This world is full of imaginative people. Pick one to shine through a
prism.
This quote was said to him in a dream once. It appeared to him four times this week. He thinks it is telling him something but before he can make anything out of it, like all of his dreams, it grew dark too quickly.
His name is Charles and he works at the glamorous Falsamort Towers - as if the name didn’t look ugly already. Charles works as an ordinary accountant. His cubicle is in the left far corner of the fifteenth floor, which is full of fifteen other cubicles, just like his. Charles wipes off the bits of scrambled eggs that had fallen on one of his balance sheets from lunchtime, into the garbage next to the window. While there, he looks out. The orange sun is looming over the busy city. Charles follows one of the innocuous sun’s rays into a window of a tall apartment building. “Oh?” thinks Charles as he looks around briefly in unfortunate confirmation. The woman Charles is looking at is no stranger to him, though they both act like strangers to each other when they are in the company of fellow businessmen. He looks over at the clock on his desk, which is unorganized with papers lying everywhere. Six thirty. She would be home by now. But Charles had chosen to stay late that night. Pity.
Her name is Tiffany, or Tiff as Charles calls her. She is the red-dressed receptionist among the hairy filthy men. Although she is independent, she represses herself at times. The fact that she is the only female in Charles’s work place creates a little tension in her work place. Tiffany knows this and it is always in her mind, under the veneer of indifference, as when she walks with deliberate footing, or when she photocopies papers knowing and not minding the fact that she is keeping up the line, or when she enjoys her salad and orange juice in front of the other men having their slobby meaty sandwiches on white bread, drinking sodas (and occasional beers). Nevertheless, she is silent most of the time.
Charles is not the brightest accountant on the fifteenth floor. He follows orders and that’s all. He does just enough work that needs to be done – not because he is lazy, but because that’s all he can do. Imprisoned by a somewhat round belly, Charles usually has a stain on his dull patterned tie from any condiments he might have used that day.
He is not married, and neither is Tiffany.
At work, they no longer talk to each other in front of other workers, unless they have to – in which case their brief conversation would be over something as non-important as their work. He still sees her though at certain times during the workday; they just don’t know when the other is leaving to go home, unless they have eye contact beforehand. Then they just know. The wonderful thing about eye contact is that it has its subtleties. The eyes imply and you must infer.
Charles was already working at the Falsamort Towers when Tiffany arrived as the new receptionist. Charles had been working there for a long time and Tiffany was just another freshman – no, fresh-woman. But it seemed, now, that it is the other way around, if one were to assume a Darwinian work place. Tiffany knows her way around the office. She knows the preferences of different men: Albert Whineback likes his messages sent to him through email, not phone while Fred Oirion loves to hear his messages streaming out of his office phone, but nevertheless does not mind receiving them through email. Tiffany knows how to work the photocopy machine and even how to fix it whenever it is remiss from its photocopying duties – as when Curt jammed it by accident because he wanted the papers to come out faster.
Charles is still at the bottom of this workplace food chain, a rather corrupt ecosystem than balanced one; and he doesn’t mind not changing his status, among the devouring men, who are competing to be the best, the winner. And yet Charles feels like he is at the top now-a-days.
____________________________
Tiffany and Charles’s relationship developed from a series of glances; that’s how it started out at first. Whenever Charles came into work, Tiffany greeted him with flashy morning eyes, from the front desk. Whenever he left his desk to get an occasional free breakfast bagel, she caught his eyes as she and Charles reached for the same one. Whenever he looked back just before entering the men’s bathroom – just out of curiosity – her eyes flitted over to his. Even at his desk; whenever he stood up to stretch, his eyes half-open in conjunction with a yawn, he would find her eyes magically appearing in his field of vision. Or was it always his eyes that ran to her?
Their relationship grew more intimate once they started having lunch together and getting to know each other.
One fall noon they had lunch out at a restaurant-bar. They knew the other men wouldn’t go there because they would usually go to the other, alpha-male bar on the opposite side of the Falsamort Towers. This divergence of lunch places, as if they were designated, only made more prominent the separation between Tiffany and Charles, and the rest of the beastly businessmen
“I’m sure none of them is here, Tiff.” Charles was eating a beef burger with a cold beer. He looked over at Tiffany. Her eyes were busy scoping the restaurant-bar for any sign of their co-workers.
“Just making sure.” Tiffany replied while settling down. Her soup was getting cold.
