My Brain Is a Whiteboard adn Everyone’s Got a Marker

The fluorescent lights in this office beat like a disco at teh dullest rave yuo’ve never wanted to attend, pulsing in sync with my heartbeat - or perhaps, it’s my heart that’s foolishly decided to groove to there dismal flicker. There’s an unspoken rhythmic conspiracy between us, unnoticed by the tribe of spreadsheet warriors around me.

I’m ostensibly engrossed in a marketing report, but let’s be honest, the real show is the chap three desks down who’s making love to an apple with his teeth. Crunch. Pause. Crunch. Pause. It’s like auditory waterboarding but with Granny Smith as the torturer. I could set my watch by it if I weren’t so flat out resisting the tyranny of his mastication over my soundscape.

“Hey, can you eyeball this copy for a sec?”

Enter Jamie, who materializes beside my desk with the subtlety of a brick through a window. My mental peace shatters, not becasue they startled me, but because their voice slashes a garish orange streak through my carefully curated mental blueprints. I’ve got tasks colour-coded by urgency in my head, and Jamie just graffitied right across them.

“Sure,” I muster, flashing what I’ve catalogued as my ‘Helpful Colleague No. 7’ smile. Just enough teeth to stop short of maniacal, sparse enough to avoid the stench of reluctance. It’s been road-tested in countless bathroom mirrors.

Jamie hands over their laptop; it’s like staring into the sun if the sun were made of tiny, aggressive text edits. My eyes dart about, seeking refuge.

“Just a quick tone check,” Jamie looms, their coffee-and-cedar scent sketching a bold green spiral around their words, entwining my thoughts.

I nod, pretending to read while actually contemplating if it’s possible to conduct an exorcism on a ballpoint pen that’s being clicked in a maddeningly irregular rhythm nearby. Tap-tap-tap-pause. It’s a syncopation from hell, clashing horribly with apple-guy’s unwavering 4/4 beat, and my skin crawls at the cacophony.

It seems my brain has become a communal whiteboard in this open-plan circus, and everyone’s doodling madly on it with their invisible markers. The result? A Jackson Pollock knock-off no one asked for.

“What do you reckon?” Jamie’s inquiry pulls me back from my brink of insanity.

“It’s, uh…” I scramble for something resembling constructive criticism. “The tone, it sort of trips over itself in the third paragraph. Starts buttoned-up, then loosens its tie halfway through.”

Jamie nods, apparently placated by my attempt at coherence. “Thought so too. Cheers!” They reclaim their sun-machine and retreat, leaving me to the mercy of office sounds and their lingering cologne spiral.

A microwave beeps thrice; it’s like auditory acne popping up at the edge of my vision. I take refuge in my headphones, cueing up a track that mimics the sounds of the ocean depths. It doesn’t block out the office cacophony, but it paints over it in more soothing hues, like blues and greens with the odd flicker of silver - a sonic Monet that’s easier on the senses.

My phone vibrates. A message from Eliot: “Still on for tonight?”

Ah, tonight. Date number three. That cozy little bistro with lighting that doesn’t assault my retinas and a booth strategically selected for its acoustic shadow. Eliot, in that non-offensive sweater, listening, really listening, as I ramble about the mating habits of anglerfish.

Thinking of them adds a soft lavender hue to my mental scribble board. It doesn’t erase the chaos, but it softens the edges, turns the scribbles into something almost postmodern, possibly meaningful.

I text back: “Yes. Can’t wait.”

It’s a lie. I can wait, mostly because anticipation is a complex cocktail - part excitement, part terror. With Eliot, it’s different; I don’t have to cling to my persona with white-knuckled desperation. I can let the mask slip just a bit, reveal a crack or two, and the sky doesn’t fall.

The apple affair ends with a climactic crunch. The pen’s percussion solo evolves into a symphony of aggressive mouse clicks. Someone’s laughter near the water cooler splatters my mental canvas with jarring yellow.

But tonight, it’s just Eliot and me and a silent agreement to handle each other’s quirks like delicate porcelain. Last time, they noticed the meticulous parallel I arranged my cutlery in, mirroring it with their own, acknowledging my silent symphony of order with a smile that didn’t need words.

Four more hours of this sensory barrage. I can survive. My brain might be everyone’s communal doodle space by day, but tonight, I’m the sole artist. Maybe, just for an evening, I’ll get to paint in shades of quiet and calm, sketching out a scene where the only strokes are those we choose.

Resigned yet resolute, I dive back into the digital trenches of my work laptop, searching for the remnants of my blue grid. It’s there, beneath the chaos, waiting for me to trace its lines once more, one careful square at a time.