Isolated A short story
Words: Jess, Year 9
Mary sat hunched at her desk under a pale lamp light. A case file lay sprawled over her matte white desk, and a once full cup of coffee sat forgotten and cold beside her elbow. If you asked her if she was ok, she would reply with yes, but the tired bags under her eyes could speak the truth without fault. Despite her obvious exhaustion, Mary continued to work on the case she was given, trying to crack it, trying to see the truth that lay within the sea of text and photos. She stared down at the file; John Birch, 21, Caucasian male with brown hair and green eyes, found dead in his home. Cause of death was obvious; the picture taken at the scene depicted the young man in the foetal position under his kitchen table, with a gunshot wound on the left side of his head. Most evidence painted the case as a suicide, but there was something nagging Mary at the corner of her mind. Something didn’t feel right about the case. According to close friends and relatives, John had no mental issues and was overall a healthy man. She clawed at her hair, desperate to force an answer, or a theory to link the events and evidence together, but nothing would surface but the overwhelming craving for more caffeine. Mary sighed, before rising out of her seat, retrieving her mug and exiting her windowless office. She checked the clock, 3pm; “one more hour of overtime, and then I can go home and rest,” she thought to herself. With mug in hand, she walked briskly down the hallway. She passed empty offices and empty conference rooms and she walked to the coffee machi- wait, empty? She stopped in her tracks and recounted her footsteps. She peeked in her colleague’s offices and the conference rooms. All rooms were isolated. All the work in the rooms were filed neatly away; it was as if everyone had simply packed up their things and left. On the way to the machine, she noted that she had not seen any janitors at all.
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