Death in the Office
"That's Why You Never Hire a Skeleton"
On Monday morning the stench of death was in the air. I arrived at the office early and found myself overwhelmed by a macabre odor lingering in the air like the rerun of an annoying sitcom scheduled just before the one show you actually want to watch. Concluding that the smell was obviously something related to the renovation project going on down the hall, I brushed it off and grabbed a cup of coffee from the office break room. Returning to my cubicle with a fresh beverage, I set out to conquer the stack of papers resting on my desk from the week before.
That's when I heard a sound I would never forget. It was a shrieking laugh that ravaged my ears and dispatched freight trains of fright up and down the railroad tracks of my spine. It was meticulous and evil, and it made short work of each and every single nerve ending in my body. After thirty consecutive seconds of aural torture in the form of a maniacal laugh, I jumped up and stormed out of my cubicle towards the source of the noise.
I quickly glanced in all directions, letting my eyes chase my ears in a dizzying fashion until I honed in on the source. It was the copy room, and a small crowded was gathered outside. Feeling tasked with the duty to yell at whoever was laughing, I rolled up my sleeves and stormed towards the door.
"What's that damn laughing all about?" I demanded to know.
My haste got the better of me, as I did not realize the boss had crept up behind me like a human cape.
"That," he scornfully said, "is the new employee. His name is Mr. Marrow and he's going to be working the copy room."
"Well," I said defensively in a slightly disarming tone, "why is he laughing so loudly?"
"He's a skeleton. That's what he does."
"A skeleton?" I replied in a voice so amazed it would probably have a heart attack at a third grade science fair if given human form and an invitation to attend a third grade science fair.
"Yes, a skeleton. I think you should go introduce yourself - make friends with the guy."
"If it will get him to stop laughing, I will do it."
The copy room was as dark as the space underneath a bed, and more menacing than any copy room had ever been. I slowly pushed the door open, which simultaneously made the laugh sound louder and gave it a creaking accompaniment. There was total darkness in the room save for a star field of small green and red glows emanating from the copy machines, printers, and other appliances. There was also a golden glimmer reflecting light from the open door. It was a medallion floating in the furthest corner of the room - the same corner the laughter came from. It was Mr. Marrow, hiding in the corner, laughing maniacally at some horrific joke none of us knew.
"Hello," I said in a nervous voice. "Mr. Marrow?"
The laughter stopped. But sadly, there was no silence. Mr. Marrow switched from laughing to vibrating. My ears were drowning in a cacophony of grating teeth and twiddling bony digits. My heart throbbed so frantically I worried it was going to run out of beats and leave me to die in the newly haunted office copy room of death.
"Look, I know you're new here," I said, "but that's no excuse to laugh so loudly. If there's a funny e-mail or something going around, that's okay, but there is a limit to these things you know!"
What happened next probably took ten years off my life, and twenty off my bowels. That monster began charging at me. It was as if time slowed to a crawl - the kind of desperate crawl you see when you knock an old woman off one of those electric scooters at Wal-Mart. I could see the individual bones jump into motion, setting off chain reactions. It started with the hipbone, which was connected to the leg bone, and in turn to the foot bone. Within a second this clockwork of moving bones was near me, and all I could do was stand frozen like a geode stuck in quicksand.
Several long seconds later, I found the strength to run out of the copy room, albeit as a defeated and wrecked man. Mr. Marrow had charged up close and laughed his horrific laugh right in my face while flailing his limbs so madly that they tore the nearby shelves of paper and supplies asunder. Seeing him up close and personal was chilling beyond words. His gaunt, naked form, the hollow blackness of his eye sockets, the disturbing allure of that medallion wrapped around his neck - it all came together in one complete package of terror and sold itself to me in one easy payment.
"He's a monster!" I shouted. "I can't work with him! I can't make copies in an environment like that!"
"You'll just have to learn to," my boss responded. "We can't fire him just because he's different."
"I have to be honest here, " I said in a sensible fashion. "I sincerely object to the employment of Mr. Marrow. He's a skeleton and he won't stop laughing!"
"The way I see it," said my boss, "he has nothing to hide. He probably got a funny joke forwarded to him through the e-mail. You know that happens all the time!"
