not so stories #1

There’s a guy who’s always in the lunch room whenever I walk by. Sometimes he’s microwaving, sometimes he’s boiling water. Sometimes he’s standing there, hands in pockets and not much going on. He wears a knotted blue scarf around his neck. Old acne scars climb up his chin and cling to his cheeks. Every time I come in to get my lunch from the fridge, he smiles at me and wanders out. There’s a residue of his thoughts in the air, a murmur that runs I like, I like going through the fridge and looking at everyone’s lunches, I like to unwrap the cellophane around the cheese sandwiches, I like to pop the top on tupperwear containers and poke the tofu chunks within, oh yeah, gonna poke your tofu. Up top is the gourmet coffee, behind the toolbox and the toner, there’s good beans up there, gonna grind them when no one else is looking, gonna have some fiiiine coffee when the lights go out. Of course this is ridiculous – he usually leaves the office before I do – but now I hear his voice in my kitchen, and it frightens me a little.