There were forty three boxes of blue ballpoint pens sitting on the tables in the warehouse. Each box contained 30 pens. How many pens does it take to drive a person crazy? Pam tapped her pen against her tally notebook repeatedly. In the last two hours she managed to count twenty three boxes of black pens, forty seven boxes of pencils and two hundred and seven manila folders. Although after counting about a hundred of them, her vision registered them as a green color instead of the bright tan.
She glanced at Jim’s table which was exactly five inches away; she couldn’t believe her mind measured it, and watched him circle the folders and stacks of post-its. He hadn’t talked with her this entire time and after a while the silence was beginning to drive her stir crazy. She couldn’t fill up the silence with humming and a few fake coughs every so often.
Jim could see her glancing over at his table and he turned his back to her and continued to count the post-its. The tapping of her pen was ringing in his ears and he wished for a moment he could become deaf. He wondered if they were both pretending to play that stupid middle school game, don’t break the sugar bowl. It was childish and really testing his patience.
Finally after a few taps became too loud, Jim snapped suddenly. “Can you please stop with the tapping?”
Pam looked up for a moment and put her pen down. “You know what I think I need a break.”
“Good idea…” Jim muttered. He kept wondering if he was hurting her. He hated hurting people’s feelings, especially hers. But he wasn’t going to let her walk all over him like she usually did, even though he didn’t mind it half the time.
As Pam turned to move around the table she accidentally bumped into the corner, sending three boxes of pens flying onto the floor. They seemed to have landed with a louder clatter then they should of, but the silence had created a lot of illusions.
“Damnit...” she murmured bending down to scoop them up.
Jim turned when he had heard the clatter and hesitated when he watched her bend down to retrieve them. He honestly didn’t know what to do. They hadn’t been speaking for two hours due to the little game that had them firmly in its grasp. But picking up pens didn’t violate the rules right?
He tried to remember what the rules were exactly as he bent down to help her. He knew rules were meant to be broken. But with Pam it wasn’t just rules at stake here. It was his body and his heart, and hearts weren’t made to be shattered.
“Did you already count these?”
She nodded scooping up most of the black pens and placed them back in the box. “They’re everywhere though; I’ll have to count them again.”
“Maybe you should be more careful next time.” Jim said and picked up the blue box.
She took it from him quickly. “Maybe you shouldn’t help next time.”
“I was forced to remember? Something about you forgetting papers?” Damn, he kind of hoped he was hurting her. At least she’d be feeling something.
She glanced at him. “I meant with the pens.”
Jim sighed; now he felt like an ass. He suddenly heard Pam’s cell phone chirp and she stood reaching inside her sweater pocket.
“It’s Roy, I’ll be right back.”
Jim only nodded and picked up the rest of the pens. Of course it was Roy; it was always Roy. He felt like telling her that Roy was her past and he was the future…but it was corny. And after all this was the present.
~*~*~*~
Jim placed the boxes back on the table and stacked them. As he turned to head back to his table he saw something out of the corner of his eye. It was Pam’s tally pad but there were thick black lines on the paper behind the number of ball point pens sheet. He flipped the page over and looked at something she had drawn. It was a piano, a beautifully drawn one. There was long curtains behind it but you could see a bit past them, as if she wanted to make them transparent. After looking at for few moments he realized it was Dunder Mifflin’s parking lot.
He looked at it oddly and picked it up to get a closer look. Why would there be a piano in the middle of the parking lot? But then he realized there were music notes and flares coming from the piano and only one thought came to his head.
“There was dancing and fireworks. Pretty good date…”
His mouth tugged into a small smile as he put the notebook back down and heard Pam approach the door to the stairs. As he watched her make her way down the stairs his smile faded and he turned back to his work.
“We didn’t dance.”
~*~*~*~
Jim turned slightly when he first heard it. He saw Pam’s eyes were red and the tracks down her face were wet. He tried to think of a good reason to walk over there, he wanted to know what was wrong. He needed to know; always needed to make sure her business was his own.