“Can you imagine what they’ll say if they saw us together?” Charles chuckled in his high-pitched voice; almost like that of a wimp.
“I like the secrecy.”
“Me too.”
______________________________
Over the past two months, Charles had been coming over to Tiffany’s apartment after work. Sometimes she would leave the office earlier than Charles. Sometimes they would leave at the same time. But Charles would never go directly to her apartment, nor would he ever walk with her there. That was a mutual agreement, between him and Tiffany, to protect their secret, sacred intimacy.
During those nights in her apartment, they would eat dinner together, filling up their lustful stomachs with whatever they felt like eating, plus wine. Wine was a must. Candles were a must. Afterward they would relax on the sofa watching some mindless television, holding each other’s hand, snuggling together, not really paying attention to what they were watching, or not watching. One stormy night, the television shut off unexpectedly. The storm had caused a temporary blackout in her apartment that lasted the whole night and ran into the wee hours. But Charles and Tiffany didn’t need flashlights; they had candles. Seeing that the television was not working, they migrated to her bedroom for the night.
The next day at work, they both had a little skip in their step. That had been their first night.
________________________________
The seasons were passing by without any suspicion of the relationship that was growing, quite rebelliously, between Charles and Tiffany. Their little secret was a thriving undercurrent inside of them that kept them going throughout the days. They continued to speak with their eyes, during the work day. And they were getting good at it too; they knew each other’s expressions like they knew their childhood and all of their past before meeting each other – before the Falsamort Towers – except that was then and this is now. Now they are living.
One of the reasons why their relationship did not show under the radar of the other workers was because of the image of Charles and Tiffany together; it was as if one were looking at a picture displaying an old grandmother and a macho football player. Simply put, they were complete opposites. Tiffany was beautiful. She had a seducing affect over other men that she was indifferent to, expect for the affect she had on Charles, which was not exactly seducing.
It was more appreciative, platonic but not entirely; for, if it were platonic, it would be an imperfect kind at best. No, they were both aware of their implicit sensuality and they did not say anything about it. Their love was an “in-betweener.” They just looked at each other and felt each other’s presence, their minds always landing on the same downbeat. It was a balance or a parallel dance brought on by the two in silent agreement. Outsiders were not welcomed and were thought of as threats to their kingdom of intimacy.
__________________________________
One day at work, the manager of their branch, Mr. Marplotski, asked Tiffany if she could bring in a radio. It was the holiday season and Mr. Marplotski wanted to help bring out a cheery mood. Tiffany’s radio was surprisingly old-fashioned (the unsophisticated kind of old-fashioned) for her taste. Or was it her taste? Her radio was bulky and she could just barely put it in the trunk of her car. A security guard helped her bring it into the building and into the elevator to go to the fifteenth floor everyday of that season. She did not want to leave it in the office for fear of it being stolen. Just as she needed help bringing it in, she also needed help taking it back to her car at the end of the day. Charles was there for the job and he did not mind helping her bring it to her car. Most days he did not even notice he was carrying a radio, much like when some people do not realize they are wearing glasses; the glasses became part of them.
_____________________________
The wind blew wet snow against Tiffany’s face, with foreboding force, as she heaved the radio out from the trunk of her car one drab morning, to bring into the office. What was foreboding about the force? It was like a white-lashing warning. Tiffany just wiped it off as she entered the building and allowed the security guard to carry her radio into the elevator for her.
No one else was on the elevator that morning except Charles. With his brown coat soaking wet from the pelting snow, he glanced over at Tiffany and smiled. “Good morning, Tiff.”
“I’ve had better ones. Ugh, I’m such a mess.”
“You look fine.” Charles lied. She was a mess: her make-up smeared all over her face and she had sludge all over her high-heels. With red-knuckles, she loosened her grip on the radio and let it sit on the floor of the elevator. Charles watched her. “I had a great time last night.”
“Shh! Charles, not here!”
“But we’re in the elevator; no one’s here! And you know how slow it takes to get to our floor. Anyway,” Charles looked at her attire. The intricacy of the jabots running down her red, dirtied blouse that morning reminded him of the same-styled ruffles that lined the bed skirt of her bed. Hesitantly, Charles asked, “you enjoyed last night, right?”
