Heart

This is the story of someone who didn't change the office in which they were working.

This is the story of someone who was unlike everyone else.

This is the story of someone who—shameless—        

told everyone not to worry and be scared during the so-called nightly days that surpassed even the most dark-minded people.

That is, the people who were so negative even this person—positive as she was—wished the sun wouldn’t shine on them.

The coffee never spruced them up.

The pumpkin spice never touched their lips, and, even if it did, just got slurped up obnoxiously.

It’s like obnoxiousness was funny.

It wasn’t.

The person who looked outside saw nothing but black buildings, black cars, black street and black silhouettes of people.

Ghosts.

You couldn’t really differentiate between a man with short-cropped hair and a man with spiky hair.

Both looked similar.

They weren’t.

The person blinked. It’s Valentine’s Day. I must do something to liven up this lovely day!

The person took her finger, and said, “This’ll do.”

She wrote with her hand.

Only the squeaky-clean sound of someone running their finger against the glass of such an already pristine window was made.

The person apologized sincerely for messing with the Clorox nightly sprayed upon the window.

“Don’t do it again, please.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I don’t want to clean it again.”

Whiny voice meets kind voice. But not a voice responding in kind.

A voice including the whiny voice—accepting it.

“Come. Join me—”

“On a quest to mess up my perfectly clean job?” A scoff.

“No,” retorts the woman. “A job that will brighten up your future.”

“What is that?”

“A photographic job. Just look.”

“I don’t want to clean anymore.”

No answer, but a squeaky-clean sound going around and around until the end of it met back where it started.

A heart.

“But that’s…”

The woman said be quiet, and no voice happened.

When she said she wrote with her finger, she needed something else.

Hm, she thought as she racked her brain to think. Then, she said, “Yeah!”

“Oh—don’t get too excited.”

“Well, it’s what you make of it that counts.”

“Oh…”

“So, what I’ll do is…”

A red pen came to mind. Not just red, but Maroon.

Then, the woman, sighing heavily like she had just finished a conversation saturated with frustration with a co-worker, shook her head (the co-worker said, “What’s wrong now?”) and just threw her finger up, lamenting this heart will have to do.

When she drew another, a maroon heart glowed before her.

Gaping, the woman jumped. “Don’t you see that? It’s—it’ll brighten up any day. Especially this one!”

The office was completely silent.

A candle, which the woman could see placed on every desk, glowing bright.

The woman wished her coworkers’ hearts glowed with such light.

The woman jumped back around.

Someone hollered that they needed light.

The woman hurried to a desk, made someone cry that they were working, and showed them the maroon heart.

She was brushed away. She went over to someone’s desk, and drew on it.

“Freak! We won’t have hearts all over—”

“It’s Valentine’s Day—”

“On a black-out! What’s worse than this?”

“No heart.” The woman laughed, and turned to the janitress. What’d you think?”

She bit her lip, and the woman said, “Don’t be negative. Come on—you can shine, too.”

With a wave of her hand, she smacked a candle off the desk behind her, and the floor was ablaze with light—the wrong light.

Apologizing profusely, she panicked.

Then, calming down (for she did this whenever an emergency happened), she drew a fire extinguisher.

It was usable (to her immense relief), and the fire was out.

Then she drew a bucket and a broom and a dustpan and cleaned up the ashes. The carpet?

She drew it again. Added hearts.

The office erupted in a blaze of fury.

No Valentine’s Day for me. The woman blinked back tears. For the next several days, the office was dead.

Dead silent.

Dead from furious glances, obnoxious laughter pointed at only friends and exclusive body language.

The woman quit.

The woman wandered the lonely streets.

She walked, people gossiping.

Growling under her breath about how she shouldn’t be stretched wider than she was, the woman retreated home.

Too bad the lights were out.

The woman thought. If I…

She grabbed her phone, and looked up how to restore power during a blackout.

Her phone—

Duh. It’s a power outage.  

