Read Daft Wee Stories for Free Online

when he started. It wasn’t that the honeymoon period of being the new guy was over; there was another guy who had started around the same time and they were still chatty with him. The thing was, Chris wasn’t very good at conversations. He never quite picked up the skill of knowing what to say and when, or knowing when to stop. He’d go off on tangents. He’d go quiet when asked a question, not realising a question had been asked. He’d say things that nobody would understand, like when he dropped in a reference to an obscure
Star Trek
character during a conversation his colleagues were having about a rug one of them bought in Ikea. And for that reason, people tended to give him a swerve.
    So it was no wonder that they didn’t know, or care, that today was his—
    â€˜Happy birthday to yooooou, happy birthday to yooooou!’
    Chris turned around, wondering for a second whose birthday it was, surely this wasn’t for him. But there they were, half the office walking over to his desk with a cake, with the other half looking over from their seats and smiling. Chris was smiling as well. He tried keeping tight-lipped to hide just how much it meant to him, but eventually he broke into a cheeser from ear to ear.
    â€˜It’s very chocolatey, I hope you like chocolate,’ said Janette the receptionist. Look at that. Janette barely spoke two words to Chris throughout the entire week, except to say good morning if she happened to be looking his way when he walked through the door. And here she was looking at him, carrying his birthday cake, having a laugh, like they were pals. Oh, he wasn’t that sad, he knew they weren’t really pals, but it was a nice feeling to go along with. It made a change.
    â€˜I do,’ said Chris.
    His colleagues laughed. All eyes were on Chris, and he liked it. For this brief moment, he was the most popular person in the company. It was just what he was after. A brief moment of experiencing the life of a well-liked person, a person that people like to be around. A brief moment of receiving unconditional good will. Just look at how they laughed when he said ‘I do’, despite it not being funny. What was so funny about that? Nothing. Yet they laughed. It reminded him of when he’d just started, when people would smile at him and give him their time, before they decided he wasn’t worth it.
    â€˜Orange as well,’ said Janette. ‘It’s sort of chocolate orange.’
    â€˜Mmm, nice,’ said Chris, and they all chuckled.
    There it was again. All he said was ‘Mmm, nice’, yet it was greeted with laughs and smiles. He’d seen them do it before with other birthdays in the office, it was like a short burst of condensed niceness. Maybe it was done to save time so that they wouldn’t have to be nice all day, which could interfere with work, or maybe people were temporarily intoxicated with the excitement of the event. He didn’t want it to end, but he knew it wouldn’t last. It’d only be a matter of minutes before the laughing and smiling was done and everything went back to normal. Less than a minute, even. If only he could have even a fraction of this, day to day, just a fraction. But no. Back to normal. Back to dodging him, and leaving group conversations one by one, and neglecting to mention that they’re going for a drink. Until this time next year. God, why did he have to talk so much shite, what was wrong with him?
    But could this not be a second chance? A way to wipe the slate clean? Could he not use this opportunity to reconnect with everybody? Instead of them leaving the kitchen when he walked in, they’d maybe hang about a bit for the birthday boy, and he’d try his hardest not to go on so much or say things that nobody had a clue about. His hopes of ever striking up a friendship in here seemed dead in the water, but maybe this short burst of niceness he was receiving would be like