It all began with a rubber duck.

Actually, besides the duck, staring at her from her coworker’s desk, looking as if it had not a care in the world, the day seemed completely normal.  Everyone bustled through the office with their work on their minds and coffee in their hands, like this was just another day in a long precession of dull tasks and ringing phones.

But Katie knew better.

The duck was just a generic one, standard size with the bright yellow coloring and big, black eyes.  Perhaps it was the way that it sat upon a small pile of papers, as if mocking the fact that Katie’s was larger, or perhaps it was the way that its sickly vivid beak was slightly open in some sick, duck smile, but the thing seemed to scream of a coming catastrophe.  She simply could not stop thinking about it, even as she turned her back to the dastardly thing and hunched over her work.

Its gaze burned into her head.

Katie ignored it.

The day trudged on like a child dragging their feet on the first day of school.  Slowly her pile of papers shrunk and nothing unusual happened.  Then, as she reached across her desk to grab a pen forgotten in the corner, she knocked a sheet to the floor.  Grabbing the offending pen with a sigh, she reached down to snatch back her form, but just at that moment her chair made a horrible creaking and she tumbled to the floor, hair flying and hands spinning. 

She laid still for a moment, despairing at her luck as she turned her head to see the wheel rolling absently past her face, like an intoxicated dancer spinning about, before it wobbled and plopped over, settling right in front of her nose.  She sat up, whamming her head straight into the outer edge of the cubical desk, causing stars to erupt before her eyes and drawing a string of curses out of her before she could stop them.  Hoping no one was there to witness her humiliating series of events, Katie slowly got herself back to her feet only to find her coworker standing in the doorway, one foot hovering as if in mid-step.  She scowled at him and he scurried off as she dusted herself off, trying to recover as much dignity as she could.

Dragging her broken chair to the side, Katie reached across the desk to her phone, intending to make a quick call to maintenance to get a replacement, but even as she drew the phone up, the cord caught her stapler and knocked it down, dropping it straight onto her toe.  With a yelp of pain and frustration, she dropped the phone straight on her remaining pile of papers, causing them to scatter across the ground.  

Just at that moment, her coworker returned with a member of the janitorial staff just in time to find her standing in the middle of a huge mess, the broken chair to one side, her work scattered across the floor, and a nasty bruise growing on her forehead, just above her right eyebrow.  She felt as if she could curl up and cry even as the custodian hurried off and her coworker pulled the chair into her office, sitting her down and trying to calm her.  He dropped into a crouch before her in the middle of the chaos and smiled.

And observing all along, from the safety of a neighboring desk, perhaps looking a bit too smug, was the small, yellow toy.

After all, it all started with the rubber duck.