Life As We Don't Know It (An Anthology)

The Hooded Man: Part 2

The office was dead silent while she continued to stare at the ad she was putting the final touches on. Her boss had given her suggestions to make the toilet paper ad more appealing. In other words, she had to change the ad to follow his specifications.

Her job is one that requires everything to be perfect, and the hard part is that her perfect is not another's perfect. She has to, essentially, guess and check to see what others would like. She often meets up with clients to see their take on her ad, and even her family sometimes. Many would find it funny how complicated the job can be.

She was hemming and hawing over one font from another that were barely different, when the scratching came. Oof, she thought. For the past month, the scratching had been on and off. Luckily, it only seemed to come on when she was bored or stressed. Ever since the day the sky suddenly turned dark, and when her purse was stolen, her life has been horrifically strange. On that day, she did call her husband to have him pick her up, even though he had work himself. When he had gotten to the facility, he suggested she get her cell phone which was in the car.

She never brings it into work with her. She had to use the spare keys he had, and when she opened the car door... there was her purse on the front seat. Ever since, she has been in denial that the events of that day ever happened to her.

But, she couldn't deny that the scratching was very real. It made more sense than the sky suddenly turning dark or her purse being stolen, and then put into her car... because people have headaches, so inner head scratching isn't such a big jump.

She stopped her work for a moment because of the pain from the scratching. She has gotten rather used to feeling it. She vowed a week or so ago to continue to do whatever she was doing, or start doing something, if the scratching started, but the scratching was often hard to ignore.

For a minute, she stopped thinking about the pain when she saw one of her coworkers come into her cubicle. "Hey Cindy, there's not much left of Julie's brownies." After finishing, he left, and her eyes perked up. Everyone in the office knows that her brownies are to die for.

She started to walk into the break room, when she overheard a conversation. But she only heard, "...and she's been told that she's going to die soon..." She could have sworn that he looked at her when he finished that phrase. She shrugged off the thought, understanding that he obviously was just looking around, and simply noticed her.

Then she was in the break room. She saw the brownies right away, in the left corner of the 'food table', where they always were. She took one of the two brownies left, a plate, and found a seat. She took the first bite of it, and closed her eyes. Bliss. Then, she heard music in the background, which was strange. Music is forbidden at her workplace... well, it really was an unspoken rule, but no one ever dared to break that rule.

She tried her best to ignore the music in favor of concentrating on the chocolate happiness in her mouth. But, the music became so loud when the male singer started to sing, "and death came seven days later..." The music faded into the background, and she shook it off, though the words were seeping into her soul. Death, death, death.. She looked at her brownie and scarfed it down, as if eating would make her forget it. She smiled when realized that the scratching had stopped.

~~~~~~~

After work, she got into her car, turned on the music, and forgot all about the subtle strange things that had occurred. Instead, she tried to listen to the words of the songs that played and attempted to understand the meanings of the songs.

In the middle of one song, she heard the singer say, "and don't you forget it." She stopped humming to the song for a minute. He's never said that in the song before, she was sure of it. It was one of her favorite songs, actually, and here he was saying a new phrase. WUIT, the radio station, must have been having some sort of a contest.