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must have had something to do with it.

      Someone at the company was seriously afraid that Gregg Fisher was a carrier of the Black Death, and wrote an anonymous note to HR. But someone else said that no one in HR would be able to do anything, because Gregg Fisher had been at the company for more than ten years and was fully vested in the company’s ESOP plan. Someone else said that once you become fully vested in the ESOP plan, you are untouchable. HR cannot get rid of those employees who are fully vested, because the company could be slapped with a lawsuit. Someone else said that the company would rather sacrifice its employees to the Black Death than risk a protracted lawsuit. Someone else said the company hated paying lawyers almost as much as it hated paying its employees. Everyone got a good chuckle out of that one.

      Gregg Fisher works in software. Some people believe that the software department is actually a coven of witches posing as a software department, but this has not been verified.

      Someone else said that it only looks like Gregg Fisher is typing at his computer, but upon closer inspection, he is not pressing down on the keyboard at all. His hands hover over the keys, and he makes typing gestures, but he isn’t really typing—he is pretend typing. It freaked people out.

      Someone said that they noticed a strange quiet down in software—an unnerving quiet. Someone else said they once went down to software and they swear there was an odd odor and a kind of fog emanating from somewhere, possibly the same smelly smoke that Gregg Fisher’s old Chrysler K-Car or Plymouth Sundance used to emit. That made people nervous. They had hoped Gregg Fisher’s old car was dead and gone. Someone suggested that maybe Gregg Fisher had zombified his old car and cut out the zombified tailpipe, burying it within the walls of the software department. That way, it would periodically emit thick, smelly smoke to keep people from coming down to complain about the screwed-up software.

      Someone else said they wouldn’t be surprised if one day, the software developers stormed the upper floors of the building and ripped out the beating hearts of some of the employees. Some people thought that marketing might get their hearts ripped out first, and then someone else said that it was impossible because no one in marketing had a pulse. Everyone got a good chuckle out of that one.

      Someone wrote an anonymous note to HR about how no one in software ever seemed to be at his cubicle. They left out the part about Gregg Fisher and his pretend typing, because most people were resigned that HR couldn’t do anything about Gregg Fisher. Soon afterward, HR sent out a company-wide e-mail saying that all anonymous notes sent to HR must be signed by the employee writing the note and co-signed by the employee’s manager. The e-mail said the company mandate for the next fiscal year was transparency, and that this applied to all kinds of correspondence, even confidential correspondence. This incensed most of the employees, except, someone noted, Gregg Fisher, whom this person saw lean back in his Aeron chair after reading the e-mail, a smug satisfaction gleaming in his muddy brown eyes. Someone else said they didn’t believe it was possible they could despise Gregg Fisher more than they already did, but because of his reaction, they put him in an entirely new category of people they hated—a category where you put people like Hitler and Osama bin Laden and Dick Cheney and, now, Gregg Fisher.

      That person ultimately left the company under strange circumstances. After that, some people thought that Gregg Fisher and Dick Cheney might be cousins.

      Someone offered to stay late one night until Gregg Fisher went home, and then burn sage over his desk, his Aeron chair, his keyboard, and maybe, if he forgot it, his commuter mug. This person hoped to clear out the demons that Gregg Fisher must have summoned from the depths of Hell. Someone else said that they didn’t think that sage-ing Gregg Fisher’s cubicle was going to help. Someone said they didn’t think that Gregg Fisher ever left the building; that they were working late one night, and when they went down to the parking lot, they saw Gregg Fisher’s Pontiac Vibe with its lights on. They didn’t stop to see if Gregg Fisher was in the car or not, but either way, it was spooky.

      It made people nervous to think about Gregg Fisher hiding in his Pontiac Vibe late at night in the parking lot. Someone else mentioned that they might want to consider driving a wooden stake through Gregg Fisher’s heart, but someone else said they didn’t think that Gregg Fisher had a heart. Everyone got a good chuckle out of that one.

      One Halloween, someone put a cut-off chicken head on the hood of Gregg Fisher’s Pontiac Vibe. This wasn’t the first time someone had played a prank on Gregg Fisher. Someone once put fake plastic vomit on Gregg Fisher’s Aeron chair. Someone else once wrote a love note to Gregg Fisher and signed it, “A Secret Admirer.” Everyone got a good chuckle out of that one. But someone said that this time, it wasn’t a joke, and that the powers that be had gotten serious about getting rid of Gregg Fisher. Someone said that certain executives were sufficiently freaked out by Gregg Fisher and decided to take matters into their own hands. Someone else said that a decapitated chicken head on the hood of Gregg Fisher’s Pontiac Vibe was a bad omen, a harbinger of evil. Others thought that creating a hostile work environment for Gregg Fisher would only cause a lawsuit. Still others thought that Gregg Fisher himself put the chicken head on the hood of his own car to scare people.

      Someone else said they were in the parking lot when Gregg Fisher noticed the chicken head on the hood of his Pontiac Vibe, and that he had pounded on the hood and howled like an animal. That same person said it looked like Gregg Fisher was crying his eyes out. Someone else said it could have been an act, and that Gregg Fisher must have known that someone was watching him. They had heard that Gregg Fisher was an Eagle Scout and had been taught to hear at a higher frequency than most humans. Most people agreed that Gregg Fisher would know on an unconscious level whether he was alone in the parking lot and whether to feign crying.

      There was a lot of discussion about whether Gregg Fisher could hear in his mind when other people were talking about him. That made the people who did a lot of talking about Gregg Fisher nervous.

      One day, someone went down to software and didn’t see Gregg Fisher at his desk. Some thought that Gregg Fisher might have gone out on stress leave. Someone said that if Gregg Fisher could provide a doctor’s note with a valid reason as to why he couldn’t be at work, he could be paid up to 75 percent of his salary for three months. Someone else said that even if Gregg Fisher did go out on stress leave, the company would have to keep his job available to him for six months. After that time, Gregg Fisher would have to be offered a job within the company, even if it was a job in a different department and for lower pay. Someone said there was no way that Gregg Fisher would accept a job in a different department, because then he would have to learn how to actually type, not just pretend type. Everyone got a good chuckle out of that one.

      Someone else thought maybe Gregg Fisher was sick with the flu that was going around the software department. Still others thought that Gregg Fisher caused the flu going around the software department, and that he was told to stay home until he stopped being a carrier for diseases. People breathed easier that night when they went down to the parking lot after working late and did not see Gregg Fisher’s Pontiac Vibe. Everyone felt a lot safer.

      After a week, someone saw a new person sitting in Gregg Fisher’s cubicle. Shortly after, HR sent out an e-mail to all employees stating that Gregg Fisher had to leave the company for an indefinite period of time due to a personal matter. Everyone wondered what that meant. Someone said that Gregg Fisher caused personal matters for others, and that was his personal matter.

      Someone else said maybe he had to take a leave of absence to take care of his aging parents. Someone else said they didn’t believe that Gregg Fisher had parents in the traditional sense; that they wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Gregg Fisher had sprung from the head of his father, like Athena from Zeus. That person had paid attention to the mythology unit in freshman English.

      Some people asked around the software department, but no one seemed to know anything or would divulge anything if they did know. Someone else heard Gregg Fisher had left the building one Friday evening and never came back, not even to clean up his cubicle or retrieve his commuter mug. Some people wondered what happened to the commuter mug. They thought that it had probably been incinerated. Others believed that management confiscated the mug to have the contents tested, because management was building a criminal case against Gregg Fisher

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