Strange Things Happen in High Places

“Ah!” He yells. I almost collapse out of my chair. A jump scare, really? “Just messing with you, new guy!” He slaps his hands together, heaving a long, giddy sigh. Then he just stands there with a toothy, expectant grin.

“So, uh… when do these green dots stop popping up?” I ask, regretting it instantly.

“They don’t.”

“Oh.” I look at my screen while chewing on my fingernails, not that there is much left to chew. “Well-” I look back to him, but he’s disappeared. “Finally.”

“How many souls did you transfer so far, new guy?” Eyebrows shouts from his cubicle. Ding. “I had sixty-seven on my first day!”

“I’m sorry, d-did you say soul transfers?” I shout back.

“Yeah,” Eyebrows’ lifts his head above our wall. His face is straight for the first time. He nods up to the right. My eyes follow the gesture to a sign. Office of Soul Transfers. “Didn’t you pay attention in the training? I mean, you were there for twelve hours.”

“Uhh.” My eyes won’t leave the sign. “I-I did. I mean I thought I did.”

“That’s normal,” he says. “Lots of people are too engrossed in the cockles of the heart to pay attention. The internal, life-after-death monologue,” he drones, always looking around when he’s talking. “Thoughts of ‘Where am I? What happened to me? Am I dead? What about my wife?’ That sort of thing. That’s why they put you-know-who on training. She really knows how to grab your attention.” His eyebrows flicker toward a corner of the office. “She’s just so nice.” His lips creep upward briefly, before he catches himself and narrows his gaze. “Sometimes too nice.”

I want to rise out of my chair and look toward the woman he is referring to, someone who spent twelve hours training me on things I can’t remember, but my gaze is drawn to my empty ring finger. A strange knot forms inside my chest. “I don’t think I have a wife.” I wipe my forehead, expecting sweat, but there’s nothing there. I stare at my dry hand, then shove it awkwardly into my lap and look back up at Eyebrows for a snide comment. His bulbous head is gone from my eyeline, though his not-too-distant grunts tell me it won’t be for long.

In the middle of trying to roll himself and his chair into my cubicle, the wheels buckle. “This shotty thing, goddamnit!” His roars are directed in a very particular direction. One that is not mine, but toward someone far more important and certainly in charge of office chair replacement. He finally gives up and stands, but when the chair sticks to his hips, he loses it, and begins uncontrollably vibrating his body to break free. I can hardly watch. The poor chair never had a chance. And just when I didn’t think it could get any worse, Eyebrows suplexes it to the ground and smashes it into a hundred pieces. “You’d think someone who has been diligent and successful in this office for the past seven decades could at least get a decent sitting apparatus!”