Someone in This Office is Trying to Poison Me
A Substack Exclusive Short Story
At first I thought the world was breaking down around me, but now I think I’m falling to pieces inside of it.
In my wake are small, delicate flakes of flesh tumbling like… well… like tumbleweeds, I suppose.
The breakdown isn’t quick, no, it’s so slow you could almost call it “aging,” but I know the difference between getting a bit older and imploding.
Everyone around me acts as if it’s no big deal, as if they can’t see it. The office is rampant with careless eyes. But it’s been going on for so long, and my flesh flakes have piled so high that I start to wonder how they don’t notice them each time they have to shuffle through them to get to my desk. How could they possibly ignore it? My office smells like coughs, my hair peels and falls, living in the cracks of the room.
There is simply no way they have not noticed this.
There must be something more.
I’ve started to suspect… mutiny.
Call me crazy, but Greg has been eying my position for years now, and it’s been far too many times that I’ve seen him lurking around my salad in the breakroom. Sure, Greg, your wife packed Caesar for you today as well. That sounds just as likely as her packing pasta the day before.
Could he be though? Slipping something in?
Greg’s savvy, he knows that I have access to the cameras. Better yet, he knows my temperament. He knows that if I found out his plan to whittle me, it would only take one day of me muddling our salads for him to lose the competition.
No… Greg couldn’t. He’s silly, he’s foolish. I bet he really was just messing up the salads.
I twiddle my biro, staring through my shutters at the office beyond.
Bastards. How dare they try to kill me.
I’ve thought about taking leave, just for a week or two, to see if I improve, but I suspect that would be just what they want. That’d be more than enough time for one of them to force their way into this chair.
Outside, Mary walks by, smiles, offers a small wave.
I oblige… with a squint.
What about her?
Although, no… it couldn’t be Mary. Not lovely Mary. She just smiled at me.
Smiled to throw me off her case, no doubt! Had she been lovelier recently? Was it all a ploy? I bet it was all a ploy.
Bloody Mary. How could she do something like that to me? In my coffee… is that how she was doing it? All nice seeming when everyone was thirsty, but was there an ulterior motive? She didn’t even bother to ask for my order anymore, just assumed she knew what I wanted. Yeah, a flat white and a healthy dose of poison.
Is poison tasteless? Could I truly have not noticed it? I suppose my killer could be building up the dosage. I wouldn’t be tipped off then.
Is poison odourless? Can poison be odourless?
The air vents. Of course.
Janice has been all up in arms about the budget, worrying about how we might not have enough for our weekly office “deep clean.” Had she stopped doing them behind our backs? Mary had continued to point out that it smelt like something had died when you got too close to the vents. Was that scent really “some new cleaning product”? Was I going to be the dead thing in the vents? Could Janice take my lifeless body and push it in there with the rest of her misdeeds? Could she?
I click my pen rapidly, as if I’m sending out a squeal in morse code.
Someone hears it, and there’s a knock at my door.
It’s head manager Mike. I wave to him. Half out of politeness, half to obscure my colourless face.
“Bloody hell, you don’t look good. They working you to death here?” I laugh at his joke, turning it into a cough halfway. “You really don’t sound good… You sure you don’t need some time off?”
“I’m fine, Mike. I’m fine. What’d you need me for?”
“Well, you’re shivering,” he turned the heating up on the wall. “You’re sure I can’t get you anything? A warm drink?”
“No, no, Mike, I’m all good. Thank you. What did you want?”
“Came to tell you that head office was having a big party. Thought I might’ve seen you there. Did you get the email?”
“Oh… I’m not… I can’t remember if I did. Sorry, Mike.”
“That’s all good. I’ll let them know you were busy. It was Kathy’s birthday.” He puts a muffin down in front of me. “They had muffins. The last few were a little knackered, but I salvaged you the best one… I hope!”
“Bloody hell, what is that… It’s not…”
“Choc chip and blueberry.”
“I bloody love blueberry.”
“They ordered them in from that good spot, down the road.”
“No shit. Well, thank you for grabbing me one. I didn’t miss anything else did I?”
“No, no. Not at all. You know how those things can be.”
“Too true.”
“Anyway, I’ll let you get back to it all. Hope you get better.”
He turns and goes for the door.
“Hey, Mike!”
“Yeah.”
“You’re a good lad.”
“Cheers, mate.”
He closes the door behind him.
I stare at the muffin. Delicious…
Enough to keep my paranoia at bay for another day.