The Writers' Circle

The Desk


"Come on John, it's your imagination, said Peter.
"No it's not, I murmured. "The desk moved."
"Anyway, you won't have to put up with it much longer," laughed Peter. "By the weekend it will be matchwood."
At last, after months of badgering, Bradley the office supervisor had finally ordered new desks for the department.
"Look, if it's worrying you that much John, we can swap desks for the rest of the week."
I must admit I was tempted. "No, if I've put up with it this long, another couple of days won't make any difference."
"Please make sure your desks are tidy," said Bradley. "Mrs Hartford, the financial director, will be having a walk around this evening. We want to show her how well we keep our house in order."
As I put the last of my papers away in the top drawer, it jammed open. I emptied the drawer again, replaced the papers, this time ensuring nothing was hindering the locking mechanism. Yet still the drawer wouldn't shut. I was determined an old piece of beech wasn't going to defeat me.
"Good night John," said Mary with her usual wave.
As I waved back, without any warning or assistance from myself, the drawer slammed shut. I jumped back in alarm and disbelief.
"Are you all right John?" enquired Mary, a look of genuine concern on her face. "It's a good job your hand wasn't in there when the drawer shut otherwise it could have been quite nasty."
"I'm fine thank you Mary," I replied with a shaky voice. I tried the drawer. This time it moved freely on its plastic runners; no hint of a jam.
First thing the following morning, Bradley called me into his office.
"I thought I told everyone to tidy their desk last night. That included you too, Mr Thompson."
"But I did," I insisted. I didn't like Bradley. Too pompous. Since he was advanced to Spencer's old position a couple of months previously, he was unapproachable.
"Then how is it that Mrs Hartford very nearly had her foot crushed as she walked pass your desk? That heavy ashtray of yours would have crushed her toes if I had not managed to pull her back just in time."
"But I did move the ashtray into the centre of my desk, as I always do each night."
"I suggest you listen more attentively to what I have to say in future, Mr Thompson." Obviously he didn't believe a word I said.
When I got back to my desk, there was the ashtray in exactly the same position I had left it the night before.
The rest of the day passed without further incident, apart from being unable to find my pen when I needed it most. I finally found it in the waste paper bin. Some joke. Peter had phoned in sick and probably wouldn't be back for the rest of the week.
The following day, Wednesday, I was using a scalpel to trim the edges of some photographs. As I was running the sharp instrument towards me using an edge of a ruler, the desk seemed to move. This caused the scalpel to jump over the ruler and slice into my thumb. Poor Mary nearly fainted as there was a lot of my blood around.
"You want to be more careful," said Bradley with a hint of a smile on his bloated face. "I hope you take better care of your new desk."
When we get them, I thought.
After returning from the sick room, my thumb duly swathed in a bandage, I stood looking down at the desk. It looked no different than the other dozen or so in the department. I tried pressing down on each corner to see if one of the legs was loose. Solid as ever. Then how did it move? Nobody was near me at the time; I was certain of that.
The following day I was out of the office doing various menial jobs around town, so on Friday morning I arrived to be told by Mary that the desks were to be changed that morning. Peter, as expected, was still off work, so I cleared his desk first. It was late in the morning before I finally sat down at mine.
When I tried to open the drawers, they jammed - all of them. I was now getting very angry. "No way are you going to get the better of me," I whispered to the lump of wood.
"Talking to yourself, now are we Mr Thompson?" sneered Bradley as he walked pass the desk.
Big ears. Big .
Try as I could the drawers just wouldn't budge. I borrowed a screwdriver from Mary. "Now see you beat this," I said as I went to work with the sharp point between the lock and the desk top. I was definitely getting paranoid, but I just didn't care. No desk was going to beat me, whatever the cost. By now the rest of the office had stopped work and were staring at me.
After a good five minutes struggle and much cursing, I finally managed to get a drawer open. "Yes," I shouted as if I had won an important victory, which to some extent I had.
Not thinking about what had happened the other day with the scalpel, I put my hand towards the back of the drawer. You know, I'm sure I heard a noise which sounded just like a laugh, seconds before the drawer slammed shut with such force that my left hand was taken right off at the wrist, just as if by an axe.
At that moment, time seemed to stand still. Nobody moved. I could hear no sound, except the rushing of blood through my severed wrist onto the desk top. 
 I finally stole my eyes away from the stump gushing blood, to see Mary lying on the floor. Nobody came near me. Sounds were slowly coming back to me. Someone was laughing. And screaming. Then I realised it was me.
"I got it open, didn't I? You all saw me open it, didn't you?" I kept screaming. "It didn't beat me."
Still nobody would come near me. Was they afraid of my screaming, the blood coming from my stump - or was it the desk?
Finally, as the pain hit me like a sledgehammer, I toppled over onto the desktop, now awash with my blood.
The last thing I heard before I fell into unconsciousness was a deep mocking voice saying 'I've got to hand it to you John, you tried. If only you had treated me with a little more respect. We could have bee friends.'
I never returned to Forsythe & Co. In fact I am still unemployed nearly two years after that horrific incident. I now have this hatred (paranoia) of desks.
I met Peter the other day during one of my rare trips into town. He told me that all the desks had been taken away that same day and destroyed. Usually they would be sold on, but Bradley had insisted they all be burnt. Although he wouldn't admit it, everyone says it was the episode with my old desk in the lift that made up his mind to destroy all the desks.
It seems he was stuck between the 3rd and 4th floor with only my old blood stained desk as a companion. From that day, Peter had said, he was a changed man, always walking the five flights of stairs, which he had never done while I worked there.
Samuel Butler (1612-1680) was wrong when he said that a desk 'Was but to write upon.'
So remember, dear reader, this story is especially for you if you either own or work with or at a desk. Even more so if it is made of beech and has four drawers. Treat it well otherwise it could turn against you. Mine did.
You have been warned!

(1331 words)