White Noise
Not all damage is loud.
The fluorescent lights flashed on suddenly, awakening me in the rudest of ways. Normally something softer interrupts my morning; the hum of the janitor’s vacuum on the lower floors rising up to ours, a faint cab honking in the distance, or (my preferred alarm clock) the warm sun cascading through the horizon-facing wide windows. All of these would have been preferrable of course, however something must have exhausted me the previous day because I was out so hard that the first interaction of my morning was instead the abrupt awakening of someone entering our floor. I checked the clock, seeing the hands spell out 6:26am, and immediately knew who had turned on the lights. Felicia. Like the hands that so stalwartly wind around the round cage of numbers on the wall, Felicia was indeed like clockwork. Every weekday morning, a hair before 6:30am, Felicia and her expensive-looking brown briefcase purposefully and dutifully stomped into the office as if on a mission. She always had the same Starbuck’s order in her left hand, a head full of wild red curly hair tamed gracefully into submission, and was always the first one in the door. If she had ever missed a day of work before, it must have been before my time. She walked with an air of elegance combined with confident anger, and if I was a gambler I’d bet it all that she came from old family money. Her aura exuded a life of privilege, and an awareness of her talents. After turning on all the lights on the 19th floor, she slides into her seat by 6:30am sharp every morning, sipping her regular coffee order silently and flipping through spreadsheets contentedly.
I tried to glare at her in retaliation of my rude awakening, but alas, no dice. I know I can’t, but then of course the glimmer of hope always ends up bubbling inside me here and there, to bring about another pathetic, valiant effort every once in awhile all the same. I huffed to myself and gurgled the frustration away, observing from afar as I always do, the morning’s all-too-predictable routines. Next would be Emmett.
Opposite of Felicia’s steely cool demeanor, Emmett was always more…..disheveled. I can’t personally fathom the man has ever owned a hairbrush, and his always-wrinkled brown paper bag lunches were the stark contrast to Felicia’s sleek briefcase and trendy steel bento-style food container within. Emmett always entered flustered, hurriedly, with his bicycle helmet tucked under one arm, and despite always being one of the earliest arrivals to the office, he constantly gave the air of being the last one frantically rushing into the room.
Next in our arrivals lineup was always Bill. There wasn’t anything remarkable about Bill, name included, and much like his usual ham-and-cheese-on-white lunches, he really blended into the beige wallpaper surrounding the room full of computers. It wasn’t mean to say, honestly. It was just….well….Bill. Married for 30-something years, always on time, same lunch every day, and never made a fuss. Even his job as finance auditor constantly perusing numbers peacefully as if they were a good book, was something that helped him to fade into the background as the other’s bustled around him. Bill had exactly 5 ties, and wore them on the same day of the week, every week. If he ever made anyone cry, or yelled a curse word in his life I would be absolutely floored.
Bill, Emmett and Felicia were kind of a package deal in my mind, opening the office almost simultaneously together every morning before all the others. I called them the “Early Birds,” and they were the one thing soothingly reliable about the place, the way they each arrived at the same dependable times every morning, barely greeted each other with a simple “Mornin’,” or “Hey There!” and seemed to have an air of understanding between them as they each went about their day, that they were all in this together. I’d quite often spot the inconspicuous knowing smile and slight head nod sent to one another at random times throughout the day, amidst the noise and flurry of everyone else. But my favorite thing, and perhaps the most confusing thing about the Early Bird Trio, was that they actually never really spoke to each other. They said the standard polite greeting as each of the early morning three arrived of course, and the acknowledging smiles and head nods were quite common. They even sat together at a small circular table at lunch, but all the while they never really spoke. The three shared a comfortable, familial silence that they all understood and craved inside the chaotic corporate bubble that was their day-to-day. I would watch them often, in fact they were my favorite show, and the quiet commonality that linked them all despite how outwardly different they were, was mesmerizing. Felicia was steely, hard working, cutthroat, and oozed leadership. Elliott was young, clumsy, messy, and warm. Bill was much older than the both of them, sturdy, shy, and a man of constant predictable routine. But somehow, the 3 of them knew each other in silence, and grew that bond every morning as they preceded their coworkers and flipped on the office lights.
