Curiosity Part Six

A strange paralyzing fear gripped me.  Was it wrong for me to open the door?  I was too nervous at first to realize I’d gotten exactly what I wanted: interaction.

            “G-good morning!”  I sputtered as the man walked through the door I was holding. 

He turned to look at me before he disappeared through the inside door.  “Good morning to you, too.”  He smiled and was gone.

I stepped inside, mouth slightly open.  The door swung shut and bumped my back.  I couldn’t get over what happened.  I decided to sit back down at my desk and await the rest of the silent zombies.  Though I hadn’t accomplished much, I had learned that it was possible for them to respond to me.  This vital piece of information would be very helpful in my future endeavors to seek out the truth.  The rest of the morning was spent politely wishing everyone a good morning and delivering the biggest smile I could muster.  No one else said a word to me.

Even Bert, the mailman, noticed a change in my attitude.

“What have you done?”

I cocked my head, a blank look on my face.  “Whatever do you mean?”

His eyebrows met in the middle and he stared hard at me.

I took the mail he had for me, all with addresses only and no names.

Again he asked me and I said, “Let’s just say that I’ve found a new interest in my job.”

This was not what he wanted to hear.  “Shannon, I told you to be careful.”  He sounded like a father warning his child.

“I am!”  My voice got pitchy so I whispered it again, “I am, don’t worry.  Honestly, what can I do?  There’s nothing here.”  I gave him my most convincing face.  He sighed, but before he turned to leave he left me with these words.

            “Curiosity didn’t just kill the cat.”

            I shrugged him off but something about his tone made me think he knew more than what he was letting on.

Curiosity Part Five

It was Friday, my last chance of the week.  If I didn’t get something I would have to wait two whole days for another try.  I wasn’t sure I could do it.  I was determined to make the day count.

            A quarter after ten I was sitting behind the desk.  I had a plan.  The first person strolled through the front door and I perked up.

            “Good morning!”  I smiled broadly at the short middle aged man.  He carried a sleek brown briefcase and wore a dark grey suit.  He never blinked and before I could say “Have a nice day!” he had already gone through the mysterious door behind me.

            Take two.

            A moment later, a lady in a lavender suede skirt suit opened the door.  I smiled again and said,

“How are you today?”  Her green eyes flashed to me but the time it took her to decide whether she should respond was too long.  Her legs had carried her through the door as well.

            This was all too familiar for me to be discouraged.  I needed to shake up my tactics.

            This time I saw an older gentlemen walking up to the door.  I rushed around the desk and swung the door open for him.  His eyes shot wide and he stopped dead for a moment.  You would almost think human contact was a new thing for these people.  It only took a second for his feet to work again and he was gone, the back door swinging silently behind him.  I was still standing with the door open when I heard a deep voice behind me. 

            “Is that in your job description?”

Curiosity Part Four

Always incoming and never outgoing packages.  I watched as several of them piled on my desk.  Their final resting place was the blue counter behind me.  As the door swung shut behind the last delivery man for the day, my eyes fell hungrily on the brown and white boxes before me.  No one ever left until right at five and the packages remained in the lobby until just five minutes before then.  A curly, brown haired lady would come through the back door with a large cart and collect the parcels.  She wouldn’t even look at me.  I glanced around the room and tried, though not very hard, to suppress the urge growing within me.  How difficult would it be to take a peek inside one little, insignificant box, and then tape it back up?  The clock read four fifteen.  I stood up slowly and reached for the packages.  I scooped them up and turned quickly allowing the smallest to fall to the ground.

            “Oops!” I said to no one, kneeling with the boxes still in my arms.  I had a pair of scissors in the bottom drawer I used to slice the tape of the small box.  My heart was beating out of my chest as my shaking hands peeled the lid back.

            Candy.  Not just any candy, but caramel.  I hate caramel.  Not that I was thinking of swiping any, but I felt even more jipped by the absence of real information.  I laughed quietly as I taped the box up.  Stealing a piece wouldn’t have been a big deal after what I’d just done.  Wasn’t opening someone else’s mail a felony?  Only if they knew about it, a voice whispered slyly in my head. 

            I placed the boxes on the counter and sat back down in my chair.  A moment passed and I found myself wishing I’d tried a different box.  If you’re going to commit a felony, would it really matter how big the box is in the end?  It was too late for that day but the next morning held some promise.

A Different View

As a human being, my eye sight can only be so good.  It’s scientifically proven.  My vision may worsen but it can never be improved past a certain point.  And seeing how I can only see so far I typically become familiar with my immediate surroundings as I burrow myself into what is comfortable. 

In the process I may forget what I was able to see before.

I know there is more out there but my senses are instantly gratified with what is close enough to touch and feel.  And, I argue, just because there is more out there to see, doesn’t mean it’s necessarily better than what I have allowed myself to be engulfed in. 

This level of comfort can be dangerous.

Oh! you declare, How is it possible that comfort, which is by definition safe, could be detrimental?

