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Ignorance Isn’t Always Bliss




So I work in an office building. I’m kind of a temp or intern, or whatever you’d like to call me. I frequently refer to my position as “office bitch” as whenever something goes wrong, or there is something unpleasant to take care of, “somebody” has to take care of it so that the day to day operations can remain smooth for the actual workers. I happen to be that “someone”. Seeing as I am still in school, I really have no problem working part time in an office setting because it gives me experience for my post-graduate hopes. Other than a few grouches, most of my coworkers see me as equal and will take time out of their day to say ‘hello’ to me and ask me how my day is going, so its hard to complain about working here.

Anyways, other than the random shit that I deal with on a day to day basis, my only daily responsibilities are doing the mail relieving the front desk lady for her hour long lunch break. Up until yesterday, I was entirely satisfied with my current position at the company, but after what I saw yesterday, I’m seriously considering a new line of temporary work. I walked towards my daily position at the front desk a 1 P.M. and began to lurk through reddit posts and answer the occasional phone calls. The building that I work in is 4 floors with an open atrium so that you can see all the way down to the bottom floor from the balcony of the three top levels. We are on the top floor, so I can frequently hear what is going on throughout the building at all times.

Being at the front desk gives me a rare opportunity to see who is coming and going at all times so I can usually say off of the top of my head who is currently in the office and who isn’t. Since I sit at the front desk from 1-2, its not unusual for people to be coming and going frequently for their lunches. There is only two ways to get up to our office in the building; the front stairs that go up the atrium to each respective floor, and the elevator for the more lazy worker bees.

So there’s this woman at my office, we’ll call her “Julie”, a beautiful middle-aged accountant. Sure, she’s probably about 15 years older than me, but man is she beautiful. My only issue with this woman is that not once in my 4 years of working here has she bothered to even bat an eye at me. I mean, I’ve always assumed that maybe she had caught me checking her out, or maybe she was just a bitch, but for whatever reason she has never bothered to say a word to me, until yesterday.

Most people go out to lunch together in bunches, usually entire departments, but never Julie. On the rare occasion that I would catch her going to or returning from lunch, she was always alone, and has literally never gone out to eat with her fellow accountants. Yesterday, as I sat down to relieve our receptionist, I noticed Julie walk down the stairs, just as 1:04 struck the clock. She wears these shoes that make a distinctive click as she walks on the marble flooring in our building.

Our receptionist caught her and said “Hey Julie, do you want to go grab some lunch today? I’m on my way out now”. By the time she had finished her sentence, Julie was down the stairs without a response. Our receptionist turned to me and rolled her eyes; “weird one she is, huh?”.

"Yea, I don’t think I’ve ever heard her speak, I wonder what her deal is" I replied.

"Oh well, I’ll see you in an hour, I’m going to go grab some food" she said in passing as she made her way down the stairs.

I began to make my rounds around reddit, and then the internet when I was interrupted by the same click click of Julie’s unique shoes about ten minutes into my shift. I could hear her making her way through the lobby before she began her ascension to our floor. “That was a short lunch” I told myself. About thirty seconds later, she had made it up the stair and made eye contact with me. This was a rare occasion, something that had literally never happened. For a brief moment I thought she was going to say something to me as she opened her mouth as if she had something to say, but she closed it and began walking towards her cubicle. By this point, I didn’t really think anything of it, just typical, weird Julie. For such a weird, antisocial woman, she was truly beautiful; her brunette hair, her perfect body, her bright blue eyes. Still not weirded out, I continued surfing.

Only about five minutes later, my surfing was once again interrupted. Click Click Click. They sounded exactly like Julie’s shoes, unlike anyone else’s that I had ever heard. But it couldn’t have been her because she just came up the stairs, and I would have seen her go back down. I was eerily comfortable despite hearing the sound of her shoes for the next thirty seconds. This comfort was shattered however, as I once again watched this beautiful 35 some-odd year old woman walk up the stairs. Before I was able to question what was happening, I was completely caught off guard, as I heard the noise of something that I had never heard before;

"Hey Joseph, how are you today?" she said with a beautiful, huge grin on her face.

I stuttered for a second just like any other guys when they are speaking with a gorgeous woman and spat out;

"Nothing much, just your typical Tuesday"

She giggled and responded, “I asked how you were, silly boy, not what you were doing”.