After those 3 usual suspects, everyone else usually came pouring in around the same clump of time right before that ever-looming 8am deadline, and my once calm, peaceful, nightly sanctuary quickly became a bustling, noisy, chaotic blend of voices, staples slamming, phones ringing, and doors opening and closing in quick succession. Here we were now - the day had officially begun.
Amongst all the chaos and noise, the daytime familiarity of this place offered a louder routine I could usually key in on, one almost as equally predictable as the softer, slower morning. I frustratingly miss out on anything past cubicle 5 because of the loss of sight and sound past that distance, but the key players in my area of access have their typical habits. Felicia and Bill as it happens, sit right in front of me at cubicles 1 and 4. 2, 3, and 5 were Emmett, Gwen, and Peter. Luckily, reception was to the left of cubicle 1, and I could usually see and hear snippets from there as well. I would kill to know what happens beyond my prison where those mysterious sights, sounds, and goings-on occur without me, but of course that’s an impossible daydream too. I can’t kill.
Today was like every other weekday; a flurry of business-casual-dressed men and women fluttering about, exacting tasks at hand to culminate in a full 8-hour day away from where they really wanted to be. Conference rooms would be reserved, faxes would be sent, documents would be printed, and phones answered. But none of it really seemed to do anything from what I could tell. It fascinated me to watch the hubbub though. I loved it, thrived off of the excitement of it all, and it always reminded me of mice, scurrying about quickly, changing direction at any given moment to avoid detection. Now I was clearly no expert, but if I had to pick an animal I wanted my business to emulate, it sure wouldn’t be mice. It would be ants. Lining up calmly, perfectly, in a row or an organized huddle, working together to ultimately execute a task 10-50x their weight and capabilities. But hey, I certainly wasn’t in charge.
Yes, everything seemed very urgent, but I couldn’t ever see what the actual outcome was. Despite the frantic slamming of phone receivers onto their cradle, the manic scratching of pens onto those small square yellow pads, and the multitude of meetings that seemed to occur, I had yet to figure out yet what it all really meant.
As I watched the mice (I mean people) scuffle about executing their seemingly fruitless tasks, it finally happened: the first Visit. The Visits don’t actually come as infrequently as you’d think, but I was greedy and always itched for more. They felt rare to me still, watching and listening from afar wasn’t ever enough and I craved more Visits, always. I’d shimmy and itch and vibrate (god I wish, but no - figuratively speaking of course) waiting and yearning for someone to put down their phone or their pen, and walk my way. It became a bit of a game to me, guessing how many would come Visit that day, what they would do and say, and getting disappointed each time when less people than what I desired would come, or the conversation was absurdly dull. I did observe however, that amidst all the bedlam here, it doesn’t take much time for someone to readily want to take a break.
My first Visit today was from one of my regulars. Pepper was the receptionist here and was everything you’d expect a front-facing employee to be: scrappy, upbeat, bubbly, and excessively talkative. Usually when people come to see me, the conversation flows around fairly consistent topics: what someone’s partner, kids, or family are up to, what they did last weekend, what they did last night, who bumbled their words during the most recent client presentation, and so on and so forth. And the weather. Oh god, the weather. I’ve come to observe that when people who occupy a space and have nothing meaningful to say to each other find themselves in such a situation - they always talk about the weather. “I wish the snow started melting already,” or “can you believe it rained last night?” said in high octaves like they are expelling the most surprising observations of all time, things no one has ever said before. The emphasis and expression behind weather conversations are something I have never understood, it must be a commonality among mice that soothes the awkward silences in-between the useless chatter.
However, on this fateful morning it wasn’t blabber about the snow, rain, or traffic. I was about to learn that Pepper had come with some very different news. She had in fact, come to inadvertently drop a bomb. Albeit, she had no idea how big of a bomb she would implode.
“Hey, Pat! How’s it hanging?” Pepper always led with this, it was her staple and I suspect she thought it made her sound far more cool than a corporate front desk person ought to sound on any given day. Pat was the newest intern, only here for a couple of weeks, and I had absolutely no idea who he was (or any of the interns) outside of that, seeing as how their communal intern table was far outside my allotted purview. Interns never really seemed to stay long here, with a new face that people tagged as “intern” always popping up in my neighborhood every month or so. I suspected the combination of relentless exhaustive activity for activities sake, combined with the lack of outcome that my already astute observation skills had identified, might be the culprit. Those that already planned on not staying long-term to begin with, seemed to sniff out the inefficacy of it all pretty quickly and move on to whatever was outside of those sunrise-warmed windows, within a short amount of time.