“Of course I did! I always do.” Charles looked at her face, at her eyes. Yes, she had a wonderful time last night. Delighted with this deduction, he leaned over and gave a quick kiss on her cheek.
She blushed and giggled.
“Okay.” She sighed in self-complying surrender. With one hand leaning on his bulging stomach, covered up in an already stained, unsophisticated collared shirt, she reached up and returned one just the same.
A couple of seconds passed without a word. Silence was their comfort. Then suddenly, a bubbling doubt reached the surface of Charles’s mind. “Hey Tiff, you don’t think anyone—“
“No, of course not … right?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Yeah, me neither. No.”
“I just feel like,” Charles knew what to say. He just could not find the words. Speaking was a whole different language from that of the eyes. “I feel like … like … what we have … .” Tiffany looked at his eyes. Instead of looking at her, his eyes were staring at the elevator door, reaching far-away, futuristic, hidden places, like deep, deep into his mind or his heart. He could not tell the difference, now, between his mind and his heart, because the secret nature of their relationship had entangled them – like when people get lost or wrapped up in the pages of an intriguing novel. The words mess them up, but they find pleasure and meaning in that.
“I love it too,” was all Tiffany said.
“I just don’t want to loose it.”
“Me neither.”
The bell in the elevator rang loudly and crisply, bringing them back to an office surrounding: the smell of freshly brewed coffee and the soft, dull sound of heavy penny-loafers carelessly pounding on the rugged floor. It was as if the bell were snapping them out of a reverie in which they had been too comfortable. The elevator moved more slowly than usual that morning.
Oddly enough, the whole work day felt slow to both Charles and Tiffany, like a passing comet in the night sky: from far away, it looks like it is moving very slowly; almost not at all, as if anything can happen and one would not notice it because he or she would be blinded by its slowness. However, up-close, things were moving at light speed. That is how the rest of the savage businessmen felt whenever Charles helped bring the radio to Tiffany’s car. “Wow, it’s already the end of the day,” said one of the other workers one day when he saw Charles and Tiffany out of the window, with the radio. Perhaps something finally showed up under the other workers’ radar – a comet.
The heavy, pelting snow was suffocating.
“Don’t forget about the Christmas party this afternoon, after work. Here, in the office. Tiffany, I want you to set up the decorations. Everybody else; did you all bring your foods? There will be music and dancing!” Mr. Marplotski announced this to all the workers with the most cheerful voice he can conjure up and with good intention. A buzz went around the office with the excitement of what was to follow after work. There was even a buzz in Charles and Tiffany: their glances towards each other were not as subtle as they usually were, rather they were more careless in this anticipatory ferment. Careless of what? Well, no one is perfect; but, mistakes can hurt and beget regret.
The businessmen and Tiffany were about to start the mini-dance. That comprised fifteen men, one manager (also a man) and one woman. The question was who was going to dance with the lady – unless of course everyone would rather dance separately. However, this was not the case. The dance became a competition.
Out of all the dancing that was going on, Tiffany’s dancing was the most exotic. With closed eyes, she had seducing feminine curves and beautifully orchestrated contorted limbs. She was not shy.
Charles, on the other hand, was the complete antithesis of Tiffany. He stayed in the corner, with his hands in his pockets and his feet just barely moving somewhat to the beat of the song. His eyes were busy watching Tiffany. The only dancing he made was between his smiling lips and his gazing eyes.
Other businessmen noticed Tiffany’s dancing. How could they not? She was at the center of the makeshift dance-floor. They had to have her. Each man danced his way to her. Poor Tiffany did not notice this because she was too focused and incarcerated by her own dancing. She did not even notice Charles, who, seeing the closing-in of other men, had a racing heart of apprehension.
He was loosing and loosing it all. Pity.
Within minutes, all the men, not including Charles, surrounded Tiffany, almost to the point of suffocating her. She still did not notice a thing; but, Charles saw everything and heard the radio playing its sickening Christmas songs.
Breathing heavily and sweating profusely, Charles staggered to the mob of dancing men. He squeezed among them until he was within reach of Tiffany. He lent out his hairy arm and got hold of Tiffany’s hand. For the first time since her dancing started, her eyes opened. She saw all the men and gave a little, “oh!” She looked lost and scared, like a little child just realizing he had missed his stop on the bus. Tiffany was taken aback by what had progressed among the fifteen men. The men looked at her as if she were one of their meaty sandwiches. Her dancing feet were the trickling down of meat juice that often danced off their mouths and her dress, being a single sparkling red dress, was a red and shiny can of coca cola. Noticing the hand on her hand, the familiar feel of it, she allowed herself to be taken away from the mob. Charles pulled her out.
