Electric Contempt

They all hated the way Joe had started to drag his feet around the office. They hated the way he slurped his coffee, and boy did his breath stink. They hated having to go over to his desk that he had filled full of shit and coffee rings and his stupid little toys plunged into blu-tac podia on his monitor.

            ‘Pick your feet up please, Joe. You’re going to have an accident.’

            ‘Please stop shuffling your feet, Joe. You’re wearing the carpet away.’

            Joe would just open his mouth into a careless grin; the stink of machine coffee drifting past the haggard remains of brown teeth, the last broken peanuts in a black bowl.

            He used to be so pleasant and polite, just like everyone else.

            Nobody could say exactly when his behaviour had begun to change. Nobody, that is, but Joe himself. They assumed that because he had spent over a year working for the agency, rather than on the company’s books, for a low hourly rate rather than a set salary, that he was no longer willing to conform for such a low price. What his colleagues were unaware of, however, was that four months ago Joe had won 30,000 on a scratch card. He filled in the application forms, sent them off with his proofs of identity and proofs of income. The cheque arrived, he deliberated a brazen resignation as it matured in his account.

            He’d heard what they said about him. He knew, could tell by their body language, that his face didn’t fit among their cliques. Sure they were all nice to him at first. Then, after a month or two, he noticed the malice in their curled lips and dagger eyes. They were forever snitching to the boss: Dozy Old Joe never initialled the checklist, again; Dozy Old Joe got the date wrong on the miscellaneous request pro forma; Dozy old Joe...

            He hated that name. He overheard someone singing it in a Mockney accent. They looked embarrassed as he peered over the divider, shuffling his feet against the fraying nylon there.

            Then his phone rang. He got a little electric shock as he picked it up. He got another one retrieving a document from the printer. Another one from a door handle. The anticipation of it, the little lightning tickle, was thrilling. He bought rubber-soled shoes and polyester trousers to store up extra static.

            The next person to call him ‘Dozy Old Joe’ was getting a nice little zap on the earlobe. Then he would walk away, take his 30,000 and go on that Peruvian adventure he always dreamed of.

            The next person was Vincent Long, and Joe was glad, because Vincent was a tosser.

            ‘Hey, DoJo,’ he said. ‘Need that report by close of play today. Think you can do that for me?’

            Close of play. Joe hated that phrase. The word ‘play’ carries connotations of fun, but where the fun was in colouring cells green or red in a spreadsheet was unapparent to the bored, frustrated Joe. What did he call me? DoJo? That’s close enough.

            Joe shuffled over to Vincent’s desk, stretching his index finger out at the other man’s ear as he approached. The lightning that came off his fingertips made him look like Darth fucking Sidious.

            Vincent was dead. Joe relieved himself of further duties.