Getting Along

Marcel: Alone v. Lonely Part 2

Again, you can skip this if you don't care about Marcel's parts. That's completely okay.

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Mr. McKinley didn’t come into work today, due to a procedure he had to get done at the doctor’s which required him to stay home for the day. I’m not really sure why he gave me an explanation—he was the boss and owner of this company, he can stay at home as long as he wants. He’d emailed me a list of things to do. It was mostly things I usually did, so the day turned out to be normal and uneventful.

Towards the middle of the morning, my work was interrupted by someone planting their hand on my glass desk outside of Mr. McKinley’s office.

“Hey, Marcy,” my fingers froze over my keyboard. I hated hearing people around here call me that. When I looked up, I saw it was Jason, the one at the very top of my shit list for the things I’d heard him say about Gemma. My blood boiled looking at him so I sat back in my chair to distance myself a little.

“Is there something I can do for you?” I said in monotone.

“There’s a problem with the printer. I was wondering if you could fix it.”

“What makes you think I can fix it?”

He smirked, “Why not give it a shot?” I grumbled but got up anyway. I followed him into the copy room, where everyone was crowded around the printer as it made noises but did nothing. “Guys don’t worry, Marcel is here.” Jason laughed. Everyone turned around, giving me a ‘you still work here?’ look before parting to let me through. I ignored their snarky looks as I crouched in front of the machine. They probably thought I couldn’t do it; they always underestimated me.

I opened the side door and peered inside. It seemed to be something wrong with the inkjet, it wasn’t positioned properly. I leaned in further to reach it. My fingers fumbled with it a little—and then I hear a beep from above. Seconds later, ink was gushed into my face and all over my shirt. I heard everyone laughing as I choked when it got in my mouth. It covered my glasses.

Anger flooded through me and I completely ripped the inkjet out along with a lot of other, and probably important, stuff and threw it on the floor as I stood. I pulled my glasses off and glared at them all through blurry vision. Everyone went quiet as they gaped at me. I scanned over all their terrified, stupid faces, and all I could think about is how they’re all together, staring at the monster while the monster stands on his own—alone.

“Doesn’t look like I can do anything with it; better call the fucking tech people.” I stormed away and went to my desk, grabbing my brief case and heading towards the elevator. In the back of my mind, I thanked Gemma for always teaching me to keep spare clothes in my car. I took the elevator down to the garage and went straight to my car. Some people were leaving for lunch and I heard some snicker as they looked at me, covered in printer ink.

I felt so humiliated. How did working at a corporate job turn out to be just as bad as high school? What happened to maturation? It seems it’s vanished along with the sense of kindness while things like petty dislikes, insensitivity and spitefulness flourished. I was ashamed of humanity. I wished I could’ve been born a tiger in the wilderness or something. Tigers can let their anger out without being arrested for it. They don’t get lonely; they thrive in solitude.

My extra clothes were grabbed from the trunk and I brought them along with my brief case to the building’s locker room. Mr. McKinley believed in fitness, so there was a gym in the building for employees to use in their free time. I never used it though—I was self-conscious about working out in front of people.