It wasn't as if this was new to him, people looking through him as if he
wasn't even there. The giggles he would hear coming from the young secretaries
when they did happen to notice him. Sneers on the faces of the jocks, as he
called them, and sometimes those very same men would punch and kick him when
they knew no one would be looking. A typical day would involve Sam burying his
head in paperwork or staring intently at his computer when he was at his desk,
or hurrying through the corridors at work, eyes downcast, feet moving at great
speed to get to where he needed to be.
Even at the lifts, nobody would ever hold the door open for him. No, he was
much more inclined to see the doors slide shut as he hurried towards them, the
occupant/s of the lift usually looking away, as if not wanting to see the defeatist
look on his face as he tried, yet again unsuccessfully, to reach the lift in
time.
This was a typical day in the life of a man who was tired, so very tired, of
being misunderstood.
After the incident, nobody could quite say what was the snapping point? What
was the ‘stressor’, if you happened to be listening to the FBI or ‘the straw
that broke the camels back’, if it was the interview with his mother you were
listening to. A lot of people had a lot of ideas, but nobody knew for sure.
Only Sam knew and Sam wasn't saying.
The morning before it all happened started out like any other. Getting to
work earlier than normal, Sam went to his desk and put down his bag. He was
immediately concerned when he noticed that the pile of papers he had left on
his desk had been moved. Furthermore, the hand-outs he had done, ready for the
meeting at 9am this morning, were missing. After spending a few minutes going
through ever single pile of paper on his desk, Sam realised that they were
gone. Where the hand-outs had ended up, he could only guess, and he wondered if
perhaps David had his hand in this, as David had been hanging around close to
his desk yesterday evening when Sam had finally finished putting them all together. No
matter, he thought, there were two things in his favour today. One - he was
early in the office and two, the documents were all saved on his hard
drive.
And so, Sam went about making another eight copies, printing and stapling
them and had just finished the last one, when his co-workers started making
their way into the office.
Sam peered up and looked at the clock on the wall. Ten minutes to nine it
read. Desperate for a cup of coffee but not wanting to be caught out again, Sam
put the newly printed hand-outs into his top desk drawer and made his way to the
kitchen. Gretchen, his boss’s secretary was stood gossiping with Penny, the
biggest gossip in the typing pool. When he came closer they both glanced up and
looked at him. Gretchen rolled her eyes and Penny giggled, but neither one said
a word while he hunted for his coffee mug. Sam felt his face begin to go red as
he searched and searched, his coffee mug nowhere to be found. What made it worse
was that neither Gretchen nor Penny spoke a word while he searched, but rather,
just stared at him, irritation on their faces, as if they couldn't wait for him
to get lost so they could continue talking, talking about him probably, he
thought.
"You lost something loser boy?"
Sam peered out from behind the cupboard he was currently searching and saw David
standing by the kitchen door, looking down at him.
"Erm, my coffee mug, I cannot find it."
"I am sure I saw the cleaner throw it out yesterday. She said something
about it being the most disgusting mug she had ever seen" David replied,
sneering and both Gretchen and Penny giggled.
Sam stood up. He knew at that moment that his coffee mug had probably been
thrown out, but doubted very much it was the cleaner.
"Oh, OK, very well" he muttered and looked down at the
floor.
"And don't even think about laying your prissy hands on any of my
mugs" David said, moving towards Sam, the size of him enough to threaten,
if not the fact that his body language was screaming that he would hit Sam at
any minute.
Sam sidestepped David and made a hasty retreat out of the kitchen, but not
quick enough so as not to hear all three of them laughing as he left. He
pondered with the idea of going outside and getting a coffee from 'Cafe Nero' -
a coffee shop just around the corner, but glancing at the clock again, realised
that the meeting would begin in 2 minutes and that he had run out of
time.