"I hardly think a skeleton has qualifications to work in an office copy room!"
"He's well qualified for the job. We're lucky to have someone like that in the copy room. It's the economy, you know. Well qualified people are taking jobs that would otherwise be beneath them."
"What kind of qualifications would a skeleton have? Did he work in a copy room on a haunted pirate ship?"
"He was the assistant manager of an Olive Garden, and while that's not that big a deal, it definitely shows he will do fine in our copy room."
I had no choice but to endure this torture. The day was volatile and plagued with an obnoxious laugh that would go on for minutes at a time. In the space between laughter, there was the cracking of joints and chattering of teeth. I don't know how I made it through the day, let alone the next three.
By Friday I thought the situation had finally resolved itself. I was called to give my opinion on a situation developing in the janitor's closet. It seems a small treasure of office paraphernalia had amassed there, and the main culprit was obvious in my mind.
"Mr. Marrow's fingerprints are all over this," I confidently stated.
"He doesn’t have flesh so he can't leave fingerprints," a coworker argued.
"This is all your fault," my boss interjected. "You ostracized him from the start. You made him an outsider by not just refusing to set boundaries for him, but refusing him altogether. He wanted authority and that's why he started acting out. He was hoping to get caught and punished."
"But-" I started to say.
"But we aren't going to let this stand. We're going to be more embracing of him now. I just found out he has to walk to and from work. I want you to give him a ride home tonight. We can't have him as an outsider this Saturday when we have the company picnic!"
As fate would have it, this new development would strengthen my relationship with Mr. Marrow by exposing him in new light. After a grueling day of laughter, I proceeded to the office copy room to let Mr. Marrow know I was heading out, and that I would indeed be giving him a ride home. He stopped laughing then, and instantly started grating his teeth in a nervous manner. He did this throughout the ride to his home. Aside from some spastic flailing against the seatbelt, he remained relatively quiet and nervous, occasionally lifting his cold dead hand up to point in the direction I needed to go. Had I been on the receiving end of that dreadful pointing finger, I probably would have considered it a sign that my life was over.
"You can put on whatever you want on the radio," I said.
He just stared away at his window, fearful of making eye contact.
Mr. Marrow didn't even bother to tell me to stop when we arrived at his home. He just tore through my seatbelt, opened the door, and jumped out awkwardly into the street. I quickly slammed the breaks and threw the car in park before rushing out to check on him. He managed to sever his leg at the knee and was flailing madly in the street laughing the most heartbreakingly sad demonic laugh I ever heard.
"There, there," I said. "You'll be okay. We can glue this back on. Let me help you to your apartment."
When I saw the poor conditions of his apartment building, then of the room he was renting and the way he lived, I understood him. He did his best to keep laughing in a world so cruel it wouldn't even give him the lips with which to form a smile. That demonic laugh was the only way he had of showing that he was okay, and he did his best to keep that illusion going for himself and others. He could no longer do that for me.
I looked around the decrepit studio apartment, almost barren except for an open treasure chest full of medical journals I think he was using as pornography. I wasn't sure, but it looked like there were some printouts of e-mail joke forwards in there as well, but I didn't want to ask. I could swear he tried to look ashamed when I saw the chest, but he lacked the facial muscles with which to curl his eyelids, let alone eyelids to curl. Those eye sockets of his, so big and dark, were like the black holes of outer space. They say a black hole can crush a man into a tiny speck and keep him just as heavy. His eye sockets were like that as well. They compressed the sorrow of a thousand wounded puppy dogs into two tiny little black pits that sucked you in and made you long to provide comfort and love.
As luck would have it, I had some glue in my briefcase that worked wonders in mending his broken leg and equally broken spirit. It seemed to get the job done and I could tell he felt a little better afterwards, since he went from nervously stroking his medallion to grating his teeth frantically in an almost joyous manner. He tried to get up, but I held him down reassuringly and told him to take it easy until the glue fully dried.
"Look," I said. "You've got a tough life, but you're a fighter. The company picnic is tomorrow and I'll come pick you up in the morning. We'll have a great time, I promise! You can be my partner in the sack race!"