Then, they were the center of attention. Facing each other in a dancing position, Charles and Tiffany’s eyes could not have been more transparent to the other, connected to each other. Holding hands, they danced as if complementing the other.
The other men murmured among each other. “Hey, what the hell’s going on here?” asked Curt, staring at an apparently unfolding secret.
“Who does he think he is?” asked Whineback. “What are we going to do about this? Charles and Tiffany? Ha! Something’s not right; it’s not right!” Whineback looked around the office, at the other men’s reactions. All seemed to be on the same page as he was. “Someone shut off the radio! Turn it off!”
Two men quickly ran over to it in ardent determination and tried to shut it off. With fast, overlooking hands, the two baffled men did not know how to turn it off. Tiffany knew how to fix her photocopy machine and that was her radio. As a result, the rest of the mob of men, seeing the two men having trouble turning it off, decided to take matters into their own hands: they ran over to the radio and smashed it, until no sound came out of it.
Crashing silence took hold. The men stood still. All eyes were drawn to Tiffany and Charles who were holding hands, standing against the background of gray, dirty falling snow. The lights began to flicker due to the electrical mishap from the breaking – no, killing – of the radio. The flickering lights displayed unnecessary shadows over the floor, the walls, the ceiling – everywhere. Color was drained out of their faces. It was like the scene where the detective is questioning the suspect. Uncovering precious information. Undressing a lie. Some call it the naked truth.
Charles and Tiffany’s dancing stopped. They looked around, only to see the angry, mad eyes of the rest of the men who were in need of an explanation. Tiffany’s eyes filled with tears, instantly. She let go of Charles’s hands and ran out of the door and into the elevator and out of his life.
_______________________________
The next day at work, Tiffany was not there. After work, Charles went over to Tiffany’s apartment. Empty. She was gone forever.
______________________________
Charles still keeps the broken radio under his desk. He does not know why; it doesn’t even play anymore, let alone turn on. It just sits there, under his desk, broken and silent. And sad. Pity.
This quote was said to him in a dream once. It appeared to him four times this week. He thinks it is telling him something but before he can make anything out of it, like all of his dreams, it grew dark too quickly.
His name is Charles and he works at the glamorous Falsamort Towers - as if the name didn’t look ugly already. Charles works as an ordinary accountant. His cubicle is in the left far corner of the fifteenth floor, which is full of fifteen other cubicles, just like his. Charles wipes off the bits of scrambled eggs that had fallen on one of his balance sheets from lunchtime, into the garbage next to the window. While there, he looks out. The orange sun is looming over the busy city. Charles follows one of the innocuous sun’s rays into a window of a tall apartment building. “Oh?” thinks Charles as he looks around briefly in unfortunate confirmation. The woman Charles is looking at is no stranger to him, though they both act like strangers to each other when they are in the company of fellow businessmen. He looks over at the clock on his desk, which is unorganized with papers lying everywhere. Six thirty. She would be home by now. But Charles had chosen to stay late that night. Pity.
Her name is Tiffany, or Tiff as Charles calls her. She is the red-dressed receptionist among the hairy filthy men. Although she is independent, she represses herself at times. The fact that she is the only female in Charles’s work place creates a little tension in her work place. Tiffany knows this and it is always in her mind, under the veneer of indifference, as when she walks with deliberate footing, or when she photocopies papers knowing and not minding the fact that she is keeping up the line, or when she enjoys her salad and orange juice in front of the other men having their slobby meaty sandwiches on white bread, drinking sodas (and occasional beers). Nevertheless, she is silent most of the time.
Charles is not the brightest accountant on the fifteenth floor. He follows orders and that’s all. He does just enough work that needs to be done – not because he is lazy, but because that’s all he can do. Imprisoned by a somewhat round belly, Charles usually has a stain on his dull patterned tie from any condiments he might have used that day.
He is not married, and neither is Tiffany.
At work, they no longer talk to each other in front of other workers, unless they have to – in which case their brief conversation would be over something as non-important as their work. He still sees her though at certain times during the workday; they just don’t know when the other is leaving to go home, unless they have eye contact beforehand. Then they just know. The wonderful thing about eye contact is that it has its subtleties. The eyes imply and you must infer.