“Eh. It’s hanging.” Pat The Intern replied. His voice was rougher than I originally assumed, and I wasn’t used to his presence in my area, he was very new and replaced the last intern (Gerry? I can’t remember, he never took too many breaks and as such never really partook in Visits). Much like his predecessor he never Visited, just exacted his tasks robotically. Thus, his voice jarred me a little, which honestly was pretty annoying after the already abrupt awakening I had this morning after sleeping in and waking up to Felicia’s way-too-steadfast fluorescent wake up.
“Yeah I feel you. I need more caffeine fast, this morning's usual cup wasn’t near enough.”
"I’ve been trying to cut back,” Pat retorted, “I average 3 before noon.”
Ugh. This was the typical droll I was subjected to daily. At least it wasn’t people droning on and on about the weather like it usually is, but equally as boring. I started to zone out a bit until I heard that sentence, the one that launched the something that would ultimately change everything.
“Well, Patrick! I just heard something that’s better than a crummy 3rd cup of coffee! But you must swear not to say a thing!” Pepper’s demeanor was different; inflated, excited. She had something juicy, I could tell.
“Well, sign me up,” Pat replied. “What’s going on?” Pepper instantly leaned in and switched over to a more covert hushed voice.
“I heard that Felicia had herself quite a weekend….Kim said that Joe said that he saw her out at O’Shea’s Friday night after work, and her and Emmett were sitting together pounding drinks all night! Apparently, they were there ‘till last call, and Joe saw them leave together! But you know, Felicia has a fiancée don’t you? I’ve talked to him myself up front on the phone, he called one time to let her know she left her cell at their apartment! Scandalous, really! I Googled him after he called that one time and he’s actually the son of Alan Gratien! You know, the real estate tycoon? Richer than god. And on top of that, the fiancée is a finance bro, not like he needs the money, but he works at Walter & Walter as a financial advisor! I totally online stalked him once I saw who his father was. Bet he’s bringing home at least 3 times what you and I make, to throw on top of that big pile of family money he already has. Can you imagine cheating on him for………..Emmett?”
At that moment both Pat and Pepper looked over silently to the desk next to Felicia. Emmett sat in his typical disheveled manner, with his ruffled-up hair askew, one collar turned upward, and mindlessly chewing the cap of an office pen. Pat and Pepper looked at each other. “Yeaahhh that’s not a bad point,” Pat responded. “He’s no finance bro, that’s for sure.”
“Right? Yeah, I mean I can’t imagine. But it’s quite the scandal! You know Patrick, there’s a strict anti-office dating policy, I mean you have to sign it when you’re hired! I always knew they had a weird vibe together, sitting next to each other and all, but my god I just can’t believe they had the balls to do it!” Pepper was almost frothing at the mouth.
By lunchtime it was very clear that every single person in the office knew. Pepper had made her rounds, and Pat had Visited 3 more times to share the news amongst the others himself, clearly excited about being the first to have such a prime piece of juicy dirt to share. I had never seen anyone pay this much attention to Emmett before, usually too involved in their own noise to cast glances towards his cubicle. The Visits to me had increased tenfold as well, which always signified something was going on that was worth gossiping about. That was the best part about my imprisonment: people came to me when it was time to take a break and gossip. Everyone was abuzz with Pepper’s news, whispering fervently around me about Felicia and Emmett’s unexpected tryst at O’Shea’s, the local dive bar around the corner from the office (I of course, had never been, but O’Shea’s was referenced often during Visits). Felicia, ever engrossed in the work that clearly validated her internally, barely seemed to notice but Emmett clued in right away, it must be hard not to with a larger-than-usual crowd around me and the repeated glances in his direction. He looked nervous, fidgety, and couldn’t stop looking up to meet the stares he was getting from his coworkers in my midst.