On Saturday morning the smell of death never smelt so alive. Mr. Marrow was full of pep, laughing himself silly all along the drive to the park where the company picnic was taking place.
"Save some energy for the sack race!" I jubilantly demanded.
"MUWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA!" responded Mr. Marrow while frantically yanking on the tattered remains of my passenger side seatbelt.
I watched Mr. Marrow closely at the company picnic. He was full of fun quirks and behavior traits. He was constantly picking through trash bins for chicken bones, which he would then pile up neatly behind a tree. Occasionally he would sit calmly as though listening intently, only to jump up screaming and throwing his arms around. In short, he was the life of the picnic.
When it came time for the sack race, I felt good having him as my partner. I lowered my right leg into the sack and he lowered his bony left leg in. At first he tried to fight the sack, kicking around madly and then tugging at it with his arms, but I was able to calm him down and focus him on the goal of winning the sack race. I was confident the two of us would have no trouble leaving the other teams in the dust of defeat.
When the air horn sounded, we took off like lightning through the park, hopping a trail towards victory. Mr. Marrow was oddly focused and his laugh mutated into an almost athletic breathing. We easily gained a sizeable lead over the competition, but our voyage would not go smoothly. With the finish line in sight, no more than a hundred feet away, we tripped and fell. Mr. Marrow shattered into a pile of odd bones. Looking up while pressed against the ground, I saw directly into the empty eye sockets of his decapitated skull. It was as if he was truly gone.
I jumped up and shouted, "C'mon, buddy! We can still win this."
There was no response, just a lifeless assortment of bones scattered on the ground.
"C'mon, buddy!" I cried again as I leaned over and started loading his bones into the sack. "We've got a sack race to win!"
With the entirety of Mr. Marrow in the sack with my right leg, I took off towards the finish line and the sweet taste of victory it offered. We lost the bulk of our lead, but we still won by a slim margin over the other teams. We won - together. It was a thing of beauty. It was just too bad Mr. Marrow wasn't alive enough to celebrate the victory with me.
After the picnic I carried the sack containing Mr. Marrow and placed it gently in the trunk of my car, vowing to pick up the pieces the next day.
"He's not such a bad guy after all," I told my boss.
"The copy room has never been so lively," he responded.
That Sunday I carried the sack of Mr. Marrow's bones to the office copy room and spent the day gluing him back together. He seemed to remain lifeless, but then I remembered that crazy medallion of his. Once I put that around his neck, he jumped back to life laughing himself silly.
"You're one in a million, Mr. Marrow! One in a million!"
He just laughed and laughed and then laughed some more.
On Monday morning a different kind of deathly stench was in the air. And an eerie quiet as well.
"Where's Mr. Marrow?" I demanded to my boss.
"I had to let him go. I called him this morning and asked him not to come in."
"Why? He was just starting to fit in!"
"He faked it."
"Faked what, sir?"
"He faked his résumé. He never worked at Olive Garden!"
"How do you know?"
"I went there with my wife to eat, and while there I had a conversation with the manager. It was mostly over the service, but while he was there I asked him about Mr. Marrow. He never worked at an Olive Garden."
"I don't believe it. I can't believe he would lie on his résumé like that!"
"They're all liars at heart, though they don't even have hearts. Forging a résumé is no stretch for a liar. I guess that's why you don't hire skeletons."
"I guess not."
"Plus his arm flailing came dangerously close to groping on a number of occassions, and the last thing I want is a sexual harassment lawsuit in this office."
I can't say I didn't mind the peace and quiet, or the relaxed attitude of the new copy room worker. I also didn't mind the lack of the stench of death permeating the office. Skeletons are a lot of things, just not office workers. Mr. Marrow tried his hardest to penetrate our world, but he just wasn't ready for it, and we weren't ready for him. Still, I'll always think back to the good times we had together, like our victory in the sack race, the moment we bonded in his apartment, and that crazy laugh of his. If anyone truly knew how to live, it was him.
