All Clear
Linda Johnson
My drive to work takes eleven minutes and forty-nine seconds, fourteen seconds longer than average. Three more cars making left turns onto Grant Street today. I pull into the parking lot and find my usual spot far from the other cars. I open my door and peer down, check for rats, spiders, snakes. One, two, three, four, five. All clear.
As I’m getting out of my car, Chris Turner pulls in next to me. Right next to me. Six empty slots on both sides of my car and he pulls in next to me. Asshole. I grit my teeth. My mind flashes red, my eyes bleed into my brain.
“Hey, buddy. How’s it going, man?” Blond hair in a man bun, blue eyes, big grin showing off his dimples. I want to smash my fist into his perfect GQ face.
He yanks my lunchbox out of my hand and shakes it. “What’s for lunch today?” He closes his eyes and puts his hand to his forehead like a fortune teller. “Let me guess: peanut butter and jelly sandwich, potato chips, apple.” He opens his eyes. “Am I right?”
Of course, he’s right. It’s what I pack every day.
He hands my lunchbox back. Another big grin. “Just messin’ with you, man. We’re cool, right?” He drapes his arm around my shoulder and I break into a sweat. Breathe, breathe. One, two, three, four, five.
“What’s Melody doing here so early?” I point to my dream girl, the girl he stole from me. She’s smart, beautiful, funny, and a thousand times too good for him. I was going to ask her out, but he pounced first. When he turns to look, I duck out from under his arm.
“She’s flexing today. Leaving early for a dentist appointment. I’ll catch you later, buddy.” He trots off. Gray mid-thigh shorts and a tight, black T-shirt flaunt his Ken-doll body, ready for his morning workout. When he’s not coding, he lives at the company gym. Mornings, lunch break, after work. Get a life, dickwad.
I would never step into that germ-ridden petri dish of a gym: the sweat-soaked equipment, the chlorine-doused pool masking urine and saliva and God knows what other bodily fluids. I shudder. I don’t need to exercise anyway. Stress-induced adrenaline jacks up my metabolism to supersonic levels.
I walk to my office building and, like a rat in a maze, make my way to my cubicle. Exactly ten-by-ten. When I moved in, I measured it. One side was off by three inches, so I insisted they adjust the partition. Gray fabric walls, bare and clean, not like Turner’s cubicle next to mine. He’s covered his whole office in posters of mountains he’s hiked. I fantasize about him falling into a crevice and starving to death.
I power up my computer, pop open a Red Bull, and take a swig. I open the file I’m coding, crack my knuckles and go to work. I’m the best programmer in the department. When I’m in the zone, the world disappears. Nothing can hurt me.
I don’t hear Turner sneak up on me until he sits his ass on my desk. “Hey, buddy. How’s it going? You working on the Baxter project?” He picks up my open Red Bull. Don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t do it. One, two, three—he takes a gulp. Fuck, fuck, fuck. What a prick. He stands and peers at my monitor. He picks up my pen and points to the screen. “There’s a better solution.” He kneels in front of my desk, deletes sixteen lines of my code, replaces it with his, and hits the save button. He stands and slaps my shoulder. “Awesome, right, man?”
He’s gone before I can respond, leaving behind my now-contaminated drink and pen, and his shitty code. I pull an antibacterial wipe from my drawer, rub down my keyboard and pen, and use it to pick up my can. I head to the men’s room, pour the rest of my Red Bull down the drain, and toss the can into the recycling bin. I wash my hands and dry them on a paper towel.
Back in my cube, I use another wipe to clean my hands, then delete Turner’s code. I stare at the monitor, willing myself to get back into the zone, but my brain is in deep-freeze. Those lines of code he deleted took me hours to write yesterday. They were perfect and now they’re gone and I have to reconstruct them.
I try to work, but all I can think of is Turner. How he stole Melody from me, how he rewrites my code, how he laughs at me, how he embarrasses me in front of the other programmers. I want to wipe that fucker off the face of the earth. First it’s just a flicker of thought, but then it takes hold. Why not? Why not rid myself and the world of this piece of shit?
The more I think of it, the more consumed I am. But how? No guns or knives—I hate blood. Other solutions: lure him to the rooftop and push him off, poison his coffee, tamper with his car brakes. Then it hits me—the most elegant solution: clean, bloodless, and painful.
My brain goes into the zone like I’m designing an algorithm, click, click, click, click, click. I have the who and the what, now the where: his office, the cafeteria, the bathroom, the gym? The gym, click.
I lean back in my chair and a sense of calm cradles my body. I will be free of my nemesis forever. I savor the moment, open a new Red Bull, take a swig, crack my knuckles, and go back to work. I reconstruct my code in a fraction of the time it took me to create it.