The next day, Emmett wasn’t one of the early birds as he normally always was. In fact, come 8am deadline time he still wasn’t there. And now Felicia wasn’t…….well, wasn’t really “Felicia.” She came earlier than the others yes, but late for Felicia standards, with Bill beating her into the office by at least 5 minutes. She was embodying more of an Emmett-esque demeanor as well, with her normally-perfectly-coiffed-red-curly-hair showing obvious signs of distress with flyway's escaping her updo, all over her head. There was no usual Starbucks order in her left hand, as though she no longer cared to be fully awake. She was also wearing her glasses, which I knew she owned but never really saw on her except for one day last November when she came in clearly ill, and with them on. Every other day it’s contacts, always. She was clearly distracted, and hid out at her desk all day, with barely a trip to the bathroom and certainly avoiding a Visit to me, not with so many looky-loo’s around. She was flustered and quiet, and not commanding any presence in the room. Something was clearly wrong.
The amount of news grew that day too. What was first the two of them closing down a bar, was now a months-long affair that resulted in blatant favoritism (apparently Felicia passed over another employee and gifted her secret lover Emmett with a partner-level project instead), and the betrayal of Felicia’s fiancée, who after a more thorough Google search done by an intern, it turns out is the cousin of the company founder/owner, Alice. This, based on the rousing rounds of conversations I listened to during the day’s escalated number of Visits, was incredibly scandalous. If Felicia’s fiancée found out about the internal affair with an employee that she supervises, his cousin and him would drop the hammer on the whole thing. Everyone was worried about what would happen if and when Alice found out.
The rest of the week the rumors flew rapidly, swirling around the office like music flowing out of a speaker and gracefully making it’s way around the room, eventually landing right in front of me during the Visits. Excited whispers everywhere with the words “affair,” “scandalous,” “fiancée,” “how long?” and “fireable offense” swirling around me. I had never been more thankful before for how entirely central my role and location played to office gossip. I was the hub, the home for this type of thing, and I had known this all along of course but never experienced it on this level. I was buzzing with excitement! We had never had a scandal of this magnitude before, which means I had never gotten this much attention before, with the prior biggest impropriety being when Peter got too drunk at the Christmas party and sang Britney’s Spears’ “Hit Me Baby One More Time.” And that was just everyone laughing about the instance without any real fallout. From what Gwen said to Pepper this morning at one of the big group Visits, both Felicia and Emmett could lose their jobs if HR found out, bare minimum. But the dramatic after-effect of it all held limitless possibilities. Especially with Felicia’s fiancée being related to Alice.
Things carried on about the same from there, with Visits at an all time high, and absolutely everyone talking about the big affair, day in and day out. Felicia continued to show up in her worrisome disheveled appearances, and Emmett finally showed back up but kept his head down and literally spoke to no one, very adamantly avoiding looking at or walking directly by Felicia’s desk. The more people talked, the more Emmett retreated into his shell and Felicia became further and further unkempt. The degradation of who they once were was staggering to witness, akin to watching a unicorn slowly and painfully shed it’s vibrant white skin only to ooze into an old, brown, downtrodden work horse at the end of it all. They were shells of who they once were, and their previous similarity to mice disturbingly changed to the fear and flittering aspect of the creatures, rather than the productive busyness they once emulated before. As the whispers grew, the subjects shrank. As the subjects shrank, the whispers grew louder, more vibrant and alive, and more details were pulled from their withering ashes. I heard of a “love child brewing,” or that Emmett had actually insisted it get “taken care of before,” I heard that Emmett had a girlfriend who he brutally dumped in order to be with Felicia instead, and that the aforementioned love child’s father was a toss up between Emmett and her fiancée. I watched a once tall, poised, confident woman crumble. I saw a happy, carefree man wither away into a tiny, empty shell. I saw everyone whir and buzz around them, blissfully entertained and feeding off their draining energy.
