The Writer's Eye Fiction Pages

The new computer guy has the kind of blindingly white skin that turns a scaly rose in sunlight, except where his sunglasses leave a white mask. His sunburn looks like a red, lizard-skin handbag, Emma thinks. Crewcut hair the color of lint. Tiny blue marble eyes — clearzees they called those marbles when she was a kid; no one ever wanted them. But in this southern Montana town, because he's single, he's considered prime pickings. As he walks through the office area of the warehouse, following the line of low-walled cubicles where the layout artists and copywriters work, Emma's coworker Stasia grabs his hand. God, what won't she do for attention?

"Do you like chips?" she asks. She unfolds from her computer chair where her right leg has been tucked under her body for her daily keyboarding. He pulls his hand back, shrugs, looks lost among the cubicles of Mortal Granger Industrial and Women's Products, Inc. It's true, they are set up in a maze — perhaps, Emma thinks, to keep everyone from finding each other, bonding, and maybe forming a union or some such.

Stasia flips her red hair over her shoulder and rips open a bag of chips between her teeth. Looking up at him, she slides her hand into the bag and pulls out a big chip, which she slowly pushes into her mouth. The computer guy stares at her, then his cell phone rings, and he turns away and answers it. "Help desk," he says. "Yeah. Try pulling out the UBS connector and rebooting. Yeah."

Stasia scoots her chair nearer to him, holds out the open bag of chips. The computer guy nods at empty space in front of him. "Okay. So go to the network. Yeah. Click there. The Q drive." He nods again, glances at Stasia. Stasia holds the bag higher. "Now, put your eight-character password in. Yeah." He nods again and his hand dips into Stasia's chip bag. He holds out the chip, staring intently at the carpeted floor, the cell phone pressed to his ear. "Okay, now go to Preferences."

Stasia catches Emma watching and grins. She holds the chip bag higher. He shoves the chip in his mouth and takes another one out of the bag. Emma looks away. She's already complained about Stasia's loudness to their boss. He promptly gave Stasia more responsibilities, reasoning out loud to Emma that Stasia's constant talking and play for attention is a sign of a bright mind that's bored.

But what about my mind, Emma wants to ask. Just because I have more self-discipline doesn't mean I'm not bored. But she says nothing — she's older, nearly thirty-five, with a few gray hairs among her short, black waves. She has to think of her future.

Emma is a copywriter, though sometimes she still believes her poetry will get published and she might actually get a teaching position at a college. She's supposed to be writing about a leather coat with a raccoon fur collar, but she touched the collar and her arms got all shivery as she thought about where the fur had been, so she slides down in her chair at the keyboard for a minute or so picking at her longest fingernail instead. She's seen at least one dead raccoon every day on the road to work. Their fur looks odd blowing in the morning breeze while their rigid paws point upwards, frozen in the air. She thinks they're hit just before dawn. She imagines them crossing the road in the darkness to reach the company pond, paws wet from cutting across the irrigation ditch, drawn to the fountain and the water where the company koi live, smelling the fish, shuffling across the hard pavement and never seeing what's behind the light that smacks into them, never hearing their own bodies crack because at that moment they're flying and already dead.

The computer guy finishes his call, holsters his cell phone, wipes his mouth, and heads to the next cubicle farm without a backward glance. Stasia tucks her leg up beneath her and crouches over her keyboard again.

Stasia's and Emma's boss, the art director, who also happens to be the son of the CEO, shambles by, followed by his three dachshunds named Julie, Amelia, and, unfortunately, Emma. They nip at each other's ears, trying to be first on his heels. He pauses and holds a proof up to the light, pushes a wisp of thinning red hair away from his glasses. Stasia throws one of his dogs a chip and the other two rush her chair, snarling. "Hey," he says. "Emma. Cut it out."

Emma feels her face warming, clicks her fingers across her keyboard and types "kdjsild fjidls dila;s kds." The noise, the crowded arrangement of low-walled cubicles, the stupid writing — "four lines and save," was how the last co-worker who left described it — when did she let temporary become permanent? Her boss nods to her and moves on, then comes back and stands over her. "I wasn't talking to you. You know that, right?"

