The Post It NoteA Story by Pete A short dark tale of a day in the office. The Post-It Note Lenny Alvera ran across the car park through the downpour, his head lowered, the scruff of his jacket an umbrella. He nimbly side stepped the deeper puddles in the undulating tarmac, ducked under the office balcony, and began to fish out his keys. His rain flecked left hand caught on the silk lining of his side pocket, rucking it up, making the simple task a more complex one. He swore under his breath. Selecting the right key, he opened the door, and headed for the stairs. By the fourth step he began to ponder. He would often ponder whilst ascending to his workplace. Sometimes it was why would some manufacturers make Ibuprofen pills pink, like little flamboyant MnM's, complete with a sweet sugary coating? Here kids, try some! Or maybe what his boss would look like with his skin removed. Today though, he wondered how many steps he had taken up there in his work lifetime. OK, 44 steps a day, 5 days a week, 48 weeks a year... 'F**k that, must be millions' he thought. He took another step. Shrugging off the hypothetical maths, he strode through the office and plonked himself down in his cubicle. He glanced around his mini universe, spotted something a little unusual. There were some words written on the top sheet of his stack of Post It Notes. Im going to kill you His heart thumped a little faster, it beat a little harder, and his skin prickled. A sensation of hot and cold swept it's way through his body. He stood up quickly- the chair following his behind for a few inches, with a hiss - and did a slow three sixty of the room. Eerily empty and quiet. Just the faint hum of the machines and the metronome of the wall clock - eleven minutes to eight. Ordinarily he liked the quiet solitude of being the first one in - being 'assistant to the regional manager', he would arrive early, open up, and get the office tea urn going - but after reading those five simple words, the room became a creepy graveyard, complete with 21 inch monitor tomb stones. He reached over to pick up the stack of notes for a better look and hesitated a moment before touching them, as if the pages themselves would do him harm. He coughed out a laugh, then carefully flipped through them. Nothing but blank pages below the first. He studied the handwriting, cocking his head and raising a single brow. It looked familiar, but he just couldn't place it. It had to be a joke, surely. Someone was just trying to freak him out. They knew about his condition, his psychological issues. But a little dark corner of his mind kept nagging him, 'What if it IS a threat Lenny, and not a joke'. He began to feel calmer once the office crew started to appear, though there was still a slight tremble to his hands. As they trickled in, one or two at a time, he debated whether to say anything or not. He made his decision. When everyone was present he wiped his damp hands on his knees, ripped off the note, and, rising from his chair, held it up like exhibit 'A' in a court room. He cleared his throat. 'Ok, who wrote this'? He got nothing but blank stares and confused looks in reply. 'It says I'm going to kill you' He continued. The words actually spoken aloud seeming to add weight to the inky red threat already on the paper. As he scanned the room for any hint of a confession he heard a few faint chuckles and mutterings from his co workers, but no one replied. He stood there waiting, one arm still stretched out to his side like a well dressed scarecrow whose right arm had snapped in the wind and flopped down to it's side. 'Look, this isn't funny, I just want someone to own up so we can...ah, forget it'. He slumped back down in his chair, crumpled the thing and tossed it in the waste paper basket. The blood vessels and capillaries in his cheeks had dilated, blushing them red with awkward self consciousness. His simmering anger assisting them a darker tone. Lenny slid open his desk drawer and pulled out his medication - his 'mental pills'. They didn't do anything for his anger problems - he had therapy sessions for that - but they were supposed to help with his personality disorder and his other issues. He popped a few with a sip of yesterdays coffee. For the rest of the day he immersed himself in his work, the 3D renderings and complex animations of his new project providing enough of a distraction for him to forget about the stupid note. For a while at least. Because every now and again he couldn't help but glance down at the basket. The little yellow crumpled note sat there, riding the waves of previously discarded paper. It taunted him. 'Yep' it would say. 'I'm still here. But don't worry, don't take me seriously. Someone's just messing with your mind.........probably'. By the end of the day his pen lid was chewed like an old dog toy and his nails had lost ten percent of their mass. He looked up at the clock. The hour hand was on the five, or as near as damn it, whilst the other millimetred it's way towards the 12. He switched off his computer, stood up and stretched his aching back. On leaving the building his mood swiftly lightened. The weather had improved and the late summer sun shone down on him, the velocious rays zipping across 93 million miles of vacuum to warm his face. The birds were tweeting too, obviously. As he made his way to the bus stop, a jaunty spring now in his stride, he started whistling a random set of notes...and abruptly stopped. 'If it was a prank' he thought, 'surely someone would have owned up by now'. He subconsciously raised his right hand to his mouth, nibbled the tip of his middle fingernail with his incisors. 'What if it's real and there's some f*****g psycho killer out there who likes to play games'? 'Maybe I should call the cops, just in case' The sliver of nail came free and he spat it away, along with a thought - 'Yeah, I can just see them sending over a team to dust for prints and analyse the hand writing'. Deep in thought he spotted his bus at the stop just over the road. He rushed across, hoping to catch it in time. The speeding lorry ploughed in to Lenny's right side, the momentum taking his body with it a short distance. A crumpled and bloody hostage. Lenny was dead before gravity won the battle between itself and friction, and his battered body disappeared beneath the wheels. Although too late to save poor Lenny's life, the driver instinctively stomped on the brake yanking the steering wheel hard. The lorry swerved, skidded and rolled on to it's side continuing it's destructive journey amid a raucous screeching of metal and flying sparks before slowly coming to a halt. The impact had caused the rear doors to burst open allowing dozens of boxes to spew out on to the road. The driver behind, with no chance of stopping in time, piled in to the boxes, sending thousands of small squares of yellow paper dancing away on the wind like confetti. Each and every Post-it Note had three words written on it - 'Told you so'. The End © 2016 PeteAuthor's Note
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4 Reviews Added on August 13, 2016 Last Updated on August 28, 2016 |
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