Page 22 - Vol. VII #7

When Warren strolled into the office at a quar- ter till nine, he had no notion that he’d shortly be dead, nor that his demise would come with his pants bunched around his ankles as he sat straining on the toilet. This was the farthest pos- sibility from his mind as he bypassed the eleva- tors and marched up the stairs, as was his custom. Instead, he booted up his computer, whistled a few semi-recognizable bars of some pop song while brewing a cup of coffee in the kitchenette, and
at the stroke of nine—and not one minute soon- er—made his way to the men’s room, for nothing delighted Warren more than the notion of taking a shit on the company’s dime.
This isn’t speculation; he’d said as much himself on more than one occasion. Oversharing was the only language he knew how to speak, a stand-in for any and all forms of acceptable communication. This was tolerated. His decades-long tenure at the company had placed him beyond the reach of both shame and reproach. Even if that weren’t the case, a statement like that sticks—and we’re an observant bunch. It was Nina, ever punctual, who noted from her cubicle that the light in Warren’s office flicked on that morn- ing at the usual time. Roy, another old-timer, VP of something-or-rather, testified to the coffee-making. Longtime colleagues, they chatted about some-
In addition to drinking cups upon cups of the gunk our communal coffeemaker spewed out, Warren was also known for showing up at work with all man- ner of juices and smoothies in hand, purchased from overpriced specialty shops that catered to trendy millennials or else were homemade approximations. They were invariably green and invariably reeked. One time Doreen asked if he had a blended-up fish or two in there, which sent him into doubled-over hysterics, that’s how funny he thought it was. To his credit, his digestive system was truly, exceedingly regular. So much so that it landed him behind the closed door of a stall at the exact moment his brain decided to explode.
thing unimportant. Something lighter than air—the weather or their grandkids’ recent birthdays, their exchange a balloon absentmindedly lobbed back
and forth. Eric from Accounts and Felicia from HR, who were flirting in the kitchenette while the latter toasted a bagel, corroborated this report. When you spend eight-plus hours a day within the confines of the same four windowless walls, picking up on these tidbits is a matter of survival. And so nothing escaped our notice. Nothing, that is, except Warren’s corpse, which remained entirely undisturbed for roughly twelve hours.
More than a few of us must have shared the bath- room with the body over the course of the day. The facilities were dank and dungeon-like, with fluo- rescents that—we’d hazard a guess—hadn’t been replaced in decades. They’d achieved an almost impressive dimness, the twin urinals relegated to the shadows adjacent to the marginally better lit stalls. The real travesty, though, was that no dividers sepa- rated the urinals. Therefore, if one were to enter and find one or the other occupied, unwritten office bath- room etiquette and sheer human decency demanded that he retreat to a stall. If one were to enter and find one urinal and both stalls occupied, well, that gentle- man was out of luck.
An aneurysm, apparently, was the culprit. Not a single warning sign—though he must have been creeping up on sixty, Warren was something of a health nut. It wasn’t unusual for him to call one of us into his office without warning for the express purpose of show- ing off photos from his latest race. He’d pull them up on his iPhone, for which he’d begrudgingly traded in his ancient flip phone just the previous year—some- times 10Ks, other times half marathons, always the same tiny running shorts, the color of tennis balls.
In retrospect, it is now clear that Warren’s passing created a bit of a traffic jam that day as we re- turned from our lunch breaks with full bladders and a mighty need to empty them. As one can imagine, the code of conduct was pushed to its limits. More than a few of us had to redirect to
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the sinks as though we had entered the bathroom with the sole intent of washing our hands, fooling nobody. And we were none the wiser that Warren, stiff, in the earliest stages of decay, was with us. His head probably slumped against the tiled wall. Tongue probably lolling out of his open mouth, contorted in an O of shock. Sure, a few of us no- ticed with mild irritation that the guy in the other stall was taking his sweet time, but that wasn’t
Condolences
They made us all squirm to behold, the twin pale stalks, lightly hairy, protruding from the fluorescent legholes. They seemed to go on and on in unnatural proportion, the legs you’d find on Goliath if only he had a size 30 waist.
allan Spencer