"Right." She bares her teeth. The dachshunds sniff her legs, then trip over each other to follow him around the corner. Emma stares at the raccoon fur collar. What if it were made of dachshund instead?

She pokes the letter T on her keyboard and freezes as the dachshunds stampede by and disappear into the next roomful of cubicles. A minute later, the janitor stomps past, a rag and spray bottle in his hands. The odor of doggie doodoo fills the room.

The computer guy stumbles back into the room, his hand over his mouth and nose. "Oh God," he mutters.

"Don't throw up or anything." Stasia picks up her bottle of Coke and starts shaking it. "These are the saltiest chips ever. And the weirdest looking. Emma, see how they're shaped? Oh shit."

She hops off her chair as the bottle sprays across her keyboard and her bag of chips.

"Hey," the computer guy says. "Have a little care with the equipment."

"I was trying to get that bad taste out of my mouth. And show her the chip. Now I got Coke all over my keyboard AND my chips." Stasia stands up and waves her hands around, looking at the others working at their desks, obviously trying to catch their eyes. That's Stasia.

Someone snickers. She sits down.

There’s a rush of doggie toenails digging into carpet. The dachshunds careen around the corner. One stops between Emma and Stasia's desks and coughs up a gooey pile, then sniffs it before running off to join the others. The computer guy dashes out of the room. Stasia groans. "I have these sympathetic reactions," she says. She puts her hand over her mouth.

The computer guy returns, wiping his mouth. His cell phone is ringing again but he seems not to notice. His face is as white as Emma's computer screen as he strides over to Stasia's cubicle. "What was in those chips?"

Stasia looks up at him with wide brown eyes, her hand still over her mouth, and shakes her head.

"Are you okay?" Emma says, standing up for a better look. What a mess Stasia's made, a pool of Coke on her desk and chips strewn over her keyboard, desk and telephone. The chips appear to be flowing slowly across the desk.

Emma blinks. No, they're moving.

Crawling.

She opens her lips but nothing comes out of her mouth. She points.

Stasia looks where Emma is pointing. "Oh." She falls off her chair, gets up and runs from the room. Sounds of retching and women's voices raised in concern come from the accounting area nearby.

The computer guy grabs Stasia's dictionary and slams it down on the crawling chips. The Webster's, a paperback, has no effect. He throws the countywide phone book at them, but because their county is not heavily populated, the slender directory flops and hits the vase of flowers Stasia got from her boyfriend. The vase tips over and pours water straight into the vents of Stasia's monitor. It crackles, and a burst of light and a loud pop make Emma jump.

"Hey," someone yells. "My computer went dead."

From the next room, the accounting clerks start chattering. The CFO yells from his office, "What the hell's going on?"

Emma grabs the leather coat with the raccoon collar and throws it down onto the squirming creatures streaming across Stasia's desk. She climbs onto the desk, jumps on top of the coat and grinds her heels as hard as she can.

"What are you doing?" a chilly female voice demands.

Emma turns in mid grind. The women's buyer is looking up at her, her pink pearls and cashmere sweater perfectly matched, her frosted hair neatly coiffed. "That's a $1400 coat you're stepping on."

Emma jumps down and drags the coat with her. Fat creamy worms stick to the back of the leather coat and part of the raccoon collar.

The woman's buyer steps closer, her green eyes in her immaculate face cold as Norse hell. "I can't believe you did that. You are an idiot."

Emma hands her the coat. "It's definitely you."

The CFO strides out of his office, his mustache quivering. "Tell me what's going on. Do we have another virus? A worm? I keep getting error messages and now the servers are shorting out."

The woman's buyer hands him the coat. "Look what she did to this coat."

He brushes her aside. "I don't care about any goddamn coat. We just lost four hundred customers in the phone queue, and online they're dumping shopping carts left and right. Where the hell are my computer guys? Hey, get back here. Don't run off." He heads down the hall toward the restrooms.

