"Ashley, you're muted."
Sheepishly, I scramble for the mouse, drag it across the screen, looking for a button to press. My eyes light up when I find it: the pictographic icon of a studio microphone slashed in red. I click it.
"Sorry about that!" My eyes are bright and a quarter-apologetic -- no more, as it might indicate weakness -- my lips curve into a big smile. My voice booms in my ears. "I just wanted to weigh in on Gretchen's proposal; I think it's a great idea. The one concern I have goes back to what we were saying about the limitations of their technical resource. I just don't want Amir-and-Co to go back to their team thinking they'll be ready for take-off in a month, and get blind-sided by a development timeline they can't support."
There is an assembled panel of faces that coats half of the computer screen: two of them frown. Eight other faces nod thoughtfully. One face is leaning backward, head craned back and to the side, resting on the headrest, mutely talking to someone blurred out by a background filter. One face is smiling too big and there is panic in his eyes -- not a cause for concern, he is always like that, he gets lost easily.
Martine is one of the two faces frowning. Her hands are folded underneath her chin. One of her hands -- somehow both lazy and quick -- drifts down to click a button. She comes off mute, and says: deadpan, "Great call-out, Ashley. Amir, what do you think?"
The other frowning face (I don't know her, but she's from Sales, and she clearly doesn't appreciate my cautioning) turns off her video. Amir comes off mute to weigh in. He's very thoughtful. He thanks me for thinking of his team, and waffles a bit about either-ors, and this-or-thats, before finally saying, "it should be doable, but I'll have to get back to you."
The meeting carries on, lifeless. My contribution made, I simply sit and thoughtfully nod along, ready to chime in just in case someone calls my name. No one does. The meeting concludes. A shiver runs through me, then another. My hand is dainty and small-knuckled. I haven't been eating well. I've been a friend to uppers. Sleep escapes me.
My hand is shaking when it grasps the top of my always-watching laptop, and presses it closed. The minute I hear it power-down, I rip myself bodily out of Ashley's flesh. My needle-thin tendrils slide out of needle-thin holes dug just behind her ears. My pincers release the fabric of her blouse, to try and find purchase elsewhere.
"Shit, shit, shit, ow, fuck, hey! Okay, okay!" She says, while I wail and scrabble and screech. I try once, and then twice, to grab her arm for leverage, and then jump out from the gap between her office chair and her too-hot body. I land on the carpet, and sprint for a corner. My carapace clanks into a wall, and I stumble. It's hard to see with my natural eyes, but another minute spent inside her flesh sounds absolutely vile. It's ill-making to me; to know her, to live like her. It feels wrong.
"Hey, hey, it's okay," she says, with a subtle, needy quiver in her voice that sends sickly echoes through me, starting in my tendrils. She's out of her chair now, but she doesn't come close. She's kneeling on the floor, by her desk.
I croak a cricketing noise. I can't speak in this body, but the mood is enough to tell her that I'm unhappy.
"I know, I know, I promised," she pleads. "But I really needed you. Thank you."
I want to claw through the drywall, and fall through the foundation of the house. I want to live in the rafters, alone and unbothered, and only come out to feed. I don't even want to lay eggs, though I can remember a time when I did -- now the idea of siring young into this world feels like an evil. How did everything go so wrong? I croak again. And she coos some more, and the sickly feeling fills me to the point of saturation, until the coo is the only thing that makes me feel.
"It's okay, it's okay," she's murmuring. I find myself reflexively folding my legs beneath my flat-shelled body, and nestling into the carpet. What exists of my neck lets me angle my face slightly downward, and it's enough to press my mouth and eyes into the carpet.
She inches over to me slowly draws her finger across my smooth shell from front to back. Compulsively, reflexively, my joints relax. She is still cooing. I sink into the carpet.
I'm seven hours into another ten hour day. The first five hours were spent doing nothing aside from sitting in front of the computer and occasionally prodding at a few notes or responding to a colleague. I would have loved to get up and go to the kitchen, to stretch my legs and have a snack, maybe have a walk to the park. But there's a sense of danger in that. I have roommates, and there's a weird bug on my back. I don't know how people would react, so instead I stay safely tucked away in my office. The most I ever do is get up out of my chair and lie face down on the carpet for a minute or two. I would lie there longer if I could, but eventually my neck starts to hurt.
The past two hours, I've been double-booked across eight 30 minute meetings. I divide and conquer, giving each one about fifteen minutes before jumping to the next. This way I show all my coworkers how busy I am, what a hard worker I am, and I make sure all my obligations are met to The Customer.
I don't schedule my own meetings, they're scheduled for me by either of Sales or Success, which is why it's a mess, but it is advantageous in that I'm too overbooked to ever be saddled with much responsibility.
The next three hours will be dotted with coworker chats. I'm not always the best about reaching out to my friends at the company, but on days like today -- when I'm feeling confident and productive -- I think it's good to refresh those connections. Even if it has been a few months.
The first one is with Susan. She and I talk about her children, and my houseplants. She shows me pictures of her children, and I show her all the most recent pictures of my houseplants.
The second one is with Evan. He and I share a special connection that I can't quite explain. For a full thirty minutes, we stare blankly at the screen and say nothing. Occasionally, one of us will move a hand or twitch a muscle, and the other will try to mirror it. It's kind of like charades, I guess. I feel a strong sense of camaraderie with him. I wish we could meet in person but he lives in Vancouver and I'm in Miami. When the call ends, I realize I don't really know his job title these days. I check his company profile. Tech Support Rep.
That means he hasn't moved up in the company at all in the five years since we started together. I know that he's uncomfortable with "responsibility" but my heart aches. They don't pay those people well. He should be in management by now.
I skip my third chat, send a quick message that I'm busy, and shut my computer. Slowly, I pull myself out of Ashley's body. On the way out, I see a flash of memory. Bright, smiling, children's faces, wearing softball uniforms. A best friend just got conked in the head while trying to catch a ball. I'm icing the wound and laughing about her clumsiness. And then I'm out.
Ashley blinks and comes to. Normally, I would leave right away, but I'm exhausted. The heat of her flesh is cooking me. I can taste her sweat through her blouse, through my underbelly.
"Cooky?" She says, and leans forward until her body forms a bridge with her desk.
I don't release my grip on her blouse. I don't want to move.
"Hey Cooky," she murmurs, "You wanna go lie down in your box? It's almost dinnertime, huh?"
My little jaws clamp on the scruff of her neck, and she makes a sound. I hate her. I wish she would leave me alone.
"Hey Cooky, can you let go? I'm kind of hungry too." She says it with an annoyed twinge in her voice, and it makes me hurt. I release my grip on her, and click down her shoulder onto her desk. She gently lifts me by the sides of my shell and places me on floor, where I crawl across the carpet, into a little cave that she has constructed for me out of cardboard.
She gets up and stretches her body, and leaves the room. My body feels weak and sick. There's something wrong with her brain. I think about the memory of softball, and I imagine her running an ice cube across my weary shell. I wish she cared about anything enough to show it like that.
