Tom walked into the cafeteria and was immediately struck by the level of noise. Conversations that normally would have been easily contained within the sonic space around the small formica tables spilled out today and washed out over the floor, sometimes merely interfering with each other out but most often reinforcing each other like sine waves, each table's noise upping the volume at its neighboring tables.
Tom could almost feel the eyes following him, almost hear the people thinking, "Hey, Tom is pretty close to Bill...he probably knows what's really going on," almost bring himself to give a shit about any of it, about all of it. So Bill finally got wise and figured out that there were better things to do with his life than work his life away in some little office, good for him. Tom couldn't help but start to laugh silently, covering his mouth with his hand to hide what he felt was surely a fairly manic smile.
"Hey, Tom, how's it going today?", Tom heard from behind and to his left, and he turned to see Victor with that smug half-smile that he couldn't seem to keep off his face. Of course; Victor was one of the most likely people to move up a rung if Bill had left permanently-he obviously wasn't going to be able to keep from trying to get the inside story from Tom.
"Hey Victor, pretty good...hey, did you hear about Bill?", said with a guileless look of concern.
"No...I mean, yeah, but nothing specific...is he just taking a sick day, finally?" Victor mirrored his facial expression, even managing to keep the smirk mostly under control for a moment.
"No, he's not just sick...I think that his boss came and took his stapler, and, well...everyone has their limits, you know?", said with the unshakeable conviction that the reference would go completely unnoticed.
"Whoa...he didn't quit or anything, did he?"
"Actually, I think I saw a letter or note from him on his desk when I poked my head in there this morning...maybe that would shed some light on things, I didn't read it myself." If it had been anyone but Victor, Tom probably wouldn't have gone this extra step, but he was curious as well, and not just about whether there was any note from Bill on the desk.
Victor immediately took his leave and headed for the elevators. Statements that the police gathered from people in the area later varied wildly, but the thing that no one disagreed on, and that no one could forget, was the chilling note in Victor's voice as he stood over the desk in Bill's office, talking loudly to seemingly no one at first and then screaming, begging really, his voice seeming to be completely separate from his body which stood completely unmoving, leaning over the desk propped on its hands, the voice urgent and panicked but not intelligible even to people who had been passing the very doorway to the office.
Victor's right hand was found to be clutching a note in Bill's handwriting that said, simply, "Do not disturb anything; I'll deal with it when I get back." It had been the only thing found in the office, oddly; the file cabinets that Bill had kept in such perfect order were now completely empty, the desk as well, wiped clean even of fingerprints, except for those that Victor had left in his final visit. The facilities coordinator felt it best to respect the sentiments expressed in the note, however; the office was never reassigned, and the door eventually sheetrocked over.
No comments:
Post a Comment