“Hey Williams, how have you been?” I called out, as I pulled the armless desk chair in front of his office desk and sat on it. “Your chairs are really uncomfortable do you know that?” I went on. Ignoring my remarks as usual, Williams replied “so, will he be able to make it tomorrow?” “I’m afraid not,” I replied. “Well James has priorities now, I don’t think he’s avoiding us, more like he’s ahead of us. Don’t you think so too?” I carefully watched Williams’s expressions change as he made that remark. “No I don’t. I don’t think that conforming to cultural norms and to societal expectations such as getting a girlfriend puts James ahead of us in any way.” I replied, with a slight grin on my face that quickly faded away as Williams heaved a sigh. “I am not trying to be a nonconformist. You’re alone on that one. I just wish I had James’s luck on that department.” I kept my eyes fixated on the stapler right next to me on the desk as I gently pushed its head down to the base without wasting any staples. A strange hollow scratching sound briefly reverberated through the office. “Stop it with the stapler,” murmured Williams, who was already engrossed in his work.

James is an old college friend of mine; I met him before I met Williams. I met Williams when I found work at the IT department of a small startup company that was now a medium sized enterprise. James, on the other hand, worked as an engineer at a different company. It only took them a few weekends, when the three of us were able to meet up, in order for them to move from being the friends of a mutual friend, to close friends with deep connections. Deep to the point that I was left out on some occasions. It didn’t affect me in the slightest however. I think that’s partly due to our being only three friends, and due to our group’s chemistry. It’s the sort of thing that worked itself out, so in essence, it didn’t really feel like I was left out. It felt like a natural and genuine occurrence that lasted a brief amount of time.

It has been weighing on Williams’s mind, ever since James got a girlfriend, that he’ll end up alone in life. The fact that he already had a terrible number of insecurities to push against wasn’t helping the poor man’s psyche. I could never convince him that it was a shallow pursuit, it’s tough to convince someone of something that nine tenths of the population is actively pursuing and encouraging others to pursue. I suppress my romantic and sexual urges in general so I do relate to him partially, but I am personally glad that I have never dreaded a life of solitude. I dread being rejected from participating in society by enlarge, but I don’t want a partner in life. Someone like me could never hope to empathize with Williams and James. I feel ashamed for pushing my views onto them sometimes, but I get annoyed when it was all they talked about.

James lived some streets away from my apartment. His home was somewhat close to his office although he had to travel to the province’s industrial zone sometimes as he was the project engineer at the establishment he worked at. You could sort of say that we were in the same neighborhood. Williams lived closer to our office than I did, which placed him at more than a few miles away from my neighborhood. The closest grocery store to my place was right next to James’s place so I always had to rev up my car engine even if I only needed a spare of light bulbs. That was until they opened a store below the apartment building where I lived. It was a big deal for me, something to celebrate, to help me temporarily forget the shallowness and emptiness of my vague existence. I was so into it that I was able to partially conquer my social anxiety and decided to force myself to visit the store on its grand opening, when I knew that it would be the day when the store was most congested with humans. I also had to make up an excuse that day so that I didn’t have to go to work.

I remember that during that day, just right when I was hastily adjusting my flat cap in front of my bathroom’s mirror and getting ready to live for the grocery store, I got a call from Williams. “Hey Williams, what’s the matter?” I murmured inattentively while I put on my coat, the distant sound of sirens poured into my ears from the speaker. “It’s James, he got into a major accident. The sleeve of his jacket near the elbow area got sucked into some rolling belts while he was flicking switches on a control pad. The whole arm got pulverized when he was sucked in by the machine. I have never seen a person so mangled before in my entire life.” I momentarily lost my grip at the time, then I finally managed to utter a question; “where are you now? Where are you headed?” “To a hospital nearby. I’ll send you the GPS, I am just following the ambulance for now,” Williams replied. For a moment, when I began to regain my senses, I wanted to ask how come Williams was the one to be following the ambulance? Wasn’t I the one who lived closest to him? It was a trivial concern however. I failed to realize back then that the accident had probably happened on a day where James had to leave for the industrial zone, to their company’s factory. It became clear to me later that that was the case when I hopped into my car and started following the GPS.

On reaching the hospital, the receptionist informed me that James had been relocated to a room upstairs, his status unknown to her. I rushed up the staircase, and without knowing which way to go, I instinctively turned around a few corners until I found Williams, hunched over a waiting bench opposite to what I assumed to be James’s room. As soon as we locked eyes, we averted our gaze away from each other. He mumbled some incoherent mess before managing to squeeze out that James had died of shock. Despite no damage to vital organs, he said, James had died from the physical shock caused by the accident. “Sophie here called me when she was informed, said she just looked for the last person he talked with in his contact logs,” he continued mumbling. He gestured towards the bench and a middle aged woman wearing a light pink coat, a white t-shirt, and black cotton trousers came into view. Her face was quite red which strongly contrasted with the pale whiteness of her neck skin. She was crying quietly and couldn’t even nod in response. I hugged Williams and politely apologized to Sophie before pulling Williams aside. “Hey, I am leaving.” I said hastily. After what seemed like an eternity, I continued speaking, pausing in long intervals between each sentence I blurted out; “I personally don’t know how to deal with these sorts of situations… Well no one ever does… but it’s not easy when you’re emotionless about it… I don’t even feel anything right now… I am neither sad nor numb. Simply calm… You sounded a bit hysterical there so at least I know you’re feeling something. Sorry for putting the onus on you.” And with that, I left.

Three years had passed since James’s death. Williams had started dating Sophie a few months since then, and they married a year after the accident had taken place. It took me a year after their marriage to realize that perhaps the monkey’s paw was at the center of it all. Perhaps Williams’s desire triggered it. “I wish I had James’s luck in that department,” he said to me, a little more than two years ago when we were at his office. The monkey’s paw curled then; I almost certainly heard its hollow scratching.