Charles was already working at the Falsamort Towers when Tiffany arrived as the new receptionist. Charles had been working there for a long time and Tiffany was just another freshman – no, fresh-woman. But it seemed, now, that it is the other way around, if one were to assume a Darwinian work place. Tiffany knows her way around the office. She knows the preferences of different men: Albert Whineback likes his messages sent to him through email, not phone while Fred Oirion loves to hear his messages streaming out of his office phone, but nevertheless does not mind receiving them through email. Tiffany knows how to work the photocopy machine and even how to fix it whenever it is remiss from its photocopying duties – as when Curt jammed it by accident because he wanted the papers to come out faster.
Charles is still at the bottom of this workplace food chain, a rather corrupt ecosystem than balanced one; and he doesn’t mind not changing his status, among the devouring men, who are competing to be the best, the winner. And yet Charles feels like he is at the top now-a-days.
____________________________
Tiffany and Charles’s relationship developed from a series of glances; that’s how it started out at first. Whenever Charles came into work, Tiffany greeted him with flashy morning eyes, from the front desk. Whenever he left his desk to get an occasional free breakfast bagel, she caught his eyes as she and Charles reached for the same one. Whenever he looked back just before entering the men’s bathroom – just out of curiosity – her eyes flitted over to his. Even at his desk; whenever he stood up to stretch, his eyes half-open in conjunction with a yawn, he would find her eyes magically appearing in his field of vision. Or was it always his eyes that ran to her?
Their relationship grew more intimate once they started having lunch together and getting to know each other.
One fall noon they had lunch out at a restaurant-bar. They knew the other men wouldn’t go there because they would usually go to the other, alpha-male bar on the opposite side of the Falsamort Towers. This divergence of lunch places, as if they were designated, only made more prominent the separation between Tiffany and Charles, and the rest of the beastly businessmen
“I’m sure none of them is here, Tiff.” Charles was eating a beef burger with a cold beer. He looked over at Tiffany. Her eyes were busy scoping the restaurant-bar for any sign of their co-workers.
“Just making sure.” Tiffany replied while settling down. Her soup was getting cold.
“Can you imagine what they’ll say if they saw us together?” Charles chuckled in his high-pitched voice; almost like that of a wimp.
“I like the secrecy.”
“Me too.”
______________________________
Over the past two months, Charles had been coming over to Tiffany’s apartment after work. Sometimes she would leave the office earlier than Charles. Sometimes they would leave at the same time. But Charles would never go directly to her apartment, nor would he ever walk with her there. That was a mutual agreement, between him and Tiffany, to protect their secret, sacred intimacy.
During those nights in her apartment, they would eat dinner together, filling up their lustful stomachs with whatever they felt like eating, plus wine. Wine was a must. Candles were a must. Afterward they would relax on the sofa watching some mindless television, holding each other’s hand, snuggling together, not really paying attention to what they were watching, or not watching. One stormy night, the television shut off unexpectedly. The storm had caused a temporary blackout in her apartment that lasted the whole night and ran into the wee hours. But Charles and Tiffany didn’t need flashlights; they had candles. Seeing that the television was not working, they migrated to her bedroom for the night.
The next day at work, they both had a little skip in their step. That had been their first night.
________________________________
The seasons were passing by without any suspicion of the relationship that was growing, quite rebelliously, between Charles and Tiffany. Their little secret was a thriving undercurrent inside of them that kept them going throughout the days. They continued to speak with their eyes, during the work day. And they were getting good at it too; they knew each other’s expressions like they knew their childhood and all of their past before meeting each other – before the Falsamort Towers – except that was then and this is now. Now they are living.
One of the reasons why their relationship did not show under the radar of the other workers was because of the image of Charles and Tiffany together; it was as if one were looking at a picture displaying an old grandmother and a macho football player. Simply put, they were complete opposites. Tiffany was beautiful. She had a seducing affect over other men that she was indifferent to, expect for the affect she had on Charles, which was not exactly seducing.
It was more appreciative, platonic but not entirely; for, if it were platonic, it would be an imperfect kind at best. No, they were both aware of their implicit sensuality and they did not say anything about it. Their love was an “in-betweener.” They just looked at each other and felt each other’s presence, their minds always landing on the same downbeat. It was a balance or a parallel dance brought on by the two in silent agreement. Outsiders were not welcomed and were thought of as threats to their kingdom of intimacy.
