant in his struggle, and that made it easier to bare…either that or the fantasy of throwing himself onto that window and crashing through it, plunging to his certain and inescapable death while everyone who was enjoying their quiches and warmed up left overs looked on, horror filling their faces. Those looks of terror in his daydreams put a smile on his face.

“Does that make me a sociopath?”

He thought to himself. Looking around and making sure he hadn’t spoken the words out loud. He hadn’t.

He approached his desk, greeted the women who shared the cubicles that surrounded him. Their faces showed genuine joy to see him. There seemed to be a lot of that. It was almost as if people enjoyed being around him more than he enjoyed being around himself.

He booted up his computer and began to type his life away. Every subsequent second lasting just a little bit longer than the previous one.

There, alone in his chair, he thought about his life. He thought about all the choices that had gotten him to this point. He asked himself why he was even still here, what sort of joy and meaning he derived from sitting in this cubicle surrounded by people he didn’t like, hearing the same stories, having the same conversations. He was alone, in his personal purgatory.

“Hey! Look at you! Pink shirt today huh? Must be very secure in your masculinity”

Harold was a stout, loud man. His voice and demeanor more imposing than his stature. You know the type, never the best looking, never the most athletic, never the most liked so he had to force himself to develop a personality, the artificial nature of it was painfully evident. Just a thin veneer of civility keeping everyone from whatever brooding demons he carried within him.

Everyone laughed. They had to. He wasn’t the boss but he was a boss that meant that they needed to humor him. He didn’t resent it, he knew the game and played it too.

“You know it sir! You’re just jealous you can’t pull it off as well as I do”

More laughter and a wink from Harold as he walked away. He had a tendency of doing that, it was creepy at first but after a while it just became part of what Harold was. He didn’t know why but he was convinced that Harold was a sexual offender, maybe he just looked the part, maybe it was the way that he always sucked on the tip of his fingers after eating something with his hands, whatever it was, this guy was a shoe in for being the bad guy in an episode of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.

He looked down and began to type again, pretending to care.

He checked his watch as his stomach began to grumble, hunger signaled lunch time and he felt excited about the prospect of the left-overs he brought with him. The excitement soon turned into resentment and then self-loathing. But he was still hungry, so it was time to go.

He pulled back his rolling chair, informing the husks of what were once people in his immediate vicinity that he was heading to lunch. He grabbed his wallet and phone, put his earbuds on and looked for something entertaining to listen to, something that wasn’t the nonsensical jabber of the soul-sucking cafeteria conversations.

He made the mistake was opening the doors after hearing the singing.

“Happy Birthday to you!..”

Everyone gathered around Evelyn with smiles and laughs that looked eerily similar to ones he’d been working on for the better part of a decade.

“Fuck me”

He thought to himself.

“So much for a quiet lunch.”

Such a small thing to be taken away from him. Then why did it feel so big?

The singing continued as he tried to keep his head buried down into his phone hoping he wouldn’t get noticed. Intellectually he understood it was the same logic of a child covering his eyes and pretending no one could see them, but it was the best he could do to keep away from human interaction.

Then he stopped and looked up at the window. It seemed to be taunting him.

He looked down at his hands and he could almost see past the thin layer of skin covering the wires and circuitry.

He felt them beginning to surround him, asking him to sing.

He reached over and grabbed the nearest object; a stainless steel toaster. There was something inside, it was toasting something. It was hot and it burned but it didn’t matter, this wasn’t going to last long.

He pulled the toaster from the wall and flung it at the window causing the glass to shatter. Wind immediately rushed through, filling the room and almost drowning out the sounds of shock and screams, almost.

The pleads to step away began to sound like encouragement as he stepped onto the ledge, he felt people grab on to him as he leaned forward to see below. The distance to the ground seemed so small now.

He slowly turned to the crowd of stunned faces, returning a smile.

For the first time in ten years, it felt real.