Ever since the world has shut down, my company has been holding daily meetings over Zoom.
We tried our best to remain professional, to create the appearance we had our lives together.
But lately, everyone has stopped caring.
Gabriel Benois
People show up in pajamas, without makeup, wearing oversized hats and sunglasses to cover their faces.
They let their kids run around in the background.
They let their dogs bark without shushing them or muting their microphone.
Its gotten a lot more casual.
A lot more who-gives-a-fuck.
Working from home simply doesnt suit me.
Its been hard to concentrate on whatever my bosses are discussing during our meetings.
My eyes always end up wandering.
Ive come up with a game where I pick a new cube to focus on every time.
A few days ago, it was Martha.
Shes an older woman.
A quiet, gentle woman.
Someone who blends into the background.
Weve worked together for three years and I couldnt tell you the first thing about her.
Does she have a husband?
Her background didnt give anything away, either.
There werent any paintings hung on the walls or knickknacks spread around.
Only a stack of books without titles.
Moleskins and spirals and…
My notebook.
I had lost it at the office a few months earlier.
I dug through every garbage can and desk drawer in our office trying to find it.
I could tell when she read it.
Her eyes dropped to skim the text.
Then she leaned forward, squinting, clearly examining Martha in her tiny box.
Elaines eyes went wide.
A few seconds later, I received a text back.
The bitch is wearing my earrings!!!
But once the meeting ended,Elainepopped up on my phone.
What is her problem?
she asked the second I answered.
Who wears jewelry she stole in front of the person she stole it from?
Maybe she was taunting us, I said.
Maybe shes gotten bored.
If shes stuck inside like the rest of us, she hasnt been able to steal things lately.
Maybe she needed to entertain herself in some other twisted way.
Should we call her or something?
I dont have her number.
Shes not on social media, either.
A fancy fountain pen.
Did she steal all of that?
I have an idea, Elaine said as the sun was setting out my apartment window.
Im going to warn you.
But stealing our stuff is also illegal, so it would balance out.
Were not breaking into her place.
We dont even know her address.
We dont have to leave our houses.
We can do this from a safe distance.
The guy Ive been talking to on Bumble is a hacker.
He can get into her laptop camera.
We can see around the rest of her house.
I dont know… That seems like…
An invasion of privacy?
You bet your ass.
No worse than what she did to us, though.
Fine, I said.
Once he completed the project, he beamed Marthas camera feed to both me and Elaine.
Finally, thankfully, we discovered shedidhave a cat.
It nudged the computer sideways one evening, giving us a completely different angle of the room.
We could finally see what she was hiding.
An entire wall filled with faces.
They looked like Halloween masks, plastic with painted on features.
But they each resembled a different person from our office.
Mine had winged liner near the eyes and peach lipstick over the mouth.
Elaines had blue eye shadow and bright red lipstick in her exact shade.
On pins above each mask, wigs hung down, draping around the faces.
Mine looked exactly like my hair.
Elaines looked exactly like hers.
There were other people from the office too, our colleagues, our bosses.
Except they were always female.
Elaine threw up when she saw everything.
She literally ran to the bathroom and vomited.
I just sat there, staring, taking screenshoot after screenshot.
Of course, we cant do anything with the evidence.
If we show our bosses, were going to have to explain how we hacked into her computer.
Besides, whatever she was doing with the masks was creepy as hell, but it wasnt exactly illegal.
It wouldnt be reason to fire her.
I would rather stay far, far away and pretend I never saw any of this.