~Written by Josh "Livestock" Boruff (of SA fame)~
~Brought to you by Spencer "Mindhacker" Williams (of LJ fame)~
~Original article written on Wednesday, November 10, 2004~
On Monday morning the stench of death was in the air. I arrived at the office early and found myself overwhelmed by a macabre odor lingering in the air like the rerun of an annoying sitcom scheduled just before the one show you actually want to watch. Concluding that the smell was obviously something related to the renovation project going on down the hall, I brushed it off and grabbed a cup of coffee from the office break room. Returning to my cubicle with a fresh beverage, I set out to conquer the stack of papers resting on my desk from the week before.
That's when I heard a sound I would never forget. It was a shrieking laugh that ravaged my ears and dispatched freight trains of fright up and down the railroad tracks of my spine. It was meticulous and evil, and it made short work of each and every single nerve ending in my body. After thirty consecutive seconds of aural torture in the form of a maniacal laugh, I jumped up and stormed out of my cubicle towards the source of the noise.
I quickly glanced in all directions, letting my eyes chase my ears in a dizzying fashion until I honed in on the source. It was the copy room, and a small crowded was gathered outside. Feeling tasked with the duty to yell at whoever was laughing, I rolled up my sleeves and stormed towards the door.
"What's that damn laughing all about?" I demanded to know.
My haste got the better of me, as I did not realize the boss had crept up behind me like a human cape.
"That," he scornfully said, "is the new employee. His name is Mr. Marrow and he's going to be working the copy room."
"Well," I said defensively in a slightly disarming tone, "why is he laughing so loudly?"
"He's a skeleton. That's what he does."
"A skeleton?" I replied in a voice so amazed it would probably have a heart attack at a third grade science fair if given human form and an invitation to attend a third grade science fair.
"Yes, a skeleton. I think you should go introduce yourself - make friends with the guy."
"If it will get him to stop laughing, I will do it."
The copy room was as dark as the space underneath a bed, and more menacing than any copy room had ever been. I slowly pushed the door open, which simultaneously made the laugh sound louder and gave it a creaking accompaniment. There was total darkness in the room save for a star field of small green and red glows emanating from the copy machines, printers, and other appliances. There was also a golden glimmer reflecting light from the open door. It was a medallion floating in the furthest corner of the room - the same corner the laughter came from. It was Mr. Marrow, hiding in the corner, laughing maniacally at some horrific joke none of us knew.
"Hello," I said in a nervous voice. "Mr. Marrow?"
The laughter stopped. But sadly, there was no silence. Mr. Marrow switched from laughing to vibrating. My ears were drowning in a cacophony of grating teeth and twiddling bony digits. My heart throbbed so frantically I worried it was going to run out of beats and leave me to die in the newly haunted office copy room of death.
"Look, I know you're new here," I said, "but that's no excuse to laugh so loudly. If there's a funny e-mail or something going around, that's okay, but there is a limit to these things you know!"
What happened next probably took ten years off my life, and twenty off my bowels. That monster began charging at me. It was as if time slowed to a crawl - the kind of desperate crawl you see when you knock an old woman off one of those electric scooters at Wal-Mart. I could see the individual bones jump into motion, setting off chain reactions. It started with the hipbone, which was connected to the leg bone, and in turn to the foot bone. Within a second this clockwork of moving bones was near me, and all I could do was stand frozen like a geode stuck in quicksand.
Several long seconds later, I found the strength to run out of the copy room, albeit as a defeated and wrecked man. Mr. Marrow had charged up close and laughed his horrific laugh right in my face while flailing his limbs so madly that they tore the nearby shelves of paper and supplies asunder. Seeing him up close and personal was chilling beyond words. His gaunt, naked form, the hollow blackness of his eye sockets, the disturbing allure of that medallion wrapped around his neck - it all came together in one complete package of terror and sold itself to me in one easy payment.
"He's a monster!" I shouted. "I can't work with him! I can't make copies in an environment like that!"
"You'll just have to learn to," my boss responded. "We can't fire him just because he's different."
"I have to be honest here, " I said in a sensible fashion. "I sincerely object to the employment of Mr. Marrow. He's a skeleton and he won't stop laughing!"
"The way I see it," said my boss, "he has nothing to hide. He probably got a funny joke forwarded to him through the e-mail. You know that happens all the time!"
