1,300 words. Decided not to force myself to keep writing today.The next morning Alicia puttered around the office, mostly just going through the motions of work. Which meant things that didn't require any thinking got done, such as filing and data processing. But in a testing facility the more important things were research and experiments, neither of which Alicia could focus on.
It didn't take long before Susan came around looking for Alicia. She motioned Alicia away from her desk, and without a word led Alicia back to her office. Once they were inside, she closed the door.
"Please, take a seat," Susan said, motioning to a chair as she walked around her desk to her own chair.
Both women sat.
"Alicia, you know how valuable you are to this company, right? I hope I've made that clear to you in the past. How much we like having you as an employee?" Susan started with.
Alicia wasn't sure where that line was supposed to lead, but it didn't sound like the great opener it claimed to be. "Yes," she replied cautiously.
"And I'm hoping you feel the same way about working here," Susan added, then paused to let Alicia confirm or deny.
"Oh, I do," Alicia answered with a nod.
"Good," Susan said with a satisfied look. "Then please tell me, what is going on with you?"
Alicia blinked a couple times, frantically trying to think of a suitable answer. "What do you mean?" she stalled with.
"Normally I wouldn't have said anything, at least not so soon. I would have waited several days to see if your sudden change in behavior corrected itself," Susan explained. She opened a drawer to her left and pulled out two pieces of paper with words printed on them. "But in light of a conversation I had earlier this morning with that hospital you volunteer at, I felt a more proactive approach was called for." She looked at the papers, quickly verifying their contents, then pushed them across the desk.
Alicia glanced down, then immediately back up at Susan. "Conversation? About me, I take it?"
"Yes." Susan sighed. "I wanted to talk to you first, before any of the other managers found out, especially David."
Alicia frowned. David was the big head honcho. His name rarely came up in this department unless it was something significant. She looked down at the sheets of paper and began to read them.
"The hospital called yesterday afternoon looking for you," Susan explained while Alicia read. "Melinda took a message that said they were simply checking up. I called them back after you called in for the rest of the day off, but no one at that time seemed to know why we had been called. I got a call back this morning. The woman I spoke to said you had some sort of nervous break down there yesterday, apparently while you were on your lunch hour. She said you were acting terrified. And that you yelled at first a wall and then the air. They were concerned. And honestly, so am I."
Alicia finished the papers. One was a paid time off request form. The other was an except of the company's medical benefits, the section on mental health coverage and services offered, including phone numbers for emergency help.
"What do you want me to say?" Alicia asked.
Susan's voice softened. "Look, I understand if you don't want to discuss things with me. That's why I wanted to make sure you had this," she said, pointing to the mental benefits sheet. "If you can tell me now that you believe you can continue to work without whatever is going on significantly impacting your performance, then take that, go back to work, and that will be the end of things. But if not, I suggest you fill out that form for however long you think you're going to need. And if you do, I won't pass on any information to the rest of the company until it becomes necessary." She smiled positively. "I hope it won't become necessary."
Alicia nodded slowly, thinking over her decision. "Can I see how the rest of the day goes, and give you an answer tomorrow?" she asked.
"Of course," Susan replied. She motioned to the papers. "Take them both, and return the form if you decide to use it."
"Thank you," Alicia replied with a small smile. She picked up both pieces of paper and headed out of the office. After closing the door behind herself, she closed her eyes for a moment and shook her head. Some part of her felt very relived. It was good to know she had an out if she needed it. Good to know she had a way to make sure she'd have a job on the other side of this bizarre roller coaster ride.
After the meeting with Susan, lunch time barely came fast enough. Alicia headed out to meet Martin as planned. Her research on the internet last night hadn't turned up much of anything useful, so she was eager to see what he had.
They met at a Panera Bread that was about halfway between each of their offices. If Martin hadn't insisted on ordering something to eat, Alicia would not have herself. She was anxious to learn whatever she could. Martin on the other hand seemed quite unfazed by the events of the day before.
After picking up their food, they chose a small table away from most people in the back of the restaurant.
"How can you be taking all this so calmly?" Alicia asked him once they were seated.
"I've had a lot more time than you to adjust to the thought of it all," he answered nonchalantly.
That made sense to Alicia. She took a bite of her lunch, but then pushed it aside. "Do you have it?"
Martin smiled and nodded. "Right here." He pulled out several sheets obviously xeroxed copies of a handwritten journal and handed them to her. Then he set about eating his lunch.
While he ate, she read. Most of the entries were about the priest's suspicious of the member of his flock, and his speculations on what the person might be. It seemed to Alicia that there were some entries missing along the way. And some were definitely unfinished, or perhaps it was just that the pages they were finished or started on were missing.
"Where's the rest?" she asked at one point, without looking up from her reading.
"Between the libraries I checked and the man's church, that's all I could find that was still legible," he answered apologetically.
"Mnnnn," she groaned unhappily.
When she was done reading, she turned the papers over a couple times to be sure she hadn't missed anything.
"Well this doesn't help me all that much. The only thing it says about what that Mr. Williams could is show others Death as a person and that he could stop death, but then it also says there were a couple times he couldn't prevent someone from dying."
Martin nodded. "And nothing else I've found has as much detail as that."
"So... what?" She threw the papers onto the table with disappointment as she slumped backwards in her chair. She looked off towards one center of the restaurant for a moment, as if seeking answers there, then shook her head. "I wish I knew what to do from here."
"There is one person, so to speak, who probably has the answers you want," Martin reminded her.
Alicia pressed her lips together, but nodded.
"You know what that means," he said as a statement instead of a question.
"I have to go see D again," Alicia replied with a tone that heavily indicated she did not want to.
"Would you like me to go with you?" he offered.
"Yes please."
Labels: BoD, NaNoWriMo 2005, Story