__________________________________
One day at work, the manager of their branch, Mr. Marplotski, asked Tiffany if she could bring in a radio. It was the holiday season and Mr. Marplotski wanted to help bring out a cheery mood. Tiffany’s radio was surprisingly old-fashioned (the unsophisticated kind of old-fashioned) for her taste. Or was it her taste? Her radio was bulky and she could just barely put it in the trunk of her car. A security guard helped her bring it into the building and into the elevator to go to the fifteenth floor everyday of that season. She did not want to leave it in the office for fear of it being stolen. Just as she needed help bringing it in, she also needed help taking it back to her car at the end of the day. Charles was there for the job and he did not mind helping her bring it to her car. Most days he did not even notice he was carrying a radio, much like when some people do not realize they are wearing glasses; the glasses became part of them.
_____________________________
The wind blew wet snow against Tiffany’s face, with foreboding force, as she heaved the radio out from the trunk of her car one drab morning, to bring into the office. What was foreboding about the force? It was like a white-lashing warning. Tiffany just wiped it off as she entered the building and allowed the security guard to carry her radio into the elevator for her.
No one else was on the elevator that morning except Charles. With his brown coat soaking wet from the pelting snow, he glanced over at Tiffany and smiled. “Good morning, Tiff.”
“I’ve had better ones. Ugh, I’m such a mess.”
“You look fine.” Charles lied. She was a mess: her make-up smeared all over her face and she had sludge all over her high-heels. With red-knuckles, she loosened her grip on the radio and let it sit on the floor of the elevator. Charles watched her. “I had a great time last night.”
“Shh! Charles, not here!”
“But we’re in the elevator; no one’s here! And you know how slow it takes to get to our floor. Anyway,” Charles looked at her attire. The intricacy of the jabots running down her red, dirtied blouse that morning reminded him of the same-styled ruffles that lined the bed skirt of her bed. Hesitantly, Charles asked, “you enjoyed last night, right?”
“Of course I did! I always do.” Charles looked at her face, at her eyes. Yes, she had a wonderful time last night. Delighted with this deduction, he leaned over and gave a quick kiss on her cheek.
She blushed and giggled.
“Okay.” She sighed in self-complying surrender. With one hand leaning on his bulging stomach, covered up in an already stained, unsophisticated collared shirt, she reached up and returned one just the same.
A couple of seconds passed without a word. Silence was their comfort. Then suddenly, a bubbling doubt reached the surface of Charles’s mind. “Hey Tiff, you don’t think anyone—“
“No, of course not … right?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Yeah, me neither. No.”
“I just feel like,” Charles knew what to say. He just could not find the words. Speaking was a whole different language from that of the eyes. “I feel like … like … what we have … .” Tiffany looked at his eyes. Instead of looking at her, his eyes were staring at the elevator door, reaching far-away, futuristic, hidden places, like deep, deep into his mind or his heart. He could not tell the difference, now, between his mind and his heart, because the secret nature of their relationship had entangled them – like when people get lost or wrapped up in the pages of an intriguing novel. The words mess them up, but they find pleasure and meaning in that.
“I love it too,” was all Tiffany said.
“I just don’t want to loose it.”
“Me neither.”
The bell in the elevator rang loudly and crisply, bringing them back to an office surrounding: the smell of freshly brewed coffee and the soft, dull sound of heavy penny-loafers carelessly pounding on the rugged floor. It was as if the bell were snapping them out of a reverie in which they had been too comfortable. The elevator moved more slowly than usual that morning.
Oddly enough, the whole work day felt slow to both Charles and Tiffany, like a passing comet in the night sky: from far away, it looks like it is moving very slowly; almost not at all, as if anything can happen and one would not notice it because he or she would be blinded by its slowness. However, up-close, things were moving at light speed. That is how the rest of the savage businessmen felt whenever Charles helped bring the radio to Tiffany’s car. “Wow, it’s already the end of the day,” said one of the other workers one day when he saw Charles and Tiffany out of the window, with the radio. Perhaps something finally showed up under the other workers’ radar – a comet.
The heavy, pelting snow was suffocating.