He picked up a box of paper clips and carried them with him over to her table. They were his safety hatch and he kept wondering when he needed an excuse like paper clips to come and talk with her. As he walked towards her he heard her sniffle and it stopped him dead in his tracks. He didn’t know if he could do this, if she was upset what was he gonna do? Pat her back awkwardly and tell her lies that everything was going to be ok?
She sniffled again and it was ear shattering in the now growing silence of the warehouse. Suddenly the bottom of the box Jim was holding gave away and seven hundred paper clips fell out of the bottom. He wondered if the sound waves had loosened it.
That had gotten her attention and she turned bending down with him to pick them up. Jim seemed to squint at her features and he saw that sadness and anger were painted among her face. Like the artist forgot that happiness and love was in life too.
“Are you ok? Did something happen with Roy?” Too many questions at once; he could see she was wavering. Maybe it was the venom he felt leaking from his mouth when he said Roy’s name.
She shook her head and he heard another god awful sniffle. He needed her to stop. Stop everything. She was making the room spin out of control. He touched her hand slightly when she picked up some paper clips.
“Pam…”he started gently. It was all gentle and tender now. Needed her to trust him; to make her feel loved. Because he did love her; always. “You know you can tell me things, its ok.”
Pam looked up at him and their foreheads were almost touching. She wanted to lean onto him for support and almost did when she felt heat radiating off him. “Roy’s just upset that I couldn’t make him dinner tonight.”
Jim had to resist the urge to roll his eyes and Pam sat on the floor, curling her legs under her. “And I think he had a few drinks and he just started with the yelling. But that wasn’t what set me off.”
She rubbed her eyes with her finger tips and Jim held her other hand tightly. He really shouldn’t have been doing this. Not so tightly; not with her. He didn’t want to loosen his hold though, he had her. And he couldn’t go back now.
“What was it?” he tried coaxing it out of her but that didn’t go over well when her lower lip started quivering.
“I applied for this art job a while back, I was going to work in this gallery and get space to put my art up. I’ve been waiting for a response letter for weeks…and Roy had the joy of informing me that I didn’t get the job…”
Her voice went out on the last few words but Jim heard everything crystal clear, the silence made it so you could hear a pin drop.
“Pam, I’m so sorry.” Jim said honestly. His stomach dropped and throbbed when he could suddenly see Pam working so hard on it. Adding paintings and drawings and getting no support from Roy. It made Jim want to punch his lights out.
“I just…” she shrugged. “Worked really hard on it.”
He inched closer to her and sat as well, letting her lean in if she needed to. He couldn’t say anything he wanted. He couldn’t say ‘I know’, because he didn’t know. He didn’t know anything. He couldn’t say ‘I’m sorry’ again because he’d feel like a broken record. And he couldn’t say ‘Roy’s an ass’ because it wasn’t his place. Wasn’t his concern that Pam was making all the wrong decisions. So he settled for saying nothing.
Jim slowly raised his arm and placed it on her back. When she didn’t flinch or move away he started moving in small circles. Pam let a few tears slide down her face before she let herself lean into Jim. He placed an arm over her and she realized she still had paper clips in her hands.
She let them fall to the floor, one by one. “You ever think about how different your life would be if you would have…taken a different route? Chose something different or met someone new?”
Jim nodded and she didn’t need to see him to confirm his answer. His head was now resting on top of hers as she laid her own on his chest. He thought about that every single day. What would his life have been like if he was with her?
But he just nodded and said one simple word. “Yes.”
It was easier giving her one worded responses, everything else seemed too hard. After a while of sitting there on the floor, watching her pick up paper clips and letting them fall from her hand, he wanted to say something to her.
Something about those three little words that were too big to say.
But he couldn’t; it was against the rules of don’t break the sugar bowl.
Author's Chapter Notes:
enjoy! comments welcome!