It wasn't unusual for Sam's boss to ask him to make coffee and tea for
attendees of his meetings. Sam wondered why he didn't ask Gretchen, his
secretary to do this, but normally, he would wave Sam over and instruct him to
make a certain amount of cups of tea, and/or a certain amount of cups of coffee. Having made 5 cups of
tea, 3 cups of coffee and having run downstairs and ordered a dozen croissants
from a nearby bakery and depositing these on the table in the boardroom, Sam
finally found himself back at his desk and opened up his email.
'Loser' was the title of an email in his inbox, sent at 5.43pm last
night. Clicking it, Sam noticed the email body was empty, but there was
an attachment with it. He double clicked this and finally saw what had
happened to his hand-outs from the previous day. In the picture was a set
of hands holding his print-outs. Sam was pretty sure it was Derek's hands
- A guy who was so huge he appeared to be on steroids - that sat at the desk
next to his, but Sam couldn't be sure. The person who was holding the print-outs
was in the process of feeding them through the shredding machine. Sam
looked over at the shredder and indeed, lying in the paper receptacle was his
print-outs, shredded into a million coloured strips.
The sender of the email was 'Youre_a_loser@mail.com' but Sam knew that there
was no point in reporting this. The guys at IT treated him just as bad,
if not worse than most of his co-workers. He sighed, deleted the email and
moved onto the next one, so beginning his work day.
By lunch time, Sam had got through a significant amount of work and decided
to take the book he was currently reading with him to the coffee shop around
the corner. He didn’t enjoy reading or
eating at his desk, mostly because people would talk too loud, or tease him about the
book he was reading or make fun of the sandwich his mom had prepared for him.
At least at the coffee shop, he was almost guaranteed to get a good hour of
relative peace while he read. He bent down to retrieve his book from his
satchel but found his bag was missing. He heard a few titters around
him. People who had obviously been waiting all morning for him to
discover the theft and felt the heat rush to his face as he blushed. He
looked to the left and the right of his desk. Gone.
His wallet was in the bag, his library card, and the keys to his home. He
felt the edge of panic and looked around the office; unable to help the look of
pleading he was sure was all over his face.
"What you looking for Sam?" Gretchen asked, looking up from her
computer, a mock look of concern on her face.
"My bag, it’s gone!"
"Bags are for girls, Gay boy" Derek retorted getting up from his
desk and grabbing his coat.
"I'm sure I heard David say that he saw a bag in the men's room
earlier." Sarah volunteered from the other side of the office without
looking up from her computer, a trace of a smile on her face.
He knew it was a trap. Of course it was a trap. But there was
nothing that Sam could do. He desperately wanted to get it back, to know
that he had all his things back again, to get his book and to escape from this
wretched place and so, with trepidation, made his way to the men's room, the
sound of sniggering and soft voices trailing behind him.
As always, the smell of stale urine assaulted his senses as the 'Men's Room'
door swung closed behind him. There, in the urinal, soaked through with
what was obviously pee, lay his satchel. David, Greg from the IT
department and Derek were standing at the basin washing their hands.
"Is that your girlie bag lying in the piss?' asked David looking at Sam
through the reflection in the mirror.
Sam moved forward to retrieve it, his nose screwing up at the smell, disgust
washing over him as he touched it and felt it was soaking wet.
"If you want to be a man, you should get yourself a briefcase and stop
with the girlie bags, gay boy' Derek said, smoothing his almost-there moustache
and grinning at his own reflection in the mirror.
"Look, please leave me alone. I don't do anything to bother
you." Sam said, feeling disgust at himself as he heard the pleading in his
own voice.
Greg, moving quickly, was suddenly stood in front of him, blocking his escape
route from the men's room.
"Are you going to take that ladies bag, all covered in piss with you?"
Greg questioned him, the look of revulsion clear on his face.
"Please..." Sam heard himself beg
"You are a sick, messed up loser" Greg replied and pushed him
hard.
Sam fell backwards, his back hitting the white tiled wall, but his feet
slipped out from under him and he fell with a thud, landing in the urinal, the
back of his pants immediately soaking through with piss and water.
