Listen, we work in cubicles and it’s a lonely job.  I’ve seen my coworkers plaster one wall with memorabilia to help them get through the day.  You know what I mean–the picture of the cute kid stuck in daycare while Mom is in the cubical. The picture of the loving dogs packed in their kennels while Daddy is in the cubical. The picture of  aging parents, stuck in Florida who are thankful their kids have a job so money flows in to the “system.”

Now most of us cubical workers just want to get through the day.  Most of us want to do a decent job, answer the phone be the well-oiled and sharp cog in the works.  I know men and women both who take the bus to their downtown jobs, eat a simple lunch and take the bus back to their sanctuary apartments.  They have no presumption; they want to pay their way and that’s it.

Carly is different.  Carly wants.  Carly wants to know where ‘he’ is, what ‘he’s’ thinking about, what ‘he’s’ planning to do.  Who is “he?”  He is the latest poor slob who thinks he can fix Carly.

Sitting next to Carly’s cubical all day, listening to her smartphone softly ding messages, causing her to sigh, squeak, and giggle, I imagine myself becoming a liquid human, stealthily creeping over our shared cubical wall.  I see my own eyes in deadly, wide-eyed intent seeking the unsuspecting Carly.  She sits, back to me, cooing over the words the latest “he,” texted her (he is still unaware she is a maniac ball, and chain) while I, an insane look on my face, my eyes shining red sliding over the cubical wall, a seething sheet of menace.  I do the deed quietly.   Marge, in the next aisle, may pause over her keyboard and ponder at the small squeak of alarm and surprise from Carly’s cubical but is soon to be back to work due to the deadly silence, a grateful employee.

Carly is a favorite employee of the boss, you know.  The boss is ten years younger than me and fifteen years younger than Marge.  The boss received her Masters Degree in organizational skills online.  Yes, you’re right I don’t respect that but she isn’t all bad.  She likes Carly because Carly is a demon on the keyboard and resolves client issues quick as lightning after she breaks up with a boyfriend.  She breaks up often.  He doesn’t call; he doesn’t text; he doesn’t show up for lunch dates or he doesn’t feel like picking daisies with her on a Saturday afternoon when the game’s on.  Whatever.  Her thick, coiling, ever demanding attention seeking personality warrants yet another dump.  She then becomes this skinny, large, fanged, red-eyed fiend.  It’s good for business.

I prefer the raving demon to the “in-love,” Carly.  Carly in love is the world in all its political correctness.  Once I day-dreamed that I grabbed her smartphone while she “tripping along,” to the “little girls’ room” to “freshen up. “ I grab her phone and confess on her twitter account her sins of the night before, adding her lover’s name.  I imagine the text going around the world in a few hours and her puzzled face when the sickos on the worldwide web whoop it up on her behalf.  I know it’s vindictive, and I didn’t do it, just dreamed it.

“What sort of guy falls that head over heels in love with her in like a week and then dumps her inside a month?”  Marge was staring up at the dingy hung ceiling in the downstairs break room.  We break in the basement because there is a large truck dock on the east side of the building and you have to be ready for terrorist attacks at noon.  We had just finished our lunch.

“He tells her what she wants to hear until football season, then he dumps her–there are lots of guys like that.”  Rich was a young man working his internship in the mailroom.  He knew a myriad of facts about the world of demanding, emotional and life-force sucking young women who worked in cubicles.

I shook my head and said, “I saw her the other afternoon, when the latest boyfriend had dumped her.  She was down the block, leaning up against a lamppost.  Slumped up there pulling hard on a cigarette and some old guy walked up to her, looking like he was lost, and she flipped him off.”  I was trying to remember what I had for lunch that day, but I still had a fixed picture, in my mind’s eye, of Carly flipping off some lost guy in the big city.

“Maybe he mistook her for a prostitute,” said Rich.

“Maybe, but I thought she looked like she needed a wooden stake driven through her heart.  She looked like the walking dead,” I said.  Marge nodded her agreement.

“Those are zombies, not vampires,” corrected Rich.

“The term, ‘the walking dead,’ has been around long before it became the title of a TV show,” I said

“How long before she gets another one, a boyfriend I mean, not some confused old man,” asked Marge.

“Usually takes about three weeks,” I said

Rich looked from me to Marge.  “What do you think, should I ask her out?”

“You may be the only one in this city who hasn’t asked her out,” said Marge, looking mildly curious at the young man.

“Well, you know, nothing serious, she’s at a low spot, maybe if she had dinner with me she might perk up a bit.”

“You’re a sick man, Rich,” I said.  “Besides, she won’t let you be a one-night stand.  You two work in the same building.  You’ll both be out panhandling in a month because she’ll follow you around, stalk you, text you; she’ll be that skeleton in the shadows, staring at you when you least expected it.”

“Okay, okay, that’s enough and creepy,” said Rich.  “You two are worse than my mother.”

Marge stood up and grabbed her lunch box.  “Better three mothers in your life than one psychotic ex-lover.  Don’t you watch the movies?”

“No,” said Rich, “I have lunch once a week with you two.”