Posting this here on the advice of GnomeDePlume, and others. Here is a non-erotic story for any kindly editor to glance at and, hopefully, tell me where I have gone so sadly wrong. Thanks both to those who read it and to those who reply. Ray
STALKER
Icy fingers caressed her spine like a piano player’s would on his keys and she stared over her monitor and around the office. For the past week, or was it two, she was beginning to lose track, she had felt it. A feeling of being watched, not the usual glances inevitably cast about an office, but a sustained stare which bored into her head and began rummaging about in the life stored within the cells of her brain. A sensation of someone invading her memories; exploring, extracting, manipulating them then returning a life already lived, back; but not quite in the correct order. Recollections of events that had once been solid and real began to feel vague and indistinct as if they had happened to someone else, or had been recounted several times, orders changing and meanings lost as they often do over many retellings.
Although she had barely spoken to her fellow workers she knew all of them by sight, the only newcomer being a tall, nondescript man who had joined the firm about a month previously. She had never spoken to him, in fact, she never saw him interact with anyone, but he almost always seemed to be there, sitting in the corner at his terminal, the top of his head just visible over his screen.
She was due a break and in the few seconds it took to retrieve her handbag the head had disappeared and as she glanced across to his cubicle she noticed he had gone. She hesitated; the room housing the coffee machine was at the end of the corridor and, for a moment, felt isolated from the rest of the office. Slowing her steps she debated whether to forego her break and return to her position rather than find herself alone with him.
Hearing a voice, a woman’s voice, she relaxed and entered the room. Cathy, her name tag eliminating any need to remember it, was retrieving a partly filled cup from the machine.
“They must make a fuckin’ fortune from this,” she exclaimed, “it never gives you more than half a cup. Oh sorry about the language, it’s just so annoying,” Cathy continued before smiling and staring at the cup as if willing the extra liquid to suddenly appear before her eyes.
She began to wonder if that was the first time Cathy had spoken to her, she doubted it, but couldn’t recall any other conversations. While she searched in her purse for change Cathy left, obviously taking her drink back to her workstation and leaving her alone in the room. She glanced about nervously and making a quick decision hurried after her, the brightly lit room suddenly taking on a sinister edge.
As she entered the office she heard a voice raised above the clicks of the keyboards.
“Hey, Jessica, we’re signing a petition to get that bloody machine fixed, you want to sign it?”
She walked on until she realised it was her she had addressed. Yes . . . that was her name, Jessica, she’d almost forgotten.
She turned and took the proffered clipboard scribbling her signature under the others, not that it would do any good it had been that way for years. Had she been here for years? She struggled to remember, although she couldn’t recall being anywhere else. Home to office, then back again, had been her life, was her life. Trying to recall anything else was difficult, almost impossible.
What did she do yesterday? Got up, came to work, and then went home. And the day before, the same; and the day before that, same again. As she delved into her memories trying to find something, anything, that didn’t involve work or her small apartment she felt him again. Probing, looking as she was for a small part of her life that was different, an almost forgotten friend or an incident, anything that could give her life meaning, but he was there before her.
Her memories had become like dreams; vague, indistinct, like looking at the world through an opaque window. Movement, light, shadows, all there but impossible to make sense of, until at last they drifted over an imagined horizon and out of reach forever.
The others began shuffling about as the clock ticked towards finishing time, everyone rushing towards a life away from the mundane office, everyone except her. She glanced across the room and saw his head once more just above his monitor and hurried to be part of the exodus. By the time she reached the door his empty chair as she passed caused her to hurry even more to be part of the crowd, safety in numbers.
She had begun to park her car on the public car park rather than the one provided by her employer. That was dark and forbidding and the thought of having to retrieve her car alone, if she was delayed, caused the sweat to bead on her forehead.
It was as she inserted the key into the lock of her aging Ford she knew he was with her once again. Her eyes scanned the car park and the top of a head poking above the roof of a black Volvo confirmed her fears, he was waiting for her. Her keys fell from shaking hands and jangled as they hit the tarmac surface. She was tempted to retrieve them, but to do so she would have to bend down and lose sight of him, she left them and begun to back away between the rows of cars and towards the brightly lit road, and the passersby.
She didn’t hear the car reversing, nor did he see her, until the collision. A once seemingly empty car park was suddenly bustling with a mawkish crowd, eager to offer advice or simply to stare at the prone figure. She opened her eyes slowly, the pain almost causing her to close them again quickly, until she saw him. Partly hidden behind a group of ghoulish onlookers, the top of his head was just visible.
She tried to concentrate on the almost unintelligible words that bounced about inside her head although she wasn’t sure if she was meant to understand the young doctor, or if he was just being polite in keeping her informed. Jessica tried to focus on his lips in order to make some sense of what he was saying but her eyes were distracted, there in the background, behind a low screen, she saw the top of his head. He began to move into view just as the clear contents of a small syringe were pumped slowly into her vein.
Jessica looked around; the blackness that surrounded her was almost complete, but not quite. She felt him, not vague or indistinct this time but beside her, and as she turned the top of his head rose up from the floor until, at last, she was able took into his eyes and he took what remained of Jessica away forever.
