Friendly Messages

The afternoon shift arrives, and all the night shift employees leave for their homes in search of much-needed rest. James, along with the morning shift workers, continues the daily grind as usual.

Work, work, and more work. While the employees of the TPN Megacorporation give their blood, sweat, tears, and sometimes even small parts of their souls to maintain their outrageously exhausting jobs, our hero James Thompson seems to have already sold himself completely, perhaps in deficit of what he could offer to the megacorporation.

And speaking of offering something, James continued his strange attempt to keep futile surveillance on Larry. The afternoon shift personnel, initially amused by James's antics, were gradually informed by the morning shift folks about what was going on.

James appeared to be stalking Larry, and poor Larry was starting to become afraid of this behavior. Although James hadn't directly approached him to offer help so far, it was still strange and unsettling to have an odd guy like James popping up in the same department where you were assigned to work.

As if the irrational fear already shaking Larry's heart wasn't enough, there were also rumors about James's personal preferences. Combined with the pressure from other coworkers, Larry's imagination began to take flight.

"Jesus, James can't be some kind of perverted stalker interested in my body, can he?" The strange behavior exhibited by James, fueled by the paranoia of "saving Larry," was bearing fruit!

How delightful! Not only is he weird himself, but he's also driving others crazy along with him, James. Hahaha, let me tell you something—you're making me proud, kid!

"I'm not driving anyone crazy!" James practically shouted. The exhaustion from sleepless nights, the worry about preventing anything from happening to Larry, the damn rumors that were already getting on his nerves, the doubled workload imposed by that damn Supervisor Mateus from the morning shift, and even the cursed Yellow Draft Notebook—all of it was sparking small fires within James's mind. He had endured subhuman treatment for all these years.

Consequently, when assaulted by intrusive thoughts about driving others insane, James couldn't help but voice part of his anger. "But when did I start having these types of intrusive thoughts?" A confused James pondered to himself.

As James experienced a rollercoaster of emotions, thoughts, and self-doubt, he failed to notice that the workers in the same department had stopped all work. Now they were staring at him with a mix of feelings ranging from fear and disgust to revulsion and apprehension.

"Isn't this guy weird enough already? And now he's going to act like a complete lunatic and start shouting to himself?" This was practically the collective opinion of the people who witnessed James yelling at himself and then assuming a reflective posture.

Well, it didn't take long for James to be called back to the Labor Orientation Department, where he was once again subjected to the psychological torture of listening to Supervisor Carlos from the second shift read and reread that cursed text about good work conduct and self-improvement.

Jesus, did Supervisor Carlos secretly pleasure himself in the company restroom while reading that damn conduct reorientation text? It couldn't be real!

Where does a human being derive so much animation and satisfaction from the opportunity to annoy someone else by reading and repeating such a filthy pamphlet?

After what felt like a torturous eternity, James was once again forced to fill out the sheets about his own conduct, burn them in the mini incinerator, and repeat to himself the same mantra as before: "My concerns here at work turn to ashes in the face of my obligation to meet the target." He had to repeat this infernal mantra five times after burning each sheet, then return to his desk and describe what was happening to him that day.

Of course, still traumatized by the sudden appearance of the Yellow Draft Notebook, James kept lifting the sheet every time he wrote a word to make sure there was no notebook underneath.

This paranoid behavior only made James linger even longer on that tedious and monotonous task.

The lights in most of the departments went out. James dashed to grab his things and tried to head in the same direction as Larry, hoping to catch the same public transportation.

At least, that's what James wanted to do, but he was stopped by an absurd amount of colorful sticky notes decorating his locker door, each with various messages and strong words:

"James, you crazy bastard, leave us alone."

"Go to hell, James, you pervert."

"You're a creep."

"Throw yourself into the shredder, you wretch."

And some others lovely friendly messages.