Shut Up Nigel

If the nagging doubt in one's mind were a persona, then it's name would be Nigel... This is a companion piece to my other Nigel story - Nigel Doesn't Like You.

I was late for work the second time that week.

Rushing through the well lit corridors of the office building in which I worked, I  felt sweaty and clammy, in a panicked and heavily agitated state. Hardly surprising, this had been my permanent state for weeks now.

He couldn’t run. I was in a rush now I was moving quickly, he couldn’t move quickly, damn it he couldn’t move at all!

 

“Hi Sharon, I’m really sorry I’m late, public transport issues.” I  lied transparently, trying to pass it off with a sort of half giggle as I lingered in the doorway aching for semblance of normality to find its way back into my ever more bizarre world. There were only two of us in the office, just myself and Sharon Finnigen. She did one pointless job, I did another, but we seemed to get on.

“Oh it’s fine Gary, please don’t worry” Sharon’s words were reassuring to me, she meant them, she was pleasant, she was good and it didn’t hurt that she was gorgeous… Nigel leered over my shoulder absurdly.

His sleek featureless face without expression or definable attributes of any kind still seemed to find a way to sneer. His lipless face spoke into the back of my head  “S**t. Look at her. You think she’s so lovely don’t you? So kind and caring, so very nauseating and fake, enough to make me sick.”

 I didn’t agree obviously, but I couldn’t talk back, not without finding myself sectioned fairly fast.

 

I took to my work station, passing Sharon closely on the way, the smell of her perfume was like a pleasant moment of relief, almost of hope in some indescribable sense.

Glancing back despite myself I saw that Nigel remained precisely there, precisely where he always was.

Just at my shoulder inches away.

Seeing all that I see day upon day but forming his own opinions and whispering them in my ear.

 

I tried to bury myself in work, phone calls, filing, spreadsheets, anything to keep me from seeing him, from  hearing him, it was a hopeless endeavor.

“So did you have a good weekend Gary?”

As always Sharon was making pleasant conversation, trying to be nice.

“What is it to her what we were doing the weekend?” Nigel snorted “Who is she to ask anything of us?

She’s laughing at us Gary, she thinks we’re weird, she thinks we’re fools, she thinks you are a joke!”

“Gary?” Sharon was still waiting.

“Oh yeah it was, it was a good one thanks. Just caught up on Television and relaxed really. You?”

“Oh nothing…” Sharon smiled “Nothing and nowhere, I’m right boring me, simple pleasures in life, I just got some cooking in, got all my cleaning done and visited my parents. Boring eh?”

“Terribly” Nigel groaned “Not boring at all!” I quickly blurted out, hoping that I sounded the right side of homicidal, as in not homicidal at all but maybe just a bit louder than necessary.

Giving an honest and heartfelt smile, she returned to her work.

“Look at that…”  Nigel drawled “The sarcasm on that face of hers, she thinks that you’re pathetic..”

“No..”  I whispered, not as if I needed to shout and I hoped nobody would hear me.

“No?” Nigel echoed back at me? “You just don’t think do you?

You just don’t look at the bigger picture of things, the deeper meaning in people’s words…”

“What are you going on about?” I asked in a way I hope didn’t sound like pleading.

“You tell her that all you did the weekend was watch Television, an uneventful weekend…”

“Yes..” I chuckled in a rasp “Perhaps I should have told her that I spent the weekend arguing with an imaginary dummy that follows me around everywhere!!”

“I’m a mannequin not a dummy, you’re the dummy!”

“You are a figment of my addled imagination mate, that’s all you are.”

“No,  I assure you that I am quite real, anyway  had a point that I was getting to.”

I groaned deeply.

“You alright Gary?” Sharon chirped “Monday blues?”

“You could say that.” I replied, trying to give as normal a smile as I could.

“Stupid b***h” Nigel scowled “My point!”

“Yes….” I relented.

“She’s mocking you Gary.”

“Oh god…. What?” I replied with more than a note of incredulity.

“You tell her what a s**t weekend you had, she tells you that she also had nothing to do but she still managed to be oh so productive, cleaning, cooking, visiting relatives. In fact, all of the things you don’t do, but could have done had you had the mind to…” Nigel’s tone was harsh.

“Could have done, were I not a raving lunatic listening to the psychoanalysis of a bloody figment..” I said.

“Whatever, my point is this, she’s inferring that she’s better than you, she’s inferring you’re a loser, she’s inferring that you have nothing better to do and she does, ergo; better than you.”

I felt quite sick, I didn’t have a response, I didn’t have anything, I just felt sick and ever more alone.

 

The day wore on, the hours grew shorter and the work to do less.

We hadn’t spoken for some time, conversation had dried up and Nigel’s little attack had left me feeling insecure and vulnerable. I was scared to make conversation for fear of giving him more ammunition.

“So..” Sharon began, my blood ran cold, what would she say? What would he say about what she said?

“Any plans this evening?” she asked. She was smiling that smile again, the one that I always took for honesty, for purity, but that Nigel called sarcastic. “Bigger picture…” Nigel threw in my ear “Remember what I said..”

“Well as a matter of fact Sharon, I do have plans this evening.”

“Oh..” her face seemed to drop, I honestly wasn’t sure why, perhaps I'd “Spoiled your joke have we love?” Nigel laughed.

“Oh is that a surprise Sharon?” I asked. My voice seemed to have taken on a tone and a quality that I didn’t quite recognize as my own. But if she was mocking me it felt good and justified to stick it to her.

“I mean  I probably won’t be cooking or cleaning or running errands and what not’s!” I went on

“ But you know, different people amuse themselves in different ways, don’t you find?!”

“Yes.” Sharon seemed upset “I suppose they do.”

I felt instant guilt, I hadn’t meant to go off like that it was just " “Well done!” Nigel roared “That’s telling her!”

“Sorry Sharon.” I quickly said, but she was already getting up to leave, the working day had ended.

“I didn’t mean to be that way it’s just-

“It’s just fine.” She sounded cold, distant, the beaming smile had gone “I think I get the hint…”

She left the room quickly.

 

I stood there for some minutes actually, hint? What hint? I couldn’t understand what she meant.

“I was right you see…” Nigel whispered in my ear.

“You were… right?”

“Yeah, she realized that you realized she was taking the piss, she got the hint and now she’ll never mock you again.”

I considered this, it didn’t seem to have a fault in its logic, but I didn’t want it to be true. It hurt.

“But don’t you worry Gary my boy….” Nigel’s tone was warm, friendly, perhaps even comforting

“I’ll keep you safe from her and from all of the people like her and if she ever mocks my friend again?

Well, I’ll make her pay, you and me we’ll make her pay together.”

 

I walked home.

Glancing behind every now and again I saw Nigel’s plastic face dimly illuminated by the streetlamps above. He almost seemed to be smiling at me.

 

Once I was home I went to my room, I was alone, I lived alone, there was nobody to talk to, nobody who wanted to listen to me and my crazy problems. I looked up from my bed and there he stood. Nigel. Nigel would listen, he would talk if I wanted him to. He really was all I had and without him it seemed that I had literally nothing….

Nothing but Nigel....

 

Author's Note

Thanks a lot for taking the time to read this. :)