WRITING

FERAL

It was an obsession she couldn’t fight. She struggled to focus on her own issues, her own problems, but her mind was like an unleashed animal. It wandered, nay, ran where it wanted. The thought that something interesting may occur without her knowing gnawed at her very soul. She was behind on three projects, with a new one soon to appear in her cubicle, but the chorus of voices from the meeting room grew louder and louder. What had started out as a quiet meeting of three, soon grew to five, then seven and then to a pack of twelve. 

What could they be talking about? There were no project meetings planned for today. If there was it would have shown up on the group calendar. And she recently added the app to her phone so she wouldn’t miss anything, so she was sure it wasn’t ‘official’ business. At least five of them in there were her group members, all assigned different parts of the project carcass to work on. They hadn’t gathered since last week and as far as she knew they had another week before the next project meeting. Sure, she was behind on her part, she knew that. It ate at her, that she may be weakest member but what could she do? She was involved with three different bodies of work, each with a different group of people. Some of the people overlapped in different projects, so it was hard sometimes to know what project they were talking about when they entered her cubical. It was harder still, to pick out what they were saying and hear what her neighbours were talking about. Those around her had a curious habit of waiting to use the phone until she was talking with someone. It’s like it was planned, so she couldn’t hear what was going on with them. 

This time it was different. All of her neighbours were in that meeting room at the end of the isle. Along with most of her pack from the three different projects. It seemed obvious that they must be discussing something related to her, and her alone. What else could they all have in common? 

She had developed over the years a feral sense of stalking information. The easiest was just to sit quietly and listen. Sometimes she was so quiet that her neighbours forgot she was sitting there, just on the other side of that fabric covered half-wall, not unlike the blind that hunters use. She was able to shift in such a way as to have her head right against the wall nearest them, and was able to hear them with perfect clarity. Keeping tabs on them all was difficult, and she had taken to recording conversations and relationships in a small journal she kept hidden in her file drawer. She separated the notes into personal and work related information. She never used the information in a direct way, instead using it at opportune moments, like asking about their children when she knew something bad had happened, where they had lost a job or moved back home. She enjoyed these little victories, as they were forced to admit that perhaps, their lives were not as put together as hers. She didn’t think of herself as the alpha wolf, but she acted the part. 

As quickly as the meeting had formed, it ended, and they all headed back to their cubicles. She wasn’t their manager, so she had no right to ask them what went on, but she knew she would find out eventually. She would find out if it was the last thing she did. As she began to sit again, she caught sight of building security approaching her, with an empty box and a pink sheet of paper.