Translated piece: "A Very Short Story", Ernest Hemingway
One cool afternoon in Del Mar, she and some co-workers took their lunch to the park. She sat on a bench looking over the ocean. There were runners on the beach. In no time, they finished their sandwiches. The others went back to the office. She and Gabe could hear their cars starting in the lot. Gabe sat on the grass. He was warm and balmy in the cool air.
Gabe was the office “go for” for two years. It went unnoticed. When she needed coffee or copies, he took care of it; and their co-workers made a sound like the cracking of a whip every time. She kept her eyes focused on her computer when she made her requests. After the office got an espresso machine, she made her own lattes so he wouldn’t have to go down the street. The others brought coffee from home, so this too went unnoticed. No one much cared for Gabe. She didn’t think of him at night as she gathered her things to go home.
After she was promoted to another floor, she rarely saw him. Her new office was bright, and she didn’t have to share. He wanted to date her, but he’d missed his opportunity to ask. To her, he was a stranger. To him, she was his closest friend.
Gabe sent her dozens of e-mails. She marked them as junk, and thirty-four floated in cyberspace unread. He’d told her about his new boss, how much he loathed him, and about the new coffeehouse on 34th Street.
A year later, she was transferred again, this time to the company’s international division in Europe. Gabe applied to be her assistant. There was already one assigned and waiting for her in Europe, but he didn’t want her to forget about him. Gabe wrote up a proposal about why he would be a better fit for the job, pleading for the company to send him instead. It was interpreted as an obsession and classified “sexual harassment.” Gabe was fired. On her doorstep, he banged angrily on the door begging to be allowed in. He wanted the chance to explain, and hoped to kiss her. She felt scared and called the police.
She went to Europe by plane. Gabe went to jail, and later to a mental facility. It was gray and quiet there. Laying in his room with just a bed, he was visited by a petite nurse that resembled the business woman enough he convinced himself it actually was her. He told himself that she had realized her mistake and come back for him. He raped her on the cold, tile floor. He enjoyed every minute of her pain, and he knew that now she would forever and always be his, as he believed he had planted a seed inside that would blossom into a child. They now, of course, would have to be married, and he smiled at the thought of leaving the hospital. He kissed her hard on the mouth, but it was tea and not coffee he tasted on her lips. He realized his mistake. She was not here, and now he wished her dead. He hoped that she’d be attacked and brutally murdered in an alleyway in that beautiful country.
The nurse pressed charges, and he was transferred to the state prison. The business woman continued to advance in her career, bought an extravagant villa, and married her assistant.
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