"I hardly think a skeleton has qualifications to work in an office copy room!"
"He's well qualified for the job. We're lucky to have someone like that in the copy room. It's the economy, you know. Well qualified people are taking jobs that would otherwise be beneath them."
"What kind of qualifications would a skeleton have? Did he work in a copy room on a haunted pirate ship?"
"He was the assistant manager of an Olive Garden, and while that's not that big a deal, it definitely shows he will do fine in our copy room."
I had no choice but to endure this torture. The day was volatile and plagued with an obnoxious laugh that would go on for minutes at a time. In the space between laughter, there was the cracking of joints and chattering of teeth. I don't know how I made it through the day, let alone the next three.
By Friday I thought the situation had finally resolved itself. I was called to give my opinion on a situation developing in the janitor's closet. It seems a small treasure of office paraphernalia had amassed there, and the main culprit was obvious in my mind.
"Mr. Marrow's fingerprints are all over this," I confidently stated.
"He doesn’t have flesh so he can't leave fingerprints," a coworker argued.
"This is all your fault," my boss interjected. "You ostracized him from the start. You made him an outsider by not just refusing to set boundaries for him, but refusing him altogether. He wanted authority and that's why he started acting out. He was hoping to get caught and punished."
"But-" I started to say.
"But we aren't going to let this stand. We're going to be more embracing of him now. I just found out he has to walk to and from work. I want you to give him a ride home tonight. We can't have him as an outsider this Saturday when we have the company picnic!"
As fate would have it, this new development would strengthen my relationship with Mr. Marrow by exposing him in new light. After a grueling day of laughter, I proceeded to the office copy room to let Mr. Marrow know I was heading out, and that I would indeed be giving him a ride home. He stopped laughing then, and instantly started grating his teeth in a nervous manner. He did this throughout the ride to his home. Aside from some spastic flailing against the seatbelt, he remained relatively quiet and nervous, occasionally lifting his cold dead hand up to point in the direction I needed to go. Had I been on the receiving end of that dreadful pointing finger, I probably would have considered it a sign that my life was over.
"You can put on whatever you want on the radio," I said.
He just stared away at his window, fearful of making eye contact.
Mr. Marrow didn't even bother to tell me to stop when we arrived at his home. He just tore through my seatbelt, opened the door, and jumped out awkwardly into the street. I quickly slammed the breaks and threw the car in park before rushing out to check on him. He managed to sever his leg at the knee and was flailing madly in the street laughing the most heartbreakingly sad demonic laugh I ever heard.
"There, there," I said. "You'll be okay. We can glue this back on. Let me help you to your apartment."
When I saw the poor conditions of his apartment building, then of the room he was renting and the way he lived, I understood him. He did his best to keep laughing in a world so cruel it wouldn't even give him the lips with which to form a smile. That demonic laugh was the only way he had of showing that he was okay, and he did his best to keep that illusion going for himself and others. He could no longer do that for me.
I looked around the decrepit studio apartment, almost barren except for an open treasure chest full of medical journals I think he was using as pornography. I wasn't sure, but it looked like there were some printouts of e-mail joke forwards in there as well, but I didn't want to ask. I could swear he tried to look ashamed when I saw the chest, but he lacked the facial muscles with which to curl his eyelids, let alone eyelids to curl. Those eye sockets of his, so big and dark, were like the black holes of outer space. They say a black hole can crush a man into a tiny speck and keep him just as heavy. His eye sockets were like that as well. They compressed the sorrow of a thousand wounded puppy dogs into two tiny little black pits that sucked you in and made you long to provide comfort and love.
As luck would have it, I had some glue in my briefcase that worked wonders in mending his broken leg and equally broken spirit. It seemed to get the job done and I could tell he felt a little better afterwards, since he went from nervously stroking his medallion to grating his teeth frantically in an almost joyous manner. He tried to get up, but I held him down reassuringly and told him to take it easy until the glue fully dried.
"Look," I said. "You've got a tough life, but you're a fighter. The company picnic is tomorrow and I'll come pick you up in the morning. We'll have a great time, I promise! You can be my partner in the sack race!"