David and Derek both laughed at him and shook their heads. Greg, as if
enraged even further by this, kicked Sam's satchel, sending it flying across
the room, into one of the toilet stalls.
"You piece of shit, you make me sick" He snarled, the look of
loathing all over his face.
"Chill Greg, he isn’t worth it." Said David, still grinning and he
held the door open, waiting for Greg to follow him and Derek out of the restroom.
Mortified, Sam got up and retrieved his bag. His body was shaking - From
fear? From anger? - He thought it was probably both. The seat of his
pants was wet through, the legs of his trousers wet in places and his satchel
reeked of urine. He opened the bag and dug inside and found his book too
was soaked through. Everything inside was wet and stank. He felt
tears prick his eyes. He couldn't go back into the office now? Wet and
smelling like this? He couldn't go to the coffee shop either, not now
that his book was virtually unreadable. They had taken everything away
from him. His print-outs, his coffee mug, his bag, his book, but most
importantly, now his pride. Sam would put up with it no more.
Lifting his satchel up and throwing it over his shoulder, Sam wiped the one
tear that had managed to escape and was making its way down his cheek. He
stood up and squared his shoulders and with all the determination he could
muster, Sam headed out the door and headed for the lift.
People waved their hands in front of their noses and some made gagging
noises as he walked past, but he no longer noticed. Gretchen, on seeing
Sam as he hurried past her, noticed he was wet from the waist down, wondered if
he had pee'ed himself and for the first time, felt a small sense of disgust
when she looked over at Derek and David, seeing them grinning and realised what
had happened. She shook her head softly from side to side but continued
typing.
The doors to the lift were closing as he neared the lift, but this time, Sam
stuck his hand in the way and doors opened again. He stepped inside and
not a sound was uttered by any of the 4 occupants as they travelled the 12
floors down. Even if someone had said something, it's doubtful that Sam would
have heard, the buzzing in his ears was too loud, the anger too acute.
Sam didn't stop at Cafe Nero's that lunch time. No, for the first time since
he had started working in the city, Sam hailed a cab and gave the driver the
address to his home. He took no notice of the questioning look on the
taxi driver’s face, nor did he notice when the driver rolled down his window to
allow fresh air in the cab. When the taxi cab pulled to a stop outside
the home that Sam shared with his mother, he asked the cab driver to wait and
without waiting for a reply, or paying the driver, Sam fished in his bag for
his key and entered his home.
Throwing his satchel to the ground and pulling his wet pants off, Sam threw
them into the corner of the room. Next, Sam removed his underpants and his
shirt. He walked over to the washing basket and dug out his old sweatpants
and a t-shirt. Then, replacing his office shoes with loafers, he dug out a
clean, dry bag from his cupboard. Finally, Sam headed over to his
grandfathers safe. Long dead now, the safe was where his mother kept her
father's things. His papers, the deed to the property they lived in, a few
sentimental items and his gun with a few boxes of bullets. Sam packed the
gun and all the bullets into the bag, swung it over his shoulder and headed out
the door, back to the waiting taxi.
The taxi driver smiled to himself, pleased that his fare had bothered to
change out of those reeking clothes and wasn't surprised when his passenger
told him to head back to the office block he had picked him up from not 15
minutes earlier.
********
Standing,
outside the building, Gretchen was almost hysterical with not
knowing what was going on. There must have
been 15 police cars and at least 4 ambulances all converged outside her
office building
and she was surrounded with weeping and bleeding people. She didn’t
spot a single one of her
co-workers and the news that was filtering through to her wasn’t good. A
gunman, someone said they thought his name was Sam, had apparently gone
into the
building and began shooting everyone.
“I need to get inside, please!” she begged the tenth police officer that ran
past her, but like all the others, this one only shook his head. “I’m terribly
sorry ma’am, nobody is going in and only the injured and the dead are being brought out at
this time.”
