There was cake in the breakroom. Joanna hurried with the other employees to try and get a slice. It was a home-made cake one of the associates made from scratch. It was only a slice Joanna wanted. She was still on her diet but a single slice of dairy free chocolate cake couldn’t hurt.
She followed Janice into the breakroom but got stuck behind her. The breakroom was already crowded with nearly every excited employee all clamoring for a piece of cake. Melissa, who made the cake, was trying to cut pieces evenly but she was being rushed by the manager, Sharon, so the pieces were not uniform.
“Please, there’s only so much cake to go around everyone,” said Marilyn as she took a tiny bite of her piece of cake.
That skinny bitch doesn’t deserve any cake, thought Joanna. She eats like a damn bird. An apple or a salad and then off to yoga every day. Joanna just hated Marilyn and her perfect little butt. Marilyn was only 24 years old. Joanna felt a little guilty for hating Marilyn solely due to your youthful health and vigor. It wasn’t fair.
Janice grabbed a paper plate off the counter and passed one to Joanna. At least Janice was nice. She and Joanna had sat near or next to each other for years. They didn’t talk a lot, but Joanna considered her a friend. Or at least, friendly.
The crowd begging for cake was diminishing as happy employees were digging into the chocolate frosting delight. They stepped out of the breakroom and headed back toward their cubby holes of work to eat their cake, like some wild animal that had just captured its prey and was taking it back to its lair.
Joanna got a look at the remains of the cake. There wasn’t much left at all. Melissa was licking frosting off her fingers as she was cutting pieces. Joanna thought that was gross but she wanted something sweet so she could look past Melissa’s grossness. Joanna had worked so hard all month to make the year end reviews and hadn’t received so much as a pat on the back or even a thank you from management for all her work. This little slice of cake would be enough to get her through the next quarter of her unrewarding and unfulfilling job.
“I’m sorry Joanna,” said Janice, “I got the last little piece.”
Janice scooped the small end piece of the cake up and put the whole forkful in her mouth. She got a little frosting on her top lip.
“There’s no more?”
“I’m sorry. It’s all gone,” said Melissa, still licking her gross fingers.
“I didn’t get any,” said Joanna, “I didn’t get…any?”
Melissa stopped licking her fingers and stared at Joanna. Joanna’s face was beet red as her eyes teared up. Janice was smacking her lips as she licked that lingering frosting from her upper lip.
Joanna dropped her empty paper plate to the floor and rushed out of the breakroom. She ran past the other co-workers, who were all laughing and eating their cake, to the woman’s bathroom. She rushed into one of the three stalls and slammed and latched the door behind her. Her mouth bent downward as she started to wail and the tears streamed down her cheeks. She leaned against the closed door, looked up at the distance acoustic tiles of the ceiling and sobbed.
“Why,” she sobbed, “Why can’t I get any cake?”
She banged her head on the closed metal stall door. She felt it sting the back of her head and she cried harder. She put her face into her hand and turned. She sat on the toilet and sobbed deeply into her hands.
“I just wanted one piece of cake,” she cried.
She sniffled and wiped the snot from her nose. It was a lot of runny snot and Joanna snorted. She pulled at the toilet paper and wadded it up in her hand and blew her nose into it.
“God damn it,” she muttered as she wiped her running nose.
Joanna heard the faint sounds of screaming coming from the office. She heard people running. She wiped her nose again and sat up from the toilet. She stood by the closed stall door. She could hear a thudding noise. The bathroom door burst open and Marilyn and Melissa were locked in a strange wrestling pose, hurling their bodies around the bathroom. Joanna stepped back from the door as Melissa was slammed up against it by little young Marilyn.
“You bitch,” yelled Marilyn, “How could you poison us!”
Melissa pushed Marilyn back against the sinks and up against the mirror, which cracked. Joanna was peeking through the slit between the stall door and the frame.
“I hate all of you. I hate you all. I want you all to die,” yelled Melissa as she mashed her hands into Marilyn’s face.
The manager Sharon, stumbled into the bathroom, she was covered in vomit and blood all down the front of her Lane Bryant top. She fell onto the cold tiled floor. Marilyn and Melissa kept their fight going and stepped on Sharon’s back and head, stumbling around the bathroom. Bashing into the stall again. Joanna crept back into the corner of the toilet stall, but could see the feet of Melissa and Marilyn still jostling about. The footwork seemed to stop abruptly as Marilyn make a strange gurgling sound.
She fell to the floor near Sharon’s body. Melissa seemed to stagger for a minute. The water from the sink came on. It was quiet except for the running water. Joanna opened the stall door. Melissa was covered in blood coming from her mouth, staring into the broken mirror.
“Melissa,” asked Joanna.
Melissa turned around and flipped Joanna the middle finger. Her eyes rolled back and she fell on top of Marilyn’s still body.
Joanna stood in the bathroom staring at the carnage. Listening to the running water from the sink. She looked down at the three women with whom she had worked for years and realized she really didn’t know them at all. She finally was able to muster the strength to leave the bathroom.
Out in the offices, it looked like a plague of God had been wrought upon the Egyptians. Everyone was dead, with bloated throats and faces frozen in the last moments of their fearful lives. Joanna walked over the bodies of her co-workers and got her purse and jacket from her desk. She put her jacket on as she crossed the pile of still corpses and went to the entrance door. She opened it and stepped through quickly. She closed it behind her and locked it.
It was starting to snow outside. Joanna walked through the parking lot to her car and opened it. She got in and sat behind the steering wheel.
“I’m glad I didn’t get the cake,” she said to herself. She took out her phone
and called 911.
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