This was such a strange phenomenon that I had no idea what to think of it. I felt pretty damn stupid for sounding like an idiot, especially since it was the only time she had ever spoken to me. She maintained her smile as she once again walked towards her cubicle. Our mini conversation distracted me from the strange fact that she had already come up the stairs. I was quickly reminded of this fact when another ten minutes passed and I once again heard theclick click in our atrium.

"What the fuck is going on?" I kept thinking because there was no way she could have gotten passed me twice, let alone once. I anxiously waited for thirty seconds, fixating my eyes on the top of the stairs, waiting to see her once again. Then she appeared.

"Hey Joseph, how are you today?" she said once again in the exact same tone with the exact same grin that she had a few minutes prior.

At this point, I was less caught off guard by her beauty and more by the strange events that were happening in front of me. I thought that I was losing my mind.

This time though, I nailed the response; "I’m doing well, Julie, its very nice to see you".

Her grin disappeared at turned into something that I cannot explain. Her face didn’t necessarily convey happiness, but it didn’t convey sadness either. She didn’t appear angry or frustrated, she just held a bland look on her face as she approached the front desk.

"You know, Joseph, I’ve seen you looking at me before" she said with the plain look.

"What are you talking about Ms. Julie? I mean you’re a beautiful woman, but I would never disrespect you like that"

"So you don’t find me attractive?" she said with a crooked eyebrow.

"Of course I do, I just…."

"You don’t have to be so nervous, I enjoy younger men" she said.

Is this really happening? I thought. I’ve daydreamed about this for so long, there’s no way. She’s never even spoken to me and now she’s flirting with me?

Before I could finish my thought, I watched as Julie’s made direct eye contact with me. Slowly, her beautiful brown hair began to fall all over the receptionist’s desk. It started out with only a few pieces, but after about 2 minutes, she had stood there and not moved a muscle as every last hair fell off the top of her head. During this time, I tried speaking to her, asking her if she was okay, but I was met with a silent, blank stare.

“Julie, are you okay? Do you want me to call a doctor? Please let me help you”

She seemingly snapped out of it and returned to her cubicle for the third time, this time with a bald head, as my confusion continued to afflict me psyche. I am going crazy, this is ludicrous For all I know, I was going crazy, and the only thing that I could use to prove my sanity was the mass amount of brown hair from Julie’s beautiful head. The hair no longer seemed beautiful; it just seemed regular and disgusting like any other piece of hair that you find that isn’t yours. I quickly scooped it all up so that I could show somebody and explain that Julie isn’t well. After gathering it, I placed it in a bag that I found in the receptionist’s drawer, and then placed the full bag back in the drawer so that I could show it to our receptionist, the coworker that I trusted the most.

As I finished bagging the hair, I got a phone call. I answered in typical fashion; “Good afternoon, EPI Company”.

There was a pause.

The receptionist spoke; “Joseph, I am going to be a little bit late, I am stuck behind a car accident, I hope that I am not holding you up.”

“No worries, there isn’t much going on, I’ll see you when you get back.”

Thankfully, nothing strange happened in the next hour as I waited for her return, and I didn’t see Julie again, but I was getting anxious to show the receptionist what had happened to Julie’s hair. When she finally arrived, I had my hand on the drawer handle like a trigger finger ready to fire. She looked different, concerned, and pale.

I pressed on with my plan and opened the drawer; “You’ve got to see this, all of her hair fell….”

I was cut off by the receptionist; “You know that car accident that I was stuck behind?”

“Yea”, I said in a confused manor.

“It was Julie. I saw the fire department remove her from her car. It was completely mangled. It looked like a head on collision. I saw the paramedics taking her out of the car and putting her on a stretcher, she was so bloody that I only recognized her by those shoes that she always wears”.

When I looked down, the bag was there, but there was no hair to be found. Not trying to sound insane, I kept what I had seen to myself, that’s why I had to post here, I had to tell someoneanyone.

Not an hour later, there was a company-wide email sent out informing us that Julie was pronounced dead on the spot in a head on collision with an 18-wheeler at 1:06 P.M. We were informed that she didn’t suffer, and that in-office counseling would be offered for the next few weeks and that the office would close early for the day. Like everyone else, I didn’t think that anyone was close enough to her to be affected by this tragedy. She was a quiet, lonely, self-sufficient loaner that didn’t talk to anyone, but man was she beautiful. I still do not know who or what I saw, but I’m not sure that I want to find out.


Credits to: confusednotdazed22

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