Every morning she would awake from fitful dreams as exhausted as an insomniac. She stumbled into work like an alcoholic fresh from a bender and proceeded to her desk. She spends the first hour trying to re-associate what she does at her job to the piles of papers on her desk that seemed to have such order and obvious purpose when she set them there the day before. The stapler seems to be hinting at the pile last attended to and the ring from her coffee cup indicates 3 inches from the monitor is the correct placement.
Tim sits at the desk next to Janet's and she is clearly visible each morning when she presents herself for another somber day in the office in all her disheveled glory. She can see him looking at her when she arrives each morning and, for a moment, smiles knowing her dreams were mere ridiculousness. On this particular morning, she is wearing every imaginable color in a harsh contrast to the somberness of the office. She has just dreamt of Tim stepping into an elevator shaft after telling her she shouldn't have waited so long to tell him how she felt.
With a purpose she has only known in rare occasions, Janet brushes the untamed blond hair from the her eyes and steps forward across the aisle to Tim's desk. She stands in front of Tim's desk as he types furiously into his calculator and writes a set of numbers in the ledger. When he sees her standing there, he smiles kindly and says good morning. She says she hopes it will be a very good morning indeed. She confesses that she has wanted to tell him that she dreams about him each night, but did not want to frighten him with the stalker sound of it. The dreams, she explained, are always the same message of not wasting anymore time on wanting and tell her to speak to him about her feelings.
Tim sits quietly as Janet pauses looking for words. This is when he strikes. Tim scolds her for hindering the workplace with her emotions and unwanted advances. He begins citing workplace sexual harassment codes and every way in which her comments were unprofessional and ill received. He finished with a recap of his resume of athletic achievement, IQ and extensive past relationships with women who don't dress like an ape camouflaged as a rainbow. After this attack he asks her if she will kindly leave him to his work.
Devastated, Janet disappears to the ladies' room to try and piece herself together. She looks into the mirror at her tie dye shirt that she only has for working around her home. She does not recall putting it on that morning. She notices the crazed and frizzy mangle of hair resting on her head and can picture other primates picking through it for bugs. She began working her hands between the cold water faucet and her hair to put it back in order and manages a sideways ponytail that hangs limply over her left shoulder. Attending to her makeup that has begun to run from a combination of tears and water from her hair, Janet feels content with her appearance and decides to return to her desk, put on her black suit jacket to diminish the overwhelming colors emanating from her shirt and finish out her desk never mentioning that morning again.
Feeling a little better, Janet attempts to reach her desk without making eye contact with Tim again. She hides in the break room until she sees Tim leave for the copy machine. In the doorway she is met by Frank, the temp from accounting. He mumbles something about her being unworthy of any man in the building and then offers her a banana for being such a good monkey. She walks in shock back to her desk and manages to knock Tim and a stack of 20 collated reports to the floor. She opts to return to her desk, build a wall to hide from Tim's line of sight and just ignore the giggles of the secretaries at the front desk making ape faces towards Janet's desk.
At lunch, Janet sits alone. She skips her normal table that places her at the end within sight of Tim. Jenny and Kelly do not ask her why she doesn't join them. They sit and listen as Tim whispers to Frank and Sam while stealing sidelong glances towards Janet. She knows he must be telling them about her comments to him from that morning. She sinks lower into her seat hoping that will hide her from view. Her slouching only gives her a more troll like appearance and gets mashed potatoes into her hair. She is patting her hair dry with a napkin when a shadow and a foreign accent reaches her.
Looking up from her pity, her eyes meet those of Ranjit. He works in the finance department with Sam, one of Tim's friends in the office. He asks if he may sit with Janet and she reluctantly agrees. She would prefer to wallow there and finish her meal in silence, but he is insistent. They both sit in silence eating a few bites while Janet continues to stare with disdain at the table across the way. When she turns, she catches Ranjit staring at her before nervously glancing away. She had been receiving looks of pity and disgust all day, but this look was a surprise in a day of regrets. This was a sweet look of a man who saw something he enjoyed looking at and could not help himself.
Janet began to speak when Ranjit stopped her. He told her he had already heard about that morning's fiasco at Tim's desk and how quickly the office had spread word of such a personal and simple conversation. He had initially been more reserved after hearing, but instead decided to use her day as motivation. He said if someone as quiet and sweet as she had worked up the courage to finally say what was on her mind no matter what the outcome, he too would follow her lead. That is why he asked if he could join her for lunch. He stood with his half eaten lunch and turned to go, but stopped to glance back one more time.
Janet was blushing despite herself and Ranjit smiled as he told her that he had always been taken by her and had never had the nerve to come speak to her. He said she may tell people as she wished about his comments, but he did not care. He believed she was a person who has consideration for other's feelings and he thanked her for the chance to tell her how he felt without being patronizing like other unworthy people in the office. With a quick evil glance Tim's way, he stood and left the cafeteria with tray still in hand.
The rest of the day Janet spoke to no one else. She continued working without notice of the passing smirks and snark comments from coworkers. She did not even notice Tim leave a little early to avoid their typical daily conversation as they left at the same time. Janet slept soundly that night and for weeks to come. The dreams have not changed, but, every time she sees that nostalgic silver car enter from another time period and crush Tim in the street. now she smiles in her sleep.
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