Throwing her phone across the living room, she suddenly heard a crash.

No! My favorite vase.

She grabbed her head, wanting to wake up from this nightmare. First, my job. Then, my vase. What’s next—me?

She tried picking her way through the house as to not get cut, drew objects to clean up the mess after drawing a flashlight and then tearfully chucked all pieces into the trashcan.

Grabbing her resume from her portfolio, she looked it over. Electrical Engineer. Resilient and desirous.

Working on her resume, she finally put the pen down. There. Now, all I have to do is type it.

She typed, drawing a computer instead of maneuvering her own. She drew a lamp. She worked.

She was finished, hours later. It felt late at night. She looked outside. And laughed.

How’d she know? It was pitch-black.

But it wasn’t night.

She crinkled her brows. Huh?

Suddenly, she leapt out of the house, bolting to her gray SUV and began—

No, everything’s gone to the blackness.

She closed her eyes and succumbed.

The blackness stayed where it was.

She drew lights—everything lights. But people scoffed.

“How dare you redraw the world?”

“No,” someone said. “It’s good. She…she can save us.”

And the woman did.

The blackout was no more.

But the woman had not returned to work.

The janitress were there, telling her she’d save her from cleaning forever.

The woman blinked, recalling their conversation.

She bobbed her head. “Yes. Stop cleaning. Use this guide instead.”

The janitress watched her walk home. She smiled as she held the drawn pamphlet of something.

But the janitress wasn’t holding a pamphlet.

I guess… I guess I can just use this for something.

The next time the woman heard anything from the janitress, she was getting a massage on the beach.

The woman crinkled her brows. Massage? In Jamaica?

The woman found out the janitress was stealing money from the company and using it to her own advantage.

The woman went to Jamaica. She told the massager to stop treating the janitress like this. The massager said she deserved it.

“She doesn’t deserve to be rewarded for stealing.”

The massager stopped immediately, and went on to someone else.

The janitress left, eyes scorched with hate. She faced the woman on the street, gun in hand. “How long do I need to—”

“Stop. You’re working. I’m not.”

“So?”

“Be grateful.”

“For $8.50 an hour? When I have four children and a husband eating us out of house and home?”

“For a job. For your family. For something you can use on your resume.”

“How is this getting me anywhere?” The woman screamed, the gun in her hand.

The woman drew a resume, drew a path from janitress to—

“Secretary. Writer. Something.”

“Pick.”

“Okay—Technical writer.”

“Go to college?”

“Dropped out in my junior year.”

“Didn’t finish—”

“Stop digging in my personal life! You have something—”

“Stop being so negative. That’s all I’ve heard for three and a half years. The coffee machine’s broken. The—”

“If you can draw, you can help me.”

“Not if you’re negative.”

The woman blinked, and set her mop handle to the side. She looked at the woman.

She continued, explaining how a negative mindset didn’t do anything but drag the person down.

She told the woman to keep cleaning. The woman glared at her, but reluctantly wiped away. She tried quitting, but her boss said he needed her.

“Can I—”

“What? Clean faster? Yes. Clean harder? Yes. Get a raise or promotion? No.”

The janitress blinked. Then she thought of the woman’s words.

Sponge went in, but so did the stupidity of everyone’s words. She cleaned and she cleaned, never saying anything. When the mirrors in the bathroom sparkled, the words from the mouth of the janitress did, too.

No one said anything. The janitress, one day, pointed the gun to herself, yelling that she tried.

When everyone went crazy, she said she’d—

No, the woman who could draw magical items said. No. Don’t. No one will care.

Care about what? Snipped the woman.

Care whether you even cleaned.

They don’t.

They do. They’re just too negative. If you—

Keep cleaning, you’ll attract people. Your words will be shinier. Because they are positive. Just keep going. Don’t give up!

The woman watched the janitress.

One day, the janitress called the woman over for Thanksgiving.

“No, you come to my house for this holiday.”