“Don’t forget about the Christmas party this afternoon, after work. Here, in the office. Tiffany, I want you to set up the decorations. Everybody else; did you all bring your foods? There will be music and dancing!” Mr. Marplotski announced this to all the workers with the most cheerful voice he can conjure up and with good intention. A buzz went around the office with the excitement of what was to follow after work. There was even a buzz in Charles and Tiffany: their glances towards each other were not as subtle as they usually were, rather they were more careless in this anticipatory ferment. Careless of what? Well, no one is perfect; but, mistakes can hurt and beget regret.
The businessmen and Tiffany were about to start the mini-dance. That comprised fifteen men, one manager (also a man) and one woman. The question was who was going to dance with the lady – unless of course everyone would rather dance separately. However, this was not the case. The dance became a competition.
Out of all the dancing that was going on, Tiffany’s dancing was the most exotic. With closed eyes, she had seducing feminine curves and beautifully orchestrated contorted limbs. She was not shy.
Charles, on the other hand, was the complete antithesis of Tiffany. He stayed in the corner, with his hands in his pockets and his feet just barely moving somewhat to the beat of the song. His eyes were busy watching Tiffany. The only dancing he made was between his smiling lips and his gazing eyes.
Other businessmen noticed Tiffany’s dancing. How could they not? She was at the center of the makeshift dance-floor. They had to have her. Each man danced his way to her. Poor Tiffany did not notice this because she was too focused and incarcerated by her own dancing. She did not even notice Charles, who, seeing the closing-in of other men, had a racing heart of apprehension.
He was loosing and loosing it all. Pity.
Within minutes, all the men, not including Charles, surrounded Tiffany, almost to the point of suffocating her. She still did not notice a thing; but, Charles saw everything and heard the radio playing its sickening Christmas songs.
Breathing heavily and sweating profusely, Charles staggered to the mob of dancing men. He squeezed among them until he was within reach of Tiffany. He lent out his hairy arm and got hold of Tiffany’s hand. For the first time since her dancing started, her eyes opened. She saw all the men and gave a little, “oh!” She looked lost and scared, like a little child just realizing he had missed his stop on the bus. Tiffany was taken aback by what had progressed among the fifteen men. The men looked at her as if she were one of their meaty sandwiches. Her dancing feet were the trickling down of meat juice that often danced off their mouths and her dress, being a single sparkling red dress, was a red and shiny can of coca cola. Noticing the hand on her hand, the familiar feel of it, she allowed herself to be taken away from the mob. Charles pulled her out.
Then, they were the center of attention. Facing each other in a dancing position, Charles and Tiffany’s eyes could not have been more transparent to the other, connected to each other. Holding hands, they danced as if complementing the other.
The other men murmured among each other. “Hey, what the hell’s going on here?” asked Curt, staring at an apparently unfolding secret.
“Who does he think he is?” asked Whineback. “What are we going to do about this? Charles and Tiffany? Ha! Something’s not right; it’s not right!” Whineback looked around the office, at the other men’s reactions. All seemed to be on the same page as he was. “Someone shut off the radio! Turn it off!”
Two men quickly ran over to it in ardent determination and tried to shut it off. With fast, overlooking hands, the two baffled men did not know how to turn it off. Tiffany knew how to fix her photocopy machine and that was her radio. As a result, the rest of the mob of men, seeing the two men having trouble turning it off, decided to take matters into their own hands: they ran over to the radio and smashed it, until no sound came out of it.
Crashing silence took hold. The men stood still. All eyes were drawn to Tiffany and Charles who were holding hands, standing against the background of gray, dirty falling snow. The lights began to flicker due to the electrical mishap from the breaking – no, killing – of the radio. The flickering lights displayed unnecessary shadows over the floor, the walls, the ceiling – everywhere. Color was drained out of their faces. It was like the scene where the detective is questioning the suspect. Uncovering precious information. Undressing a lie. Some call it the naked truth.
Charles and Tiffany’s dancing stopped. They looked around, only to see the angry, mad eyes of the rest of the men who were in need of an explanation. Tiffany’s eyes filled with tears, instantly. She let go of Charles’s hands and ran out of the door and into the elevator and out of his life.
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The next day at work, Tiffany was not there. After work, Charles went over to Tiffany’s apartment. Empty. She was gone forever.
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Charles still keeps the broken radio under his desk. He does not know why; it doesn’t even play anymore, let alone turn on. It just sits there, under his desk, broken and silent. And sad. Pity.
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