Layoffs

The layoffs just keep coming.  Every couple of months for the last year or so another ten to fifteen people are let go.  Every layoff is supposed to be the last.  Eventually that will be true because everyone in the company will be shown the door.  We had already shrunk to about 100 employees before the layoffs began with metronomic regularity.  It sure is quiet around here.  I know a lot of people have been laid off  but this is ridiculous.  I haven’t seen anyone today.  Strange.  Very strange.  I have just spent the last hour walking around the building looking for a warm body.  Nobody is here.  I haven’t checked the suite across the hall.  There are some real oddballs in that office.  They moved in about 2 weeks ago.  I occasionally see one of them in the hallway but they don’t talk.  They avoid eye contact and keep moving even if you say “hello”.  Fucking weirdos.  I’m going home.

         Day two of the “Everyone’s Off But Me” holiday.  Still nobody around.  It’s getting pretty creepy.  I keep hearing strange noises from across the hall.  Maybe it’s my imagination.  Maybe this is all a dream.  Maybe I’m dead and need to move towards the light.  I tried calling my boss at home.  I couldn’t find his number which is weird considering I had his home number and his cell phone number in my Rolodex.  I can’t find any of my co-workers’ phone numbers.  I might be mistaken but when I arrived this morning it looked like some things on my desk had been moved around.  I don’t know who could have done it.  The doors lock electronically in the evening and the company stopped paying the cleaning crew months ago so they don’t come in at night anymore.  I wonder who’s been in here.  Maybe I’ll work late and find out.

         Five thirty and all’s well.  No signs of an intruder.  The items on my desk haven’t rearranged themselves.  No elves, fairies, pixies, sprites, leprechauns, gnomes, angels, or demons have stepped forward to claim credit for the dastardly deed of moving my stuff around.  I know what the problem is.  I’m sitting right here at my desk.  I’ve got to make myself scarce.  I’ll go hide in that supply closet and crack the door.

What the fuck is that?!  Dear God help me!  I should have never worked late.  There is some bizarre shit going on here.  Dear God help me!  I gotta get outta here.  I’ve gotta call the police or animal control or a fucking gardener!  What the fuck is that thing?!  The smell is enough to scare the shit out of me.  I don’t think I’ve ever smelled anything that putrid before.  God that smell!  I can’t even begin to describe it.  It’s sort of like the smell of dumpsters in August with some rotten eggs – brown eggs - thrown in for good measure.  It also has a mildewy smell underpinning the rotten egg/dumpster odor.  Multiply those odors by a million and you’re about halfway to what I am being subjected to.  I can’t believe I haven’t smelled it before since that thing is probably what’s been rearranging things on my desk.  It…it’s like some sort of swamp thing or creature from the black lagoon or something.  It’s green with lots of brown mixed in with what look like withered vines or tentacles or something hanging off of it.  I hope to God that thing doesn’t hear me.  My heart is pounding so loudly in my ears that my eardrums may burst.  I am also breathing too hard and too loudly.  Dear God help me.

         The smell is gone.  That thing has to be gone too then.  There’s no way he could be nearby without that putrid stench assaulting my olfactories.  I’ll just take a small peek…nothing there.  Thank God.  I need to get the hell out of here.  My keys!  I left them on my desk!  Dammit!  The key card which activates the elevator is on the keychain.  I should be able to smell that thing if it comes back.  There’s no way that smelly bastard can sneak up on me that’s for sure.  I gotta hustle. 

         Where the fuck are my keys!!  Dammit!  I can’t find them!  I’ve got to…wait a minute.  The smell is back!  And I hear keys jingling.  Oh dear God.  That stinky fucker has my keys.  He’s been rearranging my desk every night looking for something shiny that jingles.  He’s a goddamn packrat.  A putrid packrat.  God help me!  I’m trapped in here!  There’s only one way out and that decomposing pile of shit is coming from that direction!  Fuck him!  If I’m going down I’m going down swinging.  Maybe I can rush him, knock him down, and take my keys back.  Maybe I should just hide and hope he doesn’t find me and then sneak out.  I guess the mystery of the disappearing co-workers has been solved.  Brownnosers all worked late and got eaten or abducted or odored to death.  And they ragged on me for never working late.  Look who’s laughing now you cocksuckers!  The smell is getting closer.  It is overwhelming.  I don’t think I can stand it long enough to hit this thing.  Fuck it!  Here I go!