The janitress and her family sat around the table with the woman, her best friend and her niece and nephew (as she called them).

“You…” the janitress observed as she served her apple pie. “You…”

“Are an orphan. My parents didn’t have any children. I’m an only child. I only have one friend, and her children. I don’t have anyone.”

The janitress blinked and looked at her family. She burst into tears. “Why…I’ve been complaining…”

The woman put a hand on her shoulder. “Please. Just be positive.”

“I will!”

The woman hoped so. She told the janitress if she ever saw that gun, she’d rip it right out of her hand. No, she’d draw a gun-killer. Or something to make guns disappear forever.

She’d invent it.

The janitress promised she’d never use a gun again.

The woman doubted this, but, soon, she saw truth. No gun. But that didn’t mean she didn’t put a gun to her head at home.

The woman questioned her.

“No.”

The woman barged into the home, disrupting the woman’s alone time with her husband.

“Get out!”

The woman was banned from the house.

“I just want to know—”

“No gun.”

“How do I know?”

“Because…” The janitress brought out something. “I’ve been cleaning. I cleaned my gun, and I put it away—forever. It’s in a safe. I don’t know the passcode. My husband’s locked it up.”

The woman couldn’t sleep that night.

She worried, hoping the husband didn’t say anything or do anything out of her reach.

She phoned the janitress.

“Leave me alone. Get a husband.”

The woman waffled between sleep and wakefulness. Then she decided to look up men online.

No one wanted her.

The woman hung her head, tears trailing down her face. The janitress saw her, and went outside to ask what was wrong.

“Now you’re being negative.”

The woman blinked. She was.

“Get something on that resume.”

She drew. She couldn’t.

The woman explained—

“Be positive.”

“Come clean, or I’ll turn you in.”

“Please? I don’t—”

“Want to get fired?”

She didn’t.

She studied her husband and herself. She realized, as she admitted to herself, that she had something to be grateful for. A husband and children. The woman who had “haunted” her didn’t have a family.

Every Thanksgiving, the woman was invited to the janitress’s house. Her family welcomed her warmly.

But the woman didn’t want someone else’s family. She stared at the ceiling, wondering why no man liked her.

She drew a man beside her, but he was just a cartoon character.

He wasn’t loving, or kind, or thoughtful.

He was just a drawing.

She turned over, and then heard a noise. “Hello?” She said.

She checked the bathroom, but no one was there.

She checked the kitchen, and living room and dining area, but no one was there.

She checked downstairs in the basement, where there was a chalkboard. Taking a piece of chalk, she drew on the chalkboard a man. She drew so well she surprised herself as to how well she drew a man. She even stuck out her hand.

But he didn’t.

She threw the chalk at the board. “Whatever! I’ll never matter.”

Be positive.

Her own words came back to her, but she clenched her fists. “Positivity doesn’t work when you’re alone.”

The chalk rose up in the air, and the woman’s jaw dropped. It wasn’t even held by anyone! The woman stared, wide-eyed, as the chalk drew a woman. She was gorgeous. She had such beauty about her the woman asked whether she could be like her. Maybe a little mascara, a cute scarf and a handsome coat would be the décor of the date night, no?

She begged the woman, even falling to her feet. Well, actually high-heels.

“Please.”

The woman put a finger under her chin, and said, “Stand up.” She turned the woman around, and said behind her, “Do you see that glorious shopping mall? It’s the Blue Diamond Shopping Mall. Blue diamonds are the rarest and therefore the most valuable. You can’t go wrong with an attitude of gratitude, right?”

“What are you saying?”

The woman spun the woman around. “You deserve more than this stupid frumpy—”

“But I bought it—”

“With your hard-earned money?” The woman scoffed. “Don’t you—”

“Need it? Besides, it’s just a coat.”

The woman spun around. It was the janitress. How she got in here…wait, the woman laughed to herself. There was a key under the mat. Anyway, the janitress narrowed her eyes. “I thought you were alone.”

“I am! I just…”

“Just what?”