STALKER
Icy fingers caressed her spine like a piano player’s would on his keys and she stared over her monitor and around the office. For the past week, or was it two, she was beginning to lose track, she had felt it. A feeling of being watched, not the usual glances inevitably cast about an office, but a sustained stare which bored into her head and began rummaging about in the life stored within the cells of her brain. A sensation of someone invading her memories; exploring, extracting, manipulating them then returning a life already lived, back; but not quite in the correct order. Recollections of events that had once been solid and real began to feel vague and indistinct as if they had happened to someone else, or had been recounted several times, orders changing and meanings lost as they often do over many retellings.
Although she had barely spoken to her fellow workers she knew all of them by sight, the only newcomer being a tall, nondescript man who had joined the firm about a month previously. She had never spoken to him, in fact, she never saw him interact with anyone, but he almost always seemed to be there, sitting in the corner at his terminal, the top of his head just visible over his screen.
She was due a break and in the few seconds it took to retrieve her handbag the head had disappeared and as she glanced across to his cubicle she noticed he had gone. She hesitated; the room housing the coffee machine was at the end of the corridor and, for a moment, felt isolated from the rest of the office. Slowing her steps she debated whether to forego her break and return to her position rather than find herself alone with him.
Hearing a voice, a woman’s voice, she relaxed and entered the room. Cathy, her name tag eliminating any need to remember it, was retrieving a partly filled cup from the machine.
“They must make a fuckin’ fortune from this,” she exclaimed, “it never gives you more than half a cup. Oh sorry about the language, it’s just so annoying,” Cathy continued before smiling and staring at the cup as if willing the extra liquid to suddenly appear before her eyes.
She began to wonder if that was the first time Cathy had spoken to her, she doubted it, but couldn’t recall any other conversations. While she searched in her purse for change Cathy left, obviously taking her drink back to her workstation and leaving her alone in the room. She glanced about nervously and making a quick decision hurried after her, the brightly lit room suddenly taking on a sinister edge.
As she entered the office she heard a voice raised above the clicks of the keyboards.
“Hey, Jessica, we’re signing a petition to get that bloody machine fixed, you want to sign it?”
She walked on until she realised it was her she had addressed. Yes . . . that was her name, Jessica, she’d almost forgotten.
She turned and took the proffered clipboard scribbling her signature under the others, not that it would do any good it had been that way for years. Had she been here for years? She struggled to remember, although she couldn’t recall being anywhere else. Home to office, then back again, had been her life, was her life. Trying to recall anything else was difficult, almost impossible.
What did she do yesterday? Got up, came to work, and then went home. And the day before, the same; and the day before that, same again. As she delved into her memories trying to find something, anything, that didn’t involve work or her small apartment she felt him again. Probing, looking as she was for a small part of her life that was different, an almost forgotten friend or an incident, anything that could give her life meaning, but he was there before her.
Her memories had become like dreams; vague, indistinct, like looking at the world through an opaque window. Movement, light, shadows, all there but impossible to make sense of, until at last they drifted over an imagined horizon and out of reach forever.
The others began shuffling about as the clock ticked towards finishing time, everyone rushing towards a life away from the mundane office, everyone except her. She glanced across the room and saw his head once more just above his monitor and hurried to be part of the exodus. By the time she reached the door his empty chair as she passed caused her to hurry even more to be part of the crowd, safety in numbers.
She had begun to park her car on the public car park rather than the one provided by her employer. That was dark and forbidding and the thought of having to retrieve her car alone, if she was delayed, caused the sweat to bead on her forehead.
It was as she inserted the key into the lock of her aging Ford she knew he was with her once again. Her eyes scanned the car park and the top of a head poking above the roof of a black Volvo confirmed her fears, he was waiting for her. Her keys fell from shaking hands and jangled as they hit the tarmac surface. She was tempted to retrieve them, but to do so she would have to bend down and lose sight of him, she left them and begun to back away between the rows of cars and towards the brightly lit road, and the passersby.
She didn’t hear the car reversing, nor did he see her, until the collision. A once seemingly empty car park was suddenly bustling with a mawkish crowd, eager to offer advice or simply to stare at the prone figure. She opened her eyes slowly, the pain almost causing her to close them again quickly, until she saw him. Partly hidden behind a group of ghoulish onlookers, the top of his head was just visible.
She tried to concentrate on the almost unintelligible words that bounced about inside her head although she wasn’t sure if she was meant to understand the young doctor, or if he was just being polite in keeping her informed. Jessica tried to focus on his lips in order to make some sense of what he was saying but her eyes were distracted, there in the background, behind a low screen, she saw the top of his head. He began to move into view just as the clear contents of a small syringe were pumped slowly into her vein.
Jessica looked around; the blackness that surrounded her was almost complete, but not quite. She felt him, not vague or indistinct this time but beside her, and as she turned the top of his head rose up from the floor until, at last, she was able took into his eyes and he took what remained of Jessica away forever.
