She Filled The Night With Little Stitches

This is a work of fiction. No real people, places or events were used. Copyright ã 2011 Plot Roach.

She Filled The Night With Little Stitches

By Plot Roach
　
“You can put the ten on the jack over there.” said John. He pointed to the card on the screen, reaching over Mary and disturbing her concentration.

“Yes, I know. Thank you.” she said through gritted teeth. John moved away from the computer and continued to give her “pointers” on how to win her current hand at computer solitaire. Frustrated, she closed the game and pretended to be too busy eating her lunch to answer him in conversation. Something about his boring life and how he thought that it would be important to her. She nodded, pretending to listen, and opened a computerized jigsaw puzzle.

She sighed and began to enjoy herself once John got the hint and left her office. All she wanted was a peaceful moment to herself. Just a few minutes where she did not have to deal with office gossip, maniacal managers or boring coworkers. She tried eating out at the local fast food places, but always ended up either eating with coworkers who invited themselves to her table or else strangers would come up to her out of the blue and tell her their life stories.

She asked a psychiatrist once what made her such an easy target, and he told her that she just had that kind of personality to attract those less fortunate. And that she should seek a career helping those that were drawn to her. So she picked a job in Social Services. And boy was that a mistake, she thought, glancing at the piles of papers she still had to work through before she went home for the night. She did not know who was in worse shape: the people that the office was trying to help, or the workers who processed the paperwork.

She tried eating her lunch in the office’s lunchroom, only to be waylaid by Mary Kay cosmetic Nazis trying to push their products on her. Or else getting the hairy eyeball by the Mothers for Jesus clique who decided to hold daily Bible studies at the only table available. Once she was even accosted by a coworker because she refused to buy ten pounds of "school spirit" chocolate to help the woman’s daughter get a new cheerleading uniform.

There are some real freaks out there, she thought as she eyed a neighbor’s cubicle. It was decorated in a fluffy kitten motif meets Jesus being tortured on the cross kind of thing. And Mary often wondered how the woman would react if she left a sculpture of a crucified stuffed animal kitten next to the woman’s computer monitor. She let out a small giggle at the mental image and returned to her computerized jigsaw puzzle, now halfway completed.

Her own desk was sparse, only because she could not find a theme she liked that the sticklers in County would approve of. She tried “Nightmare before Christmas”, but was told by her supervisor that it was too morbid. Then she brought in a brightly colored beta fish, only to be told that pets were not allowed in the workplace. Plants were also banned, even the silk ones, because they were deemed a potential hazard to anyone with allergies. Living plants, she could understand -but fake ones? It was brought to her attention that the dust that settled on the leaves could allow a colony of dust mites to breed and cause problems. So finally Mary gave up, she used the freebie crap that the county gave her as a “reward” for doing her job as the only decorations in her small office.

“Oh, you do it with the edges first? I always start in the middle.” Kathleen, her immediate supervisor said, leaning in through Mary’s office door. “Are you back from lunch yet?”

Would I be playing on the computer if I was? Mary thought. She shook her head, reminding herself that others did far worse things when at their desks and on company time. “I’ll be back on in ten minutes.” She told Kathleen.

“You can put this piece here.” Kathleen said, tapping the screen.

“Thanks.” Mary said, logging out of the computer and heading to the timecard machine. It was no use trying to finish the puzzle, all serenity she had found in its mundane movement was long since gone. If only I could find a way to make people leave me alone.

Mary stopped by a local craft store on the way home. It was more on a whim than out of necessity. She had received a coupon at home and decided to check the place out and see if she might pick up a new and interesting hobby. She wandered through the jewelry supply aisles, the racks of yarn and the sewing section, but still could not find anything to tempt her mood and make her open her wallet. She stood in line, waiting to purchase a roll of Cherry flavored LifeSavers when her eyes fell upon the book section. And there it is, she thought, reaching out to an oversized, soft cover volume that depicted handmade dolls. She flipped though the book as she waited in line, more and more convinced that this might just do the trick and start her on a new project that would allow her to forget the woes of her workday.

She smiled as she laid her items out on the front counter, happily planning her first project. Once home she searched through her closet for a box of fabric scraps she knew she had there. They were leftover from the scrap quilting hobby she had tried a few years earlier. She laid out some of the pieces and read the instructions in the book, paying careful attention to the details. It was this same attention to detail which brought her such success (and a certain amount of freebie crap) at work.

She looked at a few of the photos she had in a shoebox sitting on her end table. The box contained the fruit of yet another project, photography, that she had experimented with and tossed aside several months earlier. Inside were pictures of loved ones, animals at the park, and even her coworkers at various “team building” events.

She picked up a picture of Tyler, a man from another section of her building, as he was posing for the camera at a Christmas function. She sifted through the fabric scraps until she matched his clothes, skin tone and hair as close as she could. The she filled the night with little stitches and a few curses as she stabbed herself with the needle.

The next morning, she brought the finished doll into work with her as well as a few extra bits and pieces to start in on another one during her lunch break. As she was assembling the next doll, a woman named Hanna, who worked in Tyler’s section, came over and asked if she wanted to come and wish him goodbye, since they were now celebrating his retirement from Social Services.

She nodded, sticking the needle she had been working with into the Tyler doll she had made, before she left with Hanna. Once done with lunch, and the festivities, Mary returned to her desk to find Kathleen bent over her dolls.

“It’s a new hobby.” Mary said, scooping the piles of fabric and miniature people back into her shoebox to set them in her desk drawer.

“Interesting.” was all Kathleen would say, before heading down to visit with other office workers. A few hours later, a memo circulate throughout the office. Tyler, the man whose career they had just celebrated, was now in the hospital. He had suffered a heart attack after the party. And though he was in stable condition, his doctors were baffled. He was in prime condition, with no predisposition of heart disease.

As Kathleen told Mary about the incident, she glanced multiple times at the desk drawer that held Mary’s new hobby. Mary could not understand why the change in attitude until she pulled the box out at the end of the night and saw the needle resting in the heart of the Tyler doll.

She pulled the needle out and set the doll on her desk. It’s just a doll, she told herself. Nothing to get freaked out over.

But then Kathleen came by her office to wish her goodnight. She came no further than the edge of the office doorway and kept her eyes on the doll the whole time. John had the same reaction when he poked his head in to ask if Mary needed a refill of coffee from the break room.

Mary set the box of scraps back into the desk drawer, determined to make more dolls on her lunch break in the days to come. At last finding a way where she could get a little peace and quiet from her coworkers.