I realized someone was missing. Bill never Visited, never before and I never expected him to in the future. Bill always went about his day, his routine, stuck to his job at hand, and never gossiped. The only break he ever took was his silent lunch chewing alongside his 2 fellow Early Birds. Thankfully his desk sat next to Felicia, and within my eyesight and earshot so I could keep tabs. I watched him, as he went about his day. You wouldn’t ever know anything else was going on around him. He paid no mind to the hive buzzing around him, the wilting flower in cubicle 1 across from him, or the empty frayed man in cubicle 2 next to him. He kept his head down, and did his work. He wore the same designated tie each day during the week. He ate his ham-and-cheese-on-white alone at his usual small circular table for lunch, because of course Felicia and Emmett no longer ate lunch these days, and they would rather get hit by a car at this point than be seen near each other anyway. Bill read his spreadsheets like Felicity used to, contentedly. If you hadn’t known they had been friends, you would have been convinced the 3 of them never met in their life. It didn’t feel malicious to me though. He just didn’t care to participate, seemingly unaffected. He had more important things to tackle. I don’t know why this unnerved me so. It scared me, made feel as though I never knew anyone at all, or at least not as well as I thought. Despite spending my whole life watching (always watching), and observing, and inherently learning who I thought people were. As much as I saw, I realized I didn’t actually see anything. I didn’t know anything anymore.
Finally, one day it happened. It all came crashing down.
6:26am. Then the clock kept winding. 6:32am. I had been keeping an eye on things, and the buzzing hive had made sure of that - I didn’t sleep in this morning, I was awake well before Felicia time, and waiting for her to come. 6:35am. I started getting nervous. She had never been this late before. By the time Emmett came rushing in (becoming the office pariah didn’t stop him from his hectic-despite-being-on-time demeanor), I was officially worried. He noticed too. When he walked into the office and the lights were still off I could see his body tense up. He looked around frantically, shuffled to her desk, and I saw panic on his face. He rushed to the front entry door and accidentally almost ran into Bill. The two of them exchanged frantic words, ones I would kill to hear (what a luxury that would be). Later the masses started bustling in and I lost everything in the shuffle. The Visits I once craved more of were now far too big, loud, and frequent, and I couldn’t pay attention to the cubicles in my vicinity and what they were doing or saying, amidst the noise of the crowd discussing everything they could. They drowned out everything else, and I was for the first time ever in my entire existence, wishing for less Visits.
The chatter quickly went to Felicia’s obvious absence, and at this point I was surprised to learn that the repetitive musings of the Felicia and Emmett saga had started to bore me more than useless statements about the weather. The hive wasn’t worried. They weren’t concerned. They were excited, hyped up and entertained. 3 cups of coffee wouldn’t have created this much energy. They were feeding off of each other, generating more and more gossip, rumors, heat. Why didn’t they care where she was?
Later that day, a suit appeared at Pepper’s desk. They whispered something to her that made her neck snap, her head pop up, and her face get stone cold. It was then that I knew.
It all happened pretty quickly from there. Someone from HR came down, not to fire two secret lovers, but to tell everyone that Felicia passed away in her home the night before. She was only 35. Taken her own life while the fiancée was working late. He had never heard of Emmett, or any secret love affair before.
Emmett never showed back up the next day, or the next. Peter was in the room when HR told Alice of Emmett’s absence, and he told Pat, who told Pepper, who told……..everyone. Emmett wasn’t coming back, quit overnight. Months later Pepper would hear from a friend outside the office that he moved away and took a lower-level job in his hometown - an obvious personal demotion.
Bill kept being Bill, every day with his ham-and-cheese-on-white sandwiches and his reliably scheduled ties, until his wife called one day to tell leadership that Bill had passed from a heart attack at 61. He never missed a day, never shed a tear, and up until that last day he kept sitting at the same lonely circular table all by himself at lunch. No one else ever dared take up the 2 empty seats beside him.
At first the hive remained, Visiting me en masse, daily. The conversation continued with bubbly, energetic excitement, speculating on how Felicia did it (did mice really speak this way?), if she left a note mentioning Emmett, if there was a baby inside of her when she passed, how much Emmett made at his new lesser-than job, if he spoke to her fiancée before he moved, and even a rumor that Alice orchestrated Felicia’s final moments. It made me ill.
I was heartbroken, bored, angry and petulant. I wanted to kick, scream, shove, yell and push them, yank their jaws open and pour 3 cups of flaming hot coffee into all their ever-moving mouths. What I once yearned for I now despised. I used to itch for more people, beg for more talking to listen to, and pray silently, desperately, for company. Now I hated it. I wanted to lower the volume, turn off the mouths, and scream out against the sounds of staplers slamming. I had never known a prison like this before, despite being trapped my whole life. To be front row to the celebration of the degradation of a human being, ones I considered my friends, was something that made my stomach curl.