"Your days here are numbered," the women's buyer hisses. She folds the coat, worms on the inside, and flounces off.

"Who's to say yours aren't?" Emma says to her diminishing back. She picks up Stasia's flower vase and puts the rose back in.

Stasia returns to her chair, her head bowed. Emma hands her the vase. "Do you feel better?" she asks. Come to think of it, though Stasia's barely 24, she's a single mom of three boys — she probably finds getting out of the house the highlight of her day. "Your boyfriend must really care for you, buying you flowers."

Stasia dimples, clasps her hands together. "He says we have a future together." Several of the layout artists drift over, having watched the commotion from across the room. Stasia perks up a bit seeing a potential audience. "I don't know what was in that chip bag," she says. "I got it this morning, at the gas station. Well, there was this weird green light coming from the chip aisle and the girl at the counter said -"

"Excuse me. I've got to get some air," Emma says, snagging her own coat. She could drop dead this moment and it would just be another opportunity for Stasia to grab attention.

"But don't you want to hear what she said?" Stasia looks mournful.

Emma sighs, mid zip. "Okay. What?"

"She said these weird-looking guys drove up in a semi and unloaded it. Well anyway, they told her these chips were great if you were on a diet. So everyone in the store started lining up to buy them. I got the last bag."

"Thank you for not offering me any." Emma gets her purse and heads for the door. "I think you've just gotten a new friend — Mr. Tapeworm."

Stasia gulps. The computer guy bustles over to Stasia's desk, the cell phone plastered to his cheek. "How was I supposed to know? You never told me not to touch chips. Hey," he says to Stasia, "Where's that bag? I need to dispose of it immediately."

Emma hurries down the hall, past the receptionist, and shoves the front door open. A bumping body at her ankle announces one of the dachshunds dashing out the door with her. The last thing she hears from inside, before the glass doors swing shut, is her boss, yelling, "Emma, come back here." The dachshund has the chip bag in its mouth.

Emma runs after the dog, scoops it up, and turns back to put it inside — knowing this creature, it would get flattened by a customer's car in the parking lot. But the computer guy is blocking the glass doors, his cell phone still stuck to his cheek, his head nodding. He grabs the bag from the dog's mouth.

"Why did you do that?" she asks.

"Quality control. Besides, I got nothing against canines." He talks to his cell phone. "Okay, I got it. And next time, do your testing somewhere else."

"What testing?" she asks. The dog squirms, twisting its long back, scraping at her arm with its hind legs. "We don't make chips here. We don't even sell them."

He grins. His tongue is oddly shaped, kind of forked. "You don't. You were quitting."

"No I wasn't." The dachshund is whining now, thrusting its wet nose against her neck. It's true. She thought she was going out for a walk. But now the desire to go home and never come back is so strong, she can practically smell it.

"Thoughts come across space in binary code, didn't you know that?"

"Yeah, right. No wonder mind-reading's so freaking easy." The sun's glare is making him a little pink on his nose. Her boss is waving at her through the glass doors but the computer guy is in the way. The dog has stopped panting so heavily and feels plump and warm in her arms.

"Binary was my first language," he says.

"Well then, you're not from Montana, are you."

"Nor the West Coast," he says, "Worst place for a focus group. Here is great. We get all kinds of information, good information. Helps us get the bugs fixed."

"Bugs?" she asks.

"Just a figure of speech. I didn't know the guys were working on a chip. I would have thought we could at least come up with something more complicated than that. But it's going to work, I think."

Her boss is tapping on the glass now. Emma points. "He wants his dog."

The computer guy steps away from the door. "I'm sorry," he says to her boss. "I didn't know you were there."

"I thought you could read minds," she mutters.

"Not through glass," he whispers. He grins.

"Where are the rest of the computer guys?" her boss asks, taking the dog from her. He holds it like a baby, against his shoulder. "Everything's crashing." The hot wind ruffles his hair. He reminds Emma of a raccoon, but she can't exactly figure why. Maybe it's the way he squints at the bright light.