         The overwhelming stench and the dampness of the thing’s flesh is what strike me as I strike the thing.  That thing felt like moss covered soil after the spring thaw.  For a minute there I thought I was going to be enveloped by The Creature from Satan’s Ass.  Luckily I kept my feet while it didn’t.  It stumbled backwards and although it didn’t fall over, the millisecond it took for it to regain its balance was all I needed.  Despite feeling light headed from the stench I was able to keep running (althought grabbing my keys proved to be impossible).  I ran into the office across the hall and that’s when things got really interesting.  I found out where my co-workers had gone.  No wonder nobody was at work.  It’s hard to punch the old time clock when you’re hung up on a meat hook like a side of beef.  If I possessed a weak stomach that would have been the end of me.  I have always been self absorbed and unsympathetic to the plight of others so I was able to keep going without upchucking or screaming in abject horror at the gruesome scene in front of me.  The only problem was I didn’t know where I was running.  I had sprinted right into the creature’s lair and was frantically looking for a way out when the odor tsunami came rolling in.  As the old saying goes, “Failing to plan is planning to fail.”  I wonder who said that.  I’d like to have the opportunity to find out.  I slowly turned around…and there it was.  I was able to get a better look at it this time.  It was a cross between Cousin Itt and Swamp Thing.  I couldn’t see eyes, ears, nose, or a mouth.  But somehow I got the feeling it was grinning at me.  It was probably thinking I was the dumbest numbnut he was ever going to dine on.  He probably wouldn’t eat my brain.  Didn’t want to catch my ineptitude.

         It slowly shuffled toward me, the withered vines hanging off of it swaying to and fro like a passel of pendulums counting down the seconds until my untimely and painful demise.  I wonder if it was one of the workers in this office?  Was it able to transform itself into human form when it wanted to?  Or did it consume the people who worked here?  Or was it their pet?  Did they migrate from office complex to office complex like monstrous, demonic gypsies finding feeding grounds for this monstrosity?  I guess I’ll never know.  I’ll be too busy having the life sucked out of me.  Or carved out of me.  Or just plain gnawed out of me while still conscious enough to appreciate the immense amount of pressure generated by this thing’s jaws.  Does it have jaws?  I guess I’d find out soon enough.  It had advanced to within three feet of me while I was considering these inane points.  The stench was like a punch in the face at this point.  It seemed to be emanating from this thing’s mouth as well as every square inch of its body.  It was still jingling my keys, taunting me.  Playing with its food so to speak.  I’m not sure if it was the stench or shock or low blood sugar but I sank down into a whirlpool of darkness.  God help me….

         “Honey!  What are you doing here?!  My God, I’ve been so worried about you!  Why are you here?  Is this where you’ve been coming the last few days?”  It was my wife.  She was kneeling beside me with two policemen standing behind her looking seriously unamused.  Once I came to my senses I blurted out “Where is it?!  Where’s the creature?!  We’ve got to get out of here!”  “Calm down Honey.  What creature?  What are you talking about?  You’re in your old office.  Although I don’t know why.  The company went out of business two weeks ago.  How did you get in the building?”  “I was working late because everyone has disappeared and there was a hideous creature that’s been eating people and the people across the hall may be in on it or they may be victims themselves and…”  “Honey, there are no people across the hall.  Your co-workers disappeared because your company folded two weeks ago and everyone went home.  This building has been deserted for the last two weeks.”

         And there it was.  It was all coming back to me.  Company went out of business.  Doors were locked.  No new tenants.  Everybody went home and got on with their lives.  I came back yesterday for some reason.  Closure?  Habit?  Dementia?  And today I came back to catch the beast.  I guess the stress of unemployment, possible eviction, and general failure as a husband, father, and human being will eventually catch up to you.  Damn.  I knew I was a loser but I didn’t think I’d lose my mind.  Not this soon anyway.  I guess I better hurry up and find a job before I sink even deeper.

         “Sorry Honey.  I guess I’ve been afraid to face the fact that I need to find a new job.  You know how change has always freaked me out.  I know what’s going on now.  I’m alright.”  “Well, okay.  Let’s go home.  You better ride with me.”  “Okay.  I need to stop at the restroom and I’ll be right out.  These nice officers will make sure I make it downstairs without flipping out.  Is that okay sir?”  “Sure,” says the cop who looks like he knows the location of every Dunkin’ Donuts within a fifty mile radius.  “We need to make sure the building is empty and locked up anyway.  You go on downstairs ma’am.  We’ll escort your husband out.”

         God this is embarassing.  Not only am I unemployed and facing bankruptcy but now my mind is slipping.  I lean over the sink and splash cold water on my face.  I guess madness is hereditary.  My mother went off the deep end in her twilight years.  I always wondered if it would happen to me and apparently it has begun.  I’ve got to get help.  I can’t let my family down.  They need me.  My little boy is still naïve enough and sweet enough to look up to me despite my many flaws.  I need to pull it together for him.  Okay, I took a leak, washed my hands, and splashed some cold water on my face.  Ready to face the cruel, cruel world again. 

         Where’d the cops go?  I guess they’re waiting downstairs.  I’ve got to find a job.  And quickly.  I’m behind on my house payments, car payments, credit cards, and just about every other monthly payment including the utilities.  Maybe I’ll call the temp agency tomorrow.  I don’t know which is scarier – facing down a monster who literally takes your breath away with its stench and overall hideousness or looking for a decent paying job in this stagnated economy.  What’s taking the elevator so long?  Maybe the cops turned it off.  Probably thought my fat ass could use some exercise.  Jingle, jingle, jingle.  My keys.  Jingling behind me.  The telltale musk of Cousin Swamp Thing.  As the pungence enshrouds me and the damp claw clamps down on my shoulder, the elevator doors open to reveal two bloody headless uniformed corpses.  So that’s what happened to the cops.  I guess I won’t have to look for a job now…