I didn’t know Henry well, but he seemed like a good enough guy. Not very talkative. He always kept a picture on his desk of a little girl that I assumed was his daughter. I’d never bothered to ask.

As a sort of experiment, I tried asking him about the picture yesterday, but he didn’t acknowledge the question in any way. He just kept staring at the computer screen and steadily typing away. His mouth was slack and an awful stink was coming from his general vicinity.

At breaktime (which Henry skipped completely), some of my coworkers speculated that he was going through a rough patch… some kind of domestic trouble, maybe. Maybe the old lady was stepping out. Maybe Henry had been stepping out, and it all caught up to him. But it was hard for me to imagine Henry getting involved in extramarital affairs.

“I think he’s dead,” suggested Franklin.

Half of the people in the breakroom laughed, and the rest looked a little dead themselves. I figured I was in the latter half.

“Dead,” said Ashley, laughing.

“Dead,” said Franklin. “All major brain function ceased. Maybe there are still some electrical impulses shooting around in there somehow, but I’ve seen dead people – my dad ran a funeral home – and that guy is as dead as I’ve ever seen anybody be, except he’s still somehow moving around doing things.”

“That’s impossible,” said Ashley.

Franklin just shrugged, then got up and poured himself another cup of coffee.

“Nobody seriously thinks that Henry is dead,” said Ashley. “Right?” She turned to me. “You don’t think that Henry is dead, and also still sitting there at his computer, working?”

“There’s something very wrong with Henry,” I said carefully.

“Such as?”

“I couldn’t say. And it’s not my business to say. If Henry wants to come up to me and tell me what’s wrong with him, I’ll listen, but until then, it’s none of my business.”

The half of the room that (like me) thought Henry might actually be dead perked up at this. The absolution of responsibility feels very good.

*

Just before lunch, Henry’s arm fell off. It was hard to miss, and yet nobody made any kind of fuss. We all went on typing away at our computers. Henry seemed the least troubled of all about it. The lunch bell rang and Henry didn’t even blink – when was the last time he had blinked? – and kept working with his one hand, which, I saw, was very gray, or maybe blue.

The rest of us gathered in the break room and ate our sandwiches in silence until Franklin piped up. “What do you think now, Ashley? The guy’s alive? He just has limbs falling off at random, and that doesn’t seem to bother him?”

“Shut up,” said somebody. I didn’t catch who.

“Nah,” said Franklin. “This shit ain’t right. The guy should be six feet underground, or his ashes scattered to the wind. Not stuck here in this goddamn office. Is this what happens to all of us?”

“Shut up,” said somebody else. I saw who said it that time, I just didn’t remember his name.

Franklin hurled his half-eaten tuna sandwich at the wall and stood up. “Shut up? That’s what you want me to do? Fine. But I’ll tell you one more thing before I do. I’m not sticking around here. Anybody with two functioning brain cells will be right behind me, I imagine.” He turned to me. “Right? You’ve always had a good head on your shoulders.”

I thought about the mortgage and the baby and how my car was making a funny sound and the heat bill and all the other bills.

Franklin saw my answer without me having to verbalize it.

“Fine,” he said. “No skin off my ass.”

The absolution of responsibility feels very good, if you can manage it.

Franklin left the breakroom and turned the corner, out of view. After that, we could only hear him. His screams went on for a long time, and then they stopped.

When we came back to our desks after lunch, Franklin was staring blankly at his screen, typing away.

*

I always thought that the only thing more terrifying than the prospect of being stuck in a dull job for the rest of your life was to end up on the streets with nothing. The perfect trap. But there was an out. All you had to do was wait a while and then you’d die. Nobody could bother you after that. You got an eternity of rest. It was a square deal.

But now I am seeing that there are terrifying realities that I never even imagined. I should stop writing. It’s time to go to work.