“Just wish I were important, too, you know? You have a family, yet you’re complaining about your stupid job. I worked, but I don’t have anyone.”

The truth made the janitress close her eyes. She blinked. “So I’m you? Ms. Positive?”

The woman was about to shout, but she stopped. “How is positivity—”

“Anything more than solving problems? How about you solve them where there isn’t boringly grey and beige walls staring at you everywhere you look?”

The woman thought about what she said. The woman behind her told her to go to the Blue Diamond Mall in Jamaica and buy expensive bracelets, necklaces and clothes so she could replace her drawn husband with a real one.

The janitress pursed her lips. “So you’re going to—”

“Be like you. No one’s born to be alone.”

“No—but—”

“But nothing.”

The woman went to Jamaica, bought as many clothes and jewelry as she could with her life savings and, ultimately, dated man after man. Then, she bought very nice cars. Soon, she was in debt.

She begged her boyfriend to bail her out—again.

“No!”

“Be positive—”

“No!”

He dumped her. As did all the other men.

Desperate, she begged the janitress to bail her out.

“No!”

“Please. I won’t tell anyone you have a gun in your house.”

The janitress shook her head. “It’s authorized. I can have it.” She motioned. “Look, I know you’re desperate—”

The woman went back downstairs in her basement. The woman returned. “Like it!” She praised.

The woman didn’t feel right. But the woman drew a whole world—one where she was queen, with a beautiful crown glittering with amethyst jewels, a Yimn Blue robe and—

“An apple.”

It was deep, deep purple. And red. The woman squinted. “Is it poisoned?”

“Just eat it, and all your dreams will come true.”

“I read Snow White, and all her dreams died with her. You won’t get me poisoned. I’m smarter than that.”

She dashed upstairs but not before the queen said, “Have it your way.”

The woman hurried downstairs. “Wait! Maybe…” She thought. “Wait—”

“For you to make something out of your drawings?” She snickered. “Please—you can’t get better than this.”

The woman looked around her. A castle, beautiful white stone, stood before her. Guards stood like rocks. The king looked over. Waving a gentle hand, he smiled, it hidden in his gloriously handsome mustache.

“What kind of man did you marry?”

“A good man.”

“A man who slaves under you! He looks so kind.”

The woman studied her crown. Chesapeake crystals adorning a black crown of pure thorns--so threateningly pretty. This wicked woman was married to--

"A beloved, peaceful king. Mr. Gentleness."

The apple was still held in her clawed hand. The woman looked at it. Her stomach tightened.

She gulped. Stay positive. She shook her head.

“No.”

She applied for a job, and got it.

The children all shouted with glee at her appearance at the community center, crowded around her while she drew pictures in the air of her past life and, eventually, all got a ride in her car.

The woman worked her way up to Senior Director at the Community Center.

The woman looked around her.

The janitress saw her one night at a restaurant.

“How’s the job hunt?”

“Got one at the Community Center.” The woman smiled. “How’s your family?”

“Good…”

“Sorry—”

“No. I quit. My husband works for our boss. Our ex-boss.”

They both laughed.

“Hey—if you ever want to come over for other holidays, please don’t hesitate.”

“Okay!”

The woman, heading home, smiled bright.

Tomorrow, I’ll draw a whole fantasy world for those children.

One in which that witch wishes she never met me!

“Go away, witch.” She said that night to her.

The witch reluctantly turned into a raven and flew away.

But that would be a time to tell her husband to be positive.

The witch’s words slithered into her mind.

Those clothes you bought shouldn’t go to waste--

"Beat it!" The woman scolded.

The witch left the woman with a warning.

This was the following year.

The following February 14^th.

A man said he encountered a man whose Canary-yellow eyes, Imperial-Red button-down shirt and soot-black pants and squeaky-clean shoes all screamed awesomeness. But no woman would want a materialistic man.

The woman told him she wasn’t materialistic.

And the man smiled.

Positively.