I watch for my opportunity. When I see Melody and Turner head to the cafeteria, I duck into her cubicle. I open her purse, grab her gym pass, and sneak out before anyone sees me.
On my drive home, I stop at a Home Depot. I hate to shop, to mingle with strangers, but I don’t want to order what I need online. This way, there will be no record of my purchases and no wait for delivery.
Inside the store, my senses go haywire. Bright lights blind me, products in every size and color are stacked to the rafters, loud music pounds my ears. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. One, two, three, four, five. I can do this. I have to do this. I open my eyes and count one step at a time.
I find the Sani-wipes and scrub the shopping cart handle. I locate the aisles with the items on my list: a compact microwave with maximum voltage, a non-GFCI outlet, and several power cords. I keep my head down and make it to the check-out line.
“Hi, sir. Find everything you need?”
I glance up and register female, nose ring, chomping on gum. I nod and look down, breaking eye contact. Keep my eyes lowered until she calls out the total. I count out my cash. I want to count it again, but don’t want to call attention to myself. I hand it over, take my change, and grab my shopping bags. I count the steps to the door. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Outside, I look around. All clear. I count the strides to my car, load up my packages, and drive off. Halfway home, my hands stop shaking.
The next morning, I launch myself from bed even before the extra early alarm goes off. I’m totally pumped. I have no second thoughts. My life will be so much better without Turner. Maybe I’ll be normal again. I used to be, until Turner showed up and started needling me and needling me, like a tick sucking my life’s blood. But now, all I have to do is get rid of him, and my life will be peaceful and calm and normal.
I drive to work and park in the adjacent office building’s parking lot. I use Melody’s pass to unlock the gym doors. I find the closest electrical outlet and swap it out for my non-GFCI outlet. I string the power cords together until there’s enough play to reach the hot tub. The smell inside the pool equipment room makes me gag, but with the door cracked open, I have a perfect view of the pool and hot tub.
Turner shows up at five-thirteen, jumps into the pool, and swims laps for thirty-three minutes. Then he hops out and makes a beeline for the hot tub. I gaze around the pool area. All clear. I check my power cord connections to make sure they’re tight. The microwave clock light is blinking so I know it’s alive. I press the five-minute cook button so it’s humming full-strength.
I push the door open and with no hesitation walk to the hot tub. Turner doesn’t even notice me until I’m two strides away. “Hey, man. What’re you doing at the gym? Going to try to put some meat on those bones?” He laughs. And then he registers the microwave, and his eyes widen. “What the hell?”
I hold it up over the hot tub like a trophy. Let him get a good look. “Adios, asshole!” I toss the microwave into the water. There’s a splash, then an explosion, then a sizzle. Turner thrashes, then everything is still. His head dangles over the side of the hot tub, his mouth ajar. One, two, three, four, five. My mind is peaceful, calm, like a field of clover in the early dawn. I relish the moment, before I sprint into action.
I unplug the power cord and retrieve the microwave. I locate Turner’s laptop in his locker, plug that into the power cords, and toss it into the hot tub.
The gym is still deserted when I leave at six-oh-seven. I race to my car, throw the microwave into the trunk, and drive to my usual parking space. I step out of my car feeling like a slave freed from his chains. The sun seems brighter than it’s been for months. I turn my face up and soak in the rays, walk to my office building with a bounce in my step. Next to the sidewalk, flowers are blooming and I inhale their sweet scent. Butterflies flit from blossom to blossom, while birds chirp in the distance. Life is good.
I start my day: fingers fly over my keyboard, page after page of elegant code.
Melody rushes in and breaks my trance. “Did you hear about Chris?” she asks.
I turn my head, blink, and gaze at her beautiful face: heart-shaped, high cheekbones, bee-stung lips, cornflower-blue eyes wide with alarm.
“They found him in the hot tub, electrocuted.”
I stand, ready to wrap my arms around her, tell her everything’s all right. I’ll wait a month or two for her to get over him, then I’ll ask her out. We’ll get married, have kids, everything will be perfect.
“They found a pulse, called nine-one-one. They think he’s going to make it.” She takes a step back. “I’ve got to get to the hospital.” She turns and races from my cube, her footsteps echoing down the hall.
The pain in my head strikes me like a lightning bolt. I gasp and sink to my knees. One, four, two, five…all…all…all…I gaze down. Spiders crawl up my legs. I scrub them off, feel something move in my hair, fling a scorpion from my scalp. Something slithers out of my ear canal, a worm. I’m under attack. I run screaming full-speed toward a blinding light at the end of the hallway. The plate glass window shatters. Four stories down. One, two three, fo…