I went mad. I groaned, I gurgled, I ached, and screamed silently at myself to “move dammit!” Move, leave this place that I used to find so peaceful and full of routine. But I couldn't. Of course I couldn’t. I couldn’t kick, scream, yell, move, or leave. Never. So I sat. Boiling and stewing in anger and cursing the slowly dwindling crowds around me until I seeped into total and complete numbness.
Time passed.
I don’t know how long it was. When I once wanted to be a part of it all, immersed in the hustle, I spent the last however-long amount of time tuning everything out. I didn’t feel, I didn’t think. Not about anything but cubicles 1 and 2. They now had strangers faces sitting at them, whose names I didn’t care to know. I was surprised at how fast the new faces popped up in those cubicles. I had lost all sense of time, but it couldn’t have been longer than 2 weeks. The mice were replaced before I considered the bodies cold.
The numbness helped. I let it ooze over and cover every inch of me, happily. New faces seemed to flow into the room sporadically. I hated them all. I never knew who arrived first in the morning or who left last at night anymore. I knew no ones routine. I didn’t care to remember anyone’s names, their friends, or eating habits. I didn’t care about any of it anymore. And slowly, peacefully, Visits became as rare as they were before it all.
Time passed again.
Finally, my space became silent once more.
Then, I don’t know or care when, but I was interrupted in my daydreaming. Suddenly, like a florescent light snapping on and interrupting a deep, warm sleep, I was jolted into the moment in front of me, by a sentence that jarred me out of my voluntary stupor.
“Jackie! Jackie, oh my god I just heard something insane!”
I glanced up, for the first time in a long time, focusing on the person before me. He was tall, lean, and exuded an amount of energetic excitement that I found particularly annoying at this stage of my life. This ‘Jackie,’ was across from him, both of them standing in my designated space designed for this kind of thing. I knew no one’s face or job title anymore, and blankly stared at these two strangers in my midst.
“What’s hanging?” Jackie shot back happily. She seemed awake, alive, more so than I had been in so long. I hated it. Perhaps she was a 3 cup of coffee kind of woman. Before I could comprehend what was going on, I heard the response back.
“Did you hear about David and Rachel? It is absolutely insane! Apparently they’ve been leaving the office together at the end of the day, every day for the last week! Kevin said he heard that they…….”
A spine-tingling sense of dread trickled through me.
I gasped. But I can’t gasp. I tried to run, but I can’t run. I screamed bloody murder until I couldn’t breathe……..but I can’t do that either. I cried, painfully, until I felt a searing cramping pain inside of me begging me to stop. But I couldn’t stop. I shook, convulsed, I raged and wept. I longed to leap out of those warm sunshine-filled windows and feel freedom and movement for the first time in my whole existence. I hated it here, in my sanctuary that woke me with rumblings of familiar vacuums in the morning, and soothed me with routine that was clock-like in it’s rhythm. I hated them. The now nameless, faceless mice that never seemed to stop moving, talking, whispering, wriggling, buzzing. Surrounded by people, I’ve never felt so helpless, so stuck, and so alone.
Because this was it, this was me. This is all that I ever was. All that I ever would be. No one saw me. No one noticed me. They would do this hateful dance in front of me again and again, never stopping, never ceasing. The endless pain of watching the mice dance would never slow, not for me, no matter how much I begged.
Because of what I am: a simple, plastic, blue water cooler to the corporate masses. Tucked away in front of cubicles 1, 2, 3, and 4. Partially viewed by the front desk. A radiating light for those needing a break. A place to Visit. Never seen, always seeing, taking them in. A witness to a lived life full of motion and interaction, one I never had the option of being a part of. An overlooked item among a sea of everyday accessories. No more important than a stapler.
I would be forgotten soon. Then ignored by another wave of people rushing about their day. Over, and over, and over again, a never-ending, routine of sadness watching what I can’t have, while those lucky, evil mice whisper away about one another, all around me. Looking right through my old, plastic walls. Forever.