Word of the Day: transpicuous 22,000 words into my novel. I miss knitting a whole lot, and we just upgraded our cable package, so now we have a DVR and it's really distracting. We hadn't had a remote in so long [because it was broken and we're la-------zy folk], I've been just flipping through the channels just to flip. I love my husband, and I don't feel that I say it enough! And another excerpt. A longer one, but it's one of my favorite scenes. I just laugh when I picture it in my head. ***************** Despite his shining qualities, people did witness some exceptionally strange behavior from Alexander. Mercy heard of more than one person catching him spinning gleefully in his swivel chair. She herself had passed his open office door, the room empty save for him, and usually observed him gaping curiously at some piece of technology or office equipment. In fact, he had come to her with his empty stapler on the second day of his employ asking why it had stopped working. ‘It was doing fine all day,’ he had said plaintively, shaking the thing and trying to listen for loose parts. ‘Did I break it?’ At first, Mercy had thought he was trying to play a joke on her. ‘Have you checked to see if it’s jammed or empty?’ she said cautiously. ‘Eh?’ he breathed slowly, and then, eyes lit up excitedly: ‘Ah, it’s like a gun! You shoot it until it’s empty, and then you have to reload it. Is that right?’ ‘I guess that would be a good analogy,’ she replied, taking a box of staples out of her desk’s supply drawer. ‘I’ve never thought of it that way.’ She opened the stapler, reloaded it, and shut it up, Alexander watching her intently. As she returned it to him, she asked, ‘Why did you come to me with this? I mean, you had to walk all the way across the department, I’m sure you met up with someone who could help you.’ He bent down closer to her and said embarrassedly, ‘I’m a little intimidated by everyone in there, especially that Sandra woman. Everyone is all so…’ he trailed off, searching for the most unoffending word he could. ‘Mean?’ offered Mercy. ‘Dishonest? Two-faced?’ ‘Well, you have worked here longer than I,’ he conceded brightly. ‘What about Adam?’ she asked. ‘He’s not like that at all.’ Realization dawned on Alexander’s face. ‘I didn’t even think of him,’ he said. ‘That’s very true. He’s a pure soul.’ ‘What?’ Mercy said sharply. ‘Just an observation,’ Alexander hurried. ‘Thanks for fixing my staple gun, Mercy!’ With that, he had left Mercy confused. Had he given her a signal, or was he really that spacey? Because, indeed, Adam’s double was bright and shining, quite the opposite of the rest of the department’s monster-like doubles. Could Mercy be seeing some internal personality or self personified in these doubles? So, Alexander was accepted into the sales department with a mix of cordiality and hostility. Mercy heard many people talking about his odd way of quitting smoking, his handsome face, and his bright, friendly personality. And many people also noticed his obvious preference for Mercy, though no one inquired directly to her about it. Mercy usually ate her lunches in the sales department’s break room. It was normally empty during lunch since the sales managers went to lunch meetings with clients and the lower clerks would leave the office to eat at nearby restaurants. Enjoying the peace, Mercy ate her home-packed lunch and read to pass the rest of the time. Today, however, there were others in her coveted, peaceful retreat. The break room was really a largish, vacated office with two round tables and all sorts mismatched chairs people had brought to donate throughout the years. There was also a snack food machine, a soda machine, and a large space the extremely old and dilapidated cigarette machine had, until very recently, occupied. To her very great dismay, Sandra sat at one of the tables, a long, thin, freshly lit cigarette dangling from one of her hands. Alexander stood at the snack food machine, eyes wide in excitement. Another person, a copy clerk, sat in one of the chairs against the wall, a book, a notepad, and a calculator spread over his lap, biting on a pencil frantically. Sandra’s flaccid shadow stood apart from her, glaring with her eyeless sockets at Alexander and hissing, and the clerk’s timid-looking and unoffending double gazed over his original’s shoulder at the work in his lap. They all directed their heads towards the door as it opened and Mercy entered. The clerk and his double returned quickly to his homework. Sandra, however, said sarcastically, ‘Mercy, dear, we’ve been waiting for you!’ Mercy moved to the unoccupied table and placed her lunch and belongings on it, eyeing Sandra suspiciously, one eyebrow cocked up. Alexander caught her eye quickly, waving her over to himself. Leaving her things on the table, she crossed in front of an unhappy Sandra towards him. ‘Will you help me with this,’ he said quietly to her, with eagerness in his voice. ‘I understand that you have to put the money in here,’ pointing to the dollar and coin slots, ‘and the food comes out here,’ pointing to the large slot at the bottom of the machine, ‘but I can’t decide what to get.’ Mercy heard Sandra snicker rather maliciously behind her. She knew that they thought the same thing—‘This man can’t decide what to eat without Mercy’s help?’ ‘What?’ Mercy asked, slightly irritated. ‘I haven’t eaten any of this,’ Alexander explained, ‘so I don’t know what any of it tastes like. I don’t even know what some of this is. Could you just tell me about some of these things?’ Embarrassed to no end for Alexander that Sandra had to hear what she just did, Mercy colored pink. ‘Well,’ she started off slowly, not really knowing where to start, Alexander looking as if he hung on every word she said, ‘these up here are chips—‘ ‘Of what?’ interrupted Alexander. Startled, Mercy was at a loss for words for a moment. Finally, she said, ‘Of potatoes, mostly.’ He nodded seriously, but didn’t ask anything else for the moment. Acting like she was explaining snack foods to a child, she said, ‘Chips are mainly salty and crunchy. There are different flavors, these are cheese and these are sour cream and onion, and some are novel shapes, like these cone-shaped ones. These, though, are made of corn and not potato. These down here are candy bars, mostly all of chocolate—‘ ‘Chocolate?!’ exclaimed Alexander, surprised. Unfazed this time, Mercy continued, ‘—but some are fruity and chewy as well.’ ‘Chocolate?’ he repeated to himself, staring through the glass. ‘Then there are these,’ she pointed to the middle of the machine, ‘the cookies. These are more diverse in variety. Some are sweeter than others, there are a lot of different ingredients and additions, like chocolate chips, raisins, oatmeal, and peanut butter.’ ‘More chocolate,’ he whispered, and then, looking at her confusedly: ‘Wait, peanut butter?’ She stared at him dumbly. ‘What?’ ‘What’s that?’ he asked innocently. Sandra laughed outright, seemingly enjoying her coworker’s lack of knowledge, and even the copy clerk took a moment from his frantic studies to give a little chuckle, but Alexander and Mercy ignored them. ‘What’s what,’ Mercy asked seriously, ‘peanut butter?’ He nodded. ‘Alexander, you don’t know what peanut butter is?’ Mercy said in disbelief. ‘Everyone eats that when they’re kids.’ Alexander, more embarrassed than ever, scratched his head absently and diverted his eyes. ‘I guess they didn’t have that around where I grew up,’ he said softly. Mercy realized her mistake; she had not meant to hurt his feelings. ‘Eh,’ she began uncertainly, ‘peanut butter is…it’s like a paste of ground up peanuts and oil or something. People put it in cookies, but people also eat it as on sandwiches with jelly.’ She hoped this was explanation enough for him because that was all she really could say about peanut butter. Alexander seemed quite satisfied. There were more things in the machine that Mercy wasn’t going to explain in detail unless he asked, but, thankfully, he didn’t. ‘What do you eat, anyway?’ she asked suddenly, realizing that she had never seen him eating anything during the week he had worked there. Still staring through the glass at all of the untasted snacks, he replied, ‘If you come and see me at my new apartment sometime this weekend, I’ll show you.’ Everyone else in the room, even the doubles, stared at Alexander, gaping at him in shock. Sandra’s double hissed at him louder than ever, and Sandra lost herself in a fit of coughing. ‘I-I-I-I’m sorry, wh-wh-what?’ Mercy stammered coloring once more. ‘I’m moving into an apartment tomorrow,’ he said calmly and evenly, ‘and I’d like you to come so that I can make you dinner.’ He turned his head and looked at her. He smiled like always, kind and friendly, but his eyes were quite serious and, Mercy felt, had something extremely meaningful behind them. ‘Will you come?’ ‘Tomorrow?’ Mercy began slowly, stalling for time. She felt that she would most definitely feel uncomfortable being alone with Alexander away from work judging by how awkward she felt with him already. ‘I think, eh, I think I already…I don’t think I’ll be able to, I’m sorry,’ she finished lamely. ‘Is that so,’ he said, completely unpersuaded, looking back into the machine. After an extremely awkward pause for Mercy, he said, ‘I think I’ll have these,’ and he pointed to a bag of plain potato chips that advertised being made with sunflower oil. ‘Sunflower oil,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘how marvelous.’ He placed his money in the slot, made his option, and retrieved the bag. Wrenching the bag open with unnecessary force, he tasted his first chip experimentally. Looking towards Mercy with eyes wide, he said enthusiastically, ‘Ah, these are so good! Thank you for your help.’ With his usual lame wave for Mercy, he dismissed himself from the room, all present staring after him. ‘How about that?’ Sandra said evilly after he had gone, putting out her cigarette directly on the table at which she sat. Standing alone at the snack machine, Mercy spat irately, ‘You’re not even supposed to be smoking in the building.’ Laughing haughtily, Sandra stood up and flipped her hair energetically. She glared at Mercy and stomped out of the room, her shadow laughing as she followed. Mercy was left with the discomfited copy clerk. She moved from the machine to her abandoned lunch and book at the second table. Her appetite gone, she said to the clerk, holding the small pack that was her lunch towards him, ‘You look like you’re studying for school or something. Do you want this to eat?’ ‘Really?’ he said, surprised. ‘It’s hard working and going to school,’ she said, handing the pack to him. ‘And if you want to do well on your schoolwork, you can’t be distracted by your empty stomach.’ ‘Woah,’ he said. ‘Thanks a lot.’ His shadow next to him bowed his head in appreciation ‘Yeah. Just make sure you do well so that you don’t stay a copy clerk. Good luck.’ With that, she took her book and left the break room for her own desk. If she couldn’t eat in peace, she thought might as well half-heartedly work.