“Did you hear?”

“No what?”

“Did you hear?”

-“Did you hear?”

“Damn I heard..”

“Did you hear?”

I wanted to slam my head against the closest solid wall. The phrase was haunting me even when I visited the bathroom. Couldn’t take a piss without hearing someone echoing the cursed question.

“Did you hear about the guy who … you know.. wanted to commit suicide ?”

“Suicide? I heard he randomly started a fight in the middle of a meeting. With the CEO. Knocked him out cold.”

“That guy?! No way. He’s scrawny.”

I slam the toilet cabin door behind me and make my way to the sink.

I can’t look them in the eyes. I resolve to staring through the mirror.

It’s comical how they shut up like fish gulping for air.

In my own cubicle.

“Hey did you hear ?”

The floor to feeling windows look so inviting.

I’m the elevator down. Some clerks in the back. Doesn’t see that I’m in front.

“Heard there was an arson case.”

“Arson? Nah mate you mixed it all up. It was identity fraud. I tell ya.”

“What’d they fake?”

As the elevators doors open on my level I quietly think that perhaps there is a god.

It’s funny how there are so many exaggerated versions of one simple misunderstanding. So exaggerated in fact that’s if any of them were true I’d be a wanted criminal with a possible death sentence.

So much for keeping it down.

It wasn’t my fault after all that the fire alarm went off exactly at the moment when I got caught up in some cables near the projector and fell directly onto the crotch of my CEO.

I should put in my leave notice tomorrow morning.