There was a woman, a tiny little thing, shrieking, squeaking; making noise as I made my way towards her.

“M-Miss Lockhart, please!” she screamed, “Please, all I need is a little more time!”. I could barely make out her face; hardly even remember her name. From where I was, all I could see was a speck that just so happened to speak.

I glanced at my monitor and what I could tell to be her account sat open for me to see. I skipped past her face, past her name, and studied her balance once and then twice.

She owed us forty grand. Today’s the last day. She’s going to shrink.

I stopped right in front of her; the pointed ends of my heels inches away from her person. I couldn’t tell what she was doing but she seemed to be moving faster. More… erratic. I think she was yelling? Begging, maybe?

“Is it something about her job?”, I said to myself and chuckled, “Ah, it doesn’t matter, I have more important things to worry about”. 

Its words, so small and quiet, had fallen into the background amongst the noise of the office. It kept falling, lower and lower on the rings of significance, first quieting, and then, silenced.

I raised my foot and brought it down gently over the vaguely pink speck, slowly but surely pressing my weight onto it. I could, just barely, feel it hitting against my sole and, just barely, feel it stop after a series of pops reverberated through my foot.

After a few seconds had passed, I took off my heel and studied its bottom, looking over the red splotch that's already dried into the sole.

“There’s nothing left”, I said to myself with a sigh, putting the heel back on and cleaning up the mess before returning to my desk.

As I took a seat in my chair, I caught one last glance at the speck’s profile, trying to take in its name, age, even her face, but nothing. 

It was all just a blur. Noise.

I closed the profile, sat back, and waited until another made its way into my office, asking for money it didn’t need and won’t pay back.

“Stupid little things”, I whisper, “Always running head first to their death and never taking the blame”.

A few minutes passed. The few minutes turned into a few hours, and after a while I was awoken from my half-awake stupor by the blaring ring of a landline.

“Victoria”, the voice teased, “You have another client waiting to meet you”.

I stifled a deep sigh before answering the phone, saying with a smile, “Go ahead and send them up. Not like I was trying to rest or anything”.

“Victoria!”, the voice scolded, “Don’t act like that! This is an important job y’know; people depend on us!”.

“Yes, I know, I know”, I shrugged, “They’re coming in now. We’ll talk after work, see ya”.

I put the phone back on the hook as a small door swung open and a light brown speck, a little larger than the last, walked through.

I sat up, fixed my glasses, and forced my smile but as soon as my lips flapped open, I was cut off with a loud “Hello!”.

“How’s your evening going, Vic- I mean, Ms. Lockhart”.

I looked up from the ground and scanned the room for the voice’s source, but I’m ripped back to the floor when the voice yelled “Down here!”.

My gaze is yanked towards the floor, moving from the entrance to the foot of my desk until I find the speck, the apparent source of that sound, standing between my feet.

“E-Excuse me!”, I shrieked, “Please move away from me and take a seat!”.

“Oh, sorry for scaring you!”, he chuckles, “I just wanted to introduce myself! My name is-”.

“Take your seat now! Do not make me repeat myself!”, I demanded.

Without skipping a beat, the little speck had sprinted from my feet to a tiny chair in front of my desk, picking up where he had left off.

“Sorry about that Ms. Lockhart!”, he giggled, “My name is Marcus Brown. How’s your evening?”.

“Well Mr. Brown”, I coughed, “It’s going fine. What is it that you need help with today?”.

Almost as if a switch had been flicked, the minute I asked him that question, a stream of garbled nonsense about a “startup” poured out of his mouth. He answered questions I didn’t ask, provided questions I didn’t want, and by the time he finished I couldn’t even remember what his main point was.

But with the little I could catch, I re-centered the conversation asking, “So you want a $20,000 dollar loan for a tech startup, correct?”.

“Yep!”, he responded, “That’s all I’m asking for, Ms. Lockhart”.

“I think we can do that for you Mr. Brown”, I said, forcing a smile. “Just write your signature on the screen in front of you and the money’s all yours”.

“That’s all?”, he questioned, “Guess I didn’t need that whole spiel after all…”.

Letting out a soft sigh, I sit back in my chair, glancing to the clock, towards my screen, and back to the speck, waiting as it finishes writing down its signature.

In the midst of my waiting, if only for a second as the little speck continued poking around his screen, I saw it.

He had looked up from his screen. He locked eyes with me. And he smiled- wide, with every tooth: the tops, bottoms, the molars and premolars, the incisors and canines; he used all of them and smiled at me.

Its strange; I felt like I stepped out of a dark cave and finally saw the morning sky. As if, for the first time in my life, I felt the kiss and sting of the warm summer breeze. 

But the awe was fleeting. After a few moments, a cold sweat covered my brow and I longed for the safety of my cave. I even imitated its insides, closing my eyes as hard as I could but his face stuck to the insides of my eyelids. His smile was all I could see. His smile… His smile was…

Gone. It was gone. Like morning dew in the face of a rising sun, when he looked back to the screen his face vanished, and I was yanked back into the comfort of my hole; safe and sound.

“Well, I think I’m done Ms. Lockhart!”, he says, breaking the silence. “I’ll get out of your hair. Goodnight!”

“Huh?”, I mouthed, “Oh, yes. Have a good night, Mr. Brown”.

As the little man made his way out the door, I finally got up from my chair and began packing my things, readying to go home myself. 

Even though he had left, the feeling he had given me with was very present. It felt like weights were pulling on my lungs and no matter where I looked, I would see his face. I needed to go home, fast.

So, I was moving fast, throwing my things in my briefcase with no regard for structure or cleanliness, but in my haste, my stomach started to turn. A loud piercing noise rang through my ear and I found myself bent over the trash can throwing up my lunch.

Regurgitated pieces of a smoothie and sandwich coated the walls of my trashcan and when I finally started to stand up, I caught a glimpse of a lightly-used napkin, stained with a splotch of dirt and blood.

I felt sick.

God, I felt sick.