On Saturday morning the smell of death never smelt so alive. Mr. Marrow was full of pep, laughing himself silly all along the drive to the park where the company picnic was taking place.
"Save some energy for the sack race!" I jubilantly demanded.
"MUWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA!" responded Mr. Marrow while frantically yanking on the tattered remains of my passenger side seatbelt.
I watched Mr. Marrow closely at the company picnic. He was full of fun quirks and behavior traits. He was constantly picking through trash bins for chicken bones, which he would then pile up neatly behind a tree. Occasionally he would sit calmly as though listening intently, only to jump up screaming and throwing his arms around. In short, he was the life of the picnic.
When it came time for the sack race, I felt good having him as my partner. I lowered my right leg into the sack and he lowered his bony left leg in. At first he tried to fight the sack, kicking around madly and then tugging at it with his arms, but I was able to calm him down and focus him on the goal of winning the sack race. I was confident the two of us would have no trouble leaving the other teams in the dust of defeat.
When the air horn sounded, we took off like lightning through the park, hopping a trail towards victory. Mr. Marrow was oddly focused and his laugh mutated into an almost athletic breathing. We easily gained a sizeable lead over the competition, but our voyage would not go smoothly. With the finish line in sight, no more than a hundred feet away, we tripped and fell. Mr. Marrow shattered into a pile of odd bones. Looking up while pressed against the ground, I saw directly into the empty eye sockets of his decapitated skull. It was as if he was truly gone.
I jumped up and shouted, "C'mon, buddy! We can still win this."
There was no response, just a lifeless assortment of bones scattered on the ground.
"C'mon, buddy!" I cried again as I leaned over and started loading his bones into the sack. "We've got a sack race to win!"
With the entirety of Mr. Marrow in the sack with my right leg, I took off towards the finish line and the sweet taste of victory it offered. We lost the bulk of our lead, but we still won by a slim margin over the other teams. We won - together. It was a thing of beauty. It was just too bad Mr. Marrow wasn't alive enough to celebrate the victory with me.
After the picnic I carried the sack containing Mr. Marrow and placed it gently in the trunk of my car, vowing to pick up the pieces the next day.
"He's not such a bad guy after all," I told my boss.
"The copy room has never been so lively," he responded.
That Sunday I carried the sack of Mr. Marrow's bones to the office copy room and spent the day gluing him back together. He seemed to remain lifeless, but then I remembered that crazy medallion of his. Once I put that around his neck, he jumped back to life laughing himself silly.
"You're one in a million, Mr. Marrow! One in a million!"
He just laughed and laughed and then laughed some more.
On Monday morning a different kind of deathly stench was in the air. And an eerie quiet as well.
"Where's Mr. Marrow?" I demanded to my boss.
"I had to let him go. I called him this morning and asked him not to come in."
"Why? He was just starting to fit in!"
"He faked it."
"Faked what, sir?"
"He faked his résumé. He never worked at Olive Garden!"
"How do you know?"
"I went there with my wife to eat, and while there I had a conversation with the manager. It was mostly over the service, but while he was there I asked him about Mr. Marrow. He never worked at an Olive Garden."
"I don't believe it. I can't believe he would lie on his résumé like that!"
"They're all liars at heart, though they don't even have hearts. Forging a résumé is no stretch for a liar. I guess that's why you don't hire skeletons."
"I guess not."
"Plus his arm flailing came dangerously close to groping on a number of occassions, and the last thing I want is a sexual harassment lawsuit in this office."
I can't say I didn't mind the peace and quiet, or the relaxed attitude of the new copy room worker. I also didn't mind the lack of the stench of death permeating the office. Skeletons are a lot of things, just not office workers. Mr. Marrow tried his hardest to penetrate our world, but he just wasn't ready for it, and we weren't ready for him. Still, I'll always think back to the good times we had together, like our victory in the sack race, the moment we bonded in his apartment, and that crazy laugh of his. If anyone truly knew how to live, it was him.
~Written by Josh "Livestock" Boruff (of SA fame)~
~Brought to you by Spencer "Mindhacker" Williams (of LJ fame)~
~Original article written on Wednesday, November 10, 2004~