It is harmful in what it keeps you from.

Growth.

An unborn child is warm and safe but without change it cannot accomplish what it was created for.

In my cozy norm I tend to forget quite how I got to be there.  Something had to change, I had to move (or be moved).  I had to readjust.

And after I’m finished squirming, shaking fists at the air for what was stolen from me, I blink and realize that I had not seen this from where I was standing only moments before.

I couldn’t imagine it.

It’s different but not bad.  It’s challenging and not easy.  It provides new perspective and strengthens my spine to be standing in a new place, on new ground.  My eyes refocus to the new surroundings.

But before long, I’m back to where I was, burrowed and warm, cozy and content.  I’ve forgotten not where I was before but how I came to be here.

Upon arrival on this earth I was not promised a comfortable existence.

I am, however, guaranteed a constant change.

Without change I’d be

dead.

Curiosity Part Three

They had to know I was curious!  No one could stay even a fraction of the time I had and not have their curiosity peaked!  At times it was maddening.  One morning I took a chance and called the mail man back just before he walked out the front door.

            “Bert,” I said.  I knew his name at least.  “How long have you been on this route?”

            He paused, his hand on the door, and squinted his eyes thoughtfully.  “About ten years.”

            I looked around and then whispered, “Do you know what they do here?”

            His hand dropped from the door and he took a few slow steps towards me.  He leaned over the desk and I leaned in towards him.  He cleared his throat.  “No.”

            My shoulders dropped.  “Really?  Not a clue?”  I said quietly, disappointment dripping from my voice.

            He cocked his head.  “I do know that they are really good at keeping quiet.”  He turned and started towards the door.  Just before he walked out he said to me, “I wouldn’t dig too deep there, Shannon.  They’ve never kept a receptionist very long and I have an inkling it’s because her curiosity got the best of her.  Just be happy you have a job.”

            And then he was gone, until the next day that is.  He gave a questioning look before leaving but I said nothing other than hello and goodbye.  I didn’t want him to know that it was too late.  I had become a slave to my curiosity and it was going to eat me alive until I learned something, anything, about where I worked. 

Curiosity Part Two

My mom had found in the want ads an opening for a desk clerk for an office.  An office to me would obviously be full of boring people in suits.  These people wore suits but I never saw them long enough to learn if they were in fact the uninteresting bunch I expected.  Men and women, old and young, walked through the doors everyday never saying so much as hello.  One would almost begin to wonder whether it was the ploy of some hidden camera show.  But as time went on, that idea sputtered and died.  There were no words on the building front and no cards or brochures in sight.  I received a direct deposit into my bank account every two weeks from a numbered, nameless account.

            Everyday I would get home at 5:30 and wonder what I did that day.  Whose packages did I sign for?  What filled the little brown boxes marked “fragile”?  Who sent the anonymous manila envelopes I so often accepted?  I would sit for hours behind that desk wondering, trying to crack the code of who I worked for.  I no longer suspected foul play, but that was only because I felt it would have happened by now, whatever it was.  I toyed for several days on the idea that it might be an underground… something.  I wasn’t sure what it would be, actually.  They certainly had something to hide or else they would have a name.  It’s a good thing I didn’t have to answer any phones because I wouldn’t know what to say.  I didn’t even know a single name of the many people who traipsed passed me everyday.  There was a bathroom just off the lobby so I never walked more than a few feet from my station.  The only sounds I heard were the birds outside and the occasional door close.  But even then, the walls were so well insulated I’d wondered if a T-Rex could crash through their sound barrier.

Curiosity Killed the Receptionist PT 1

The first few months of my job as a receptionist were nothing like I imagined.  My mind was left to wander and in its wake it left me this story.  I posted each part on Facebook four years ago to an eager audience and got my first glimpse at what it felt to have others (outside of family) enjoying my work. 

Please forgive the typos and possible plot errors.  That is the downside of posting each part as its written.  It leaves little room for correction.  I do still hope to compile this all into a book one day, add on and even write part two eventually.  The comments on my last post demanded it.    :)

Hope you enjoy!

Everyday I sat.  Everyday I watched.  And everyday I had no idea what was going on.  The mail man came and went.  The Fed-Ex man too.  They all seemed normal, but… something still wasn’t quite right. 

            My job was simply to receive shipments.  I accomplished this through merely sitting behind a desk for hours out of the day.  Anyone only slightly less observant than me wouldn’t have found it anything less than completely normal.  For me and my sharp eyes though, I caught on only a few hours into my first day.

            An average day went something like this.  I used my key to unlock the doors at ten in the morning, never a moment past.   I would take a seat behind the desk and wait.  One by one, people came in, passing me on their way inside and through the door behind me, which required a code for entry.  A few sometimes smiled but most just walked on past.  At first I took it personally, their ignoring me.  Then I realized it must be because they had a lot on their mind going into work.  As the day went on, though, I couldn’t for the life of me think of what their work really was.