Somewhere deep inside of her, realisation finally hit and Gretchen fell down
to the ground on her knees, screaming out in anguish, tearing at her hair and thanking
God that she had left the office to run the errand that her boss had given her. She screamed and screamed, and even though
there was no blood on her, paramedics ran over to her and swiftly loaded her
into a waiting ambulance and sped away with the hysterical woman.
By Bernadette Davies
I have once again stayed up consumed with the dread of
facing another day. I watched television trying to distract/numb the fear. I
craved the further escape of a book and climbed into bed approaching midnight.
Despite feeling exhausted I continued reading. One o’clock came, two o’clock
came, three o’clock too. Still I couldn’t give in to sleep. For reasons I will
never understand the dark masks failure. It feels less concrete, less solid.
The rising sun and what seems like endless daylight exposes the loser I have
become. But back to the book. Its title amusingly enough is ‘Before I go to
Sleep’. The protagonist has amnesia and perpetually arises to another day not
remembering the past 20 years. As the story unfolds you discover she was a
victim of a brutal attack and I quickly become engrossed. I long to forget my
memories, to have my brain wiped clean of links to my past, happy and sad. And
by the time I turn the last page I feel horrendous. My skin is putrid, my lungs
burn, my head is filled with furry static. I turn out the lights fearing
tomorrow, hoping I can sleep the day away. And then for whatever reason a
glimpse of hope, the first in 6 months. I think to myself I can volunteer with
an organisation until I resume my studies. The gremlin creeps up, the bad idea
wolf growls “what organisation would possibly want you, you can’t do it, you
don’t care anymore. Animal-lovin Trish is long gone”. And then a glimpse of a
fox I saw crossing the street last night. My curtains were ajar for the first
time. I was quickly checking my emails when the distant figure caught my eye.
And somehow, someway I almost smiled. The corner of my lips slightly curved
upwards. It could so easily have been missed but I felt the warmth somewhere
deep inside. This was the first time since descending into darkness that I
allowed an animal to bring me any joy. So I lay there thinking of that shadowed
figure and I said “FUCK YOU, YOU WOLFY GREMLIN”. I am going to try. I want to
try. Trying doesn’t seem so scary. But first I need to sleep. Shit, more wolfy
gremlin. Let’s call him Mortimer. So Mortimer says “you are going to feel like
fucking death warmed up tomorrow. Your skin is going to repulse you; you will
want a smoke more than Pooh wants honey. You’ll be fat and fatigued, sickly and
sore”. And I replied “YUP. BUT dearest Mortimer, you’re forgetting something.
Trish is running this show. You are right, I will feel like death warmed up, my
skin will repulse me and I will want me some honey. I’ll be pudgy and pathetic,
ill and irritable but damn it I’ll have this. This mere moment way too late
near the end of March when broken down and completely destitute I felt like me”.
Clarity is mine and if I have to scramble deliriously to record this moment
then that is exactly what I’ll do. So I am going to explore my options, contact
my professor and allow myself some hope. Not only will I throw myself this bone
but I will not stamp an expiration date on it. I have until September. Three
months of experience would be stupendous. Living the rest of my life with joy,
strength and humility means more. If I manage to sleep now I am going to miss a
lot of tomorrow. But I hope that when I wake I will have the strength to walk
with my Mom after eating a very late breakfast, finish that bastard sky in the
missing one motherfucking piece puzzle, take Capone for an early evening stroll
with my amazing fiancé and finish it all off with a new movie. Will I struggle
with my appearance, absolutely! But I have
caught a glimpse of Trish and though it seems an eternity I looked straight at
that exhausted reflection and declared I WILL GET THROUGH THIS!!!!!!!!! Now I
realise this first fleeting moment of catharsis will not cure my ailments but
it’s a fucking start. Mortimer has held an iron grip for many months, for many
years and today I think maybe just maybe I’m tough enough to beat this son of a
bitch. It’s time to start walking down another street. OR possibly even drive
but we’ll save that for another time. 
