Free Synergeist: The Haunted Cubicle by Daniel M. Strickland

she didn’t want to freak him out. “Dude, the dead girl is in love with me. How creepy is that?”
     
    ☼
     
    Millie passed the time soaking up the sun until it moved on. Then she watched people use the copier to see if she could learn any new tricks. During the day someone got annoyed when the machine stopped before it had finished his task. With a great deal of impatient jerking and slamming, he changed the toner cartridge. He petulantly left the spent one on top of the machine rather than drop it in the trash can about a foot away, a symbolic, “See? See what I have to put up with?” Toner dust within inches of the glass! The prospect of using it to create her next message excited her. She watched with anticipation to see if anyone cleaned up after the irritable user. No one did.
    As she waited for everyone to leave, she considered what she might say in her message. Once again, words seemed inadequate. She considered creating an image. The thought of moving each speck to render the picture daunted her. Perhaps she didn’t need to do it that way. She had made the mistake before of thinking in terms of the way things worked in the physical word. She had drawn with one hand at a time. There were artists who drew with both hands. She no longer had hands, so why be limited to doing one thing at a time? What if she held the whole image in her mind and willed it all to happen at once? Why not?
    Once she fixed the composition in her mind, she waited. When at last she saw Martin coming down the aisle, she could sense he was anticipating something. Was he expecting another message? She flashed over to the copier. As he covered the last few steps, she held the image she had composed in her mind. Then she willed the toner dust on the cartridge and the top of the copier to become the image on the glass. It worked. Composed on the copy glass was a grayscale image of her favorite Facebook profile picture with “XXOO, Millie,” in her handwriting below it. She produced the energy pattern in the circuits that mimicked the start button just before Martin reached the machine. A sheet emerged and dropped into the output tray. He stopped and lifted the page. She wanted to touch him, to experience his reaction, but she ran to her cubicle instead.

8
     

     
    Now about those ghosts. I'm sure they're here and I'm not half so alarmed at meeting up with any of them as I am at having to meet the live nuts I have to see every day.
    — Bess Truman
     
    Martin woke up before the alarm, which was unusual for him. He rushed to work with anticipation, feeling foolish and excited at the same time. As he neared his cubicle the printer started up and spit out a single sheet of paper. Intuition told him to look at it. His cynical side rolled its eyes and sighed heavily. He ignored it. He lifted the page from the output tray. It bore the artistically rendered image of the same girl as the photo he took from the box. She was holding a camera at arm’s length, pointing it at herself, and grinning a broad, cheesy smile. Below the image was the message, “XXOO, Millie.” He lifted the lid of the copier. The picture and the message had been drawn on the glass in toner dust. He had no doubt who created it.
    He felt a rush of excitement, fear, and embarrassment. He looked to see if the pranksters were lurking. A bleary looking java junkie, clutching a coffee cup, headed down the aisle towards him, but he only had eyes for the liquid gold. It amazed him how the certainty of his discovery coexisted with the fear that he was the butt of an ever more elaborate joke. He made another 10 copies of the image. They weren’t as good as the first because lifting the lid had disturbed the image. Then he cleaned off the glass. He took the prints to the World’s Worst Cubicle.
    He sat studying the image. If he had not seen the delicately arranged toner dust himself, he would have guessed it was a digital creation, a Photoshop manipulation of a photograph, and a