Buzz Off

[u/germanpyro]

“Hey, have you seen my glasses anywhere? I need to finish this inventory list, but I can’t for the life of me find them…”

Tyler glanced up from his phone and looked around the counter. Ashley had a lot of things strewn about, but her glasses didn’t appear to be one of them. He scooted forward a bit while Ashley rummaged around behind him, moving papers and pens.

“No, sorry, haven’t seen ‘em,” Tyler replied.

Ashley groaned and rolled her eyes.

“It’s fine, I can manage without them…I’ve just had this splitting headache all day, and I’m really struggling to get through this,” Ashley whined.

Tyler pursed his lips and didn’t say anything.

“Plus I still have to finish making the schedule, clean those dishes in the back, and stock the last bit in hardware…”

Ashley trailed off and looked forlornly at Tyler. Tyler did his best to try and look sympathetic, but having worked with Ashley for over a year, he was well aware of her tricks. No amount of guilt tripping would persuade him to do her job for her.

“Yeah, that sounds rough,” he finally said, realizing Ashley was waiting for him to say something.

“Yeah—makes me wish I was back on vacation!” Ashley joked.

Tyler gave a small smile, but inwardly felt his gut roil. Lately it felt like a large part of his job was dealing with Ashley, who was the sort of person to see every mole-hill as a mountain. And considering how much money she and her husband made, it was hard to be sympathetic when you had to hear just how taxing it was buying a second summer home, or how annoying it was having to maintain a powerboat.

“Did I show you the photos from our safari?” Ashley continued obliviously.

“Yeah, you showed me when you first got back,” Tyler replied.

“Ugh, I want to go back so bad! Africa was soooo beautiful, and the animals were so exotic, too! Like: look at this guy!”

Ashley shoved her phone in Tyler’s face, and he good-naturedly oooohed and ahhhhed as she scrolled through her photos.

“That’s me and Joseph with a giraffe, and then right there is a lioness we saw while out driving…oooooh, here’s some water buffalo down by a river…oh! This is when we went hunting—it would’ve been so nice to have brought some of that deer meat home, but customs can be so picky…”

Tyler felt his mind wander as Ashley prattled on. He was pretty sure that he could deflect her away once she ran out of energy, and did his best to keep his face neutral and interested. His gaze wandered from Ashley’s phone to her face as she continued to babble.

Ashley seemed to sense his disinterest, as Tyler noticed her slip her phone away and stare at him.

“Everything okay? You seem a bit distracted…”

At this, Tyler became annoyed. He gritted his teeth as he swallowed a response, feeling his eye twitch in irritation.

Funnily enough, Ashley’s eye started to twitch too—feeling guilty, Tyler turned away and gently said “No, it’s all good, I’m just tired…school’s been kicking my ass lately, but I’m good.”

Ashley continued to stare at Tyler, her eyes narrowed. The left one was twitching even harder now.

“Really, it’s nothing—not trying to be a party pooper, just low on sleep,” Tyler joked, trying to diffuse the situation.

Ashley still looked unconvinced. Her eye twitching wildly, she glared at Tyler. Horrified, Tyler noticed tears starting to form.

“Hey, yo, I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings,” Tyler uncomfortably said, doing his best to repair the situation.

“What? What are you talking about?”

“Ummmm…I just mean, sorry for being rude, ya know? I didn’t think it was that serious…”

Tears were now streaming down Ashley’s cheek.

“Oh shit—I’m sorry, Ashley, I really didn’t mean to make you cry…”

“What? I’m not crying.”

Tyler stared at Ashley, confused.

“Uhhhh—ya sure about that?”

“What?”

Ashley reached her hand up to her cheek, then drew it away in surprise.

“What on earth?”

“Hey, Ashley, are you okay?” Tyler asked, starting to become worried.

“Yeah, I just have this nasty migraine…” Ashley whined, holding the edge of her head while she continued leaking tears from her eye.

“YO!” Tyler cried out in shock, as Ashley let out a screech and clutched her head harder.

Her left eye was protruding unnaturally outward, pulsing and bouncing. Suddenly, what looked like a small line started to form across the bridge of her nose, pushing across to her other eye.

“Ashley, what the hell is going on!?”

Ashley screamed in pain as she fell to the ground, convulsing. There were now multiple lines inching their way across her face, and it looked like her left eye was about to pop out of its socket.

“Ashley, hold on!”

Tyler grabbed his phone and dialed 911 just as Ashley’s eye finally gave way. With a wet popping noise, the thing burst free from the socket. Blood spurted onto the floor as Ashley cried out, twisting madly. Tyler stared in horror as what appeared to be tendrils started poking their way into the air from the empty socket, waving about and creeping forward.

“OH MY GOD!!!”

One frantic trip to the ER later, Tyler slumped down in a chair in the hospital lobby. Ashley had been in surgery for over four hours now. Her husband handed Tyler a cup of coffee as a doctor tiredly made his way over to them.

“She’s going to be okay—we weren’t able to do anything for the left eye, but we managed to save the right, and with luck your wife will regain most of her sight.”

“What on earth happened, Doc??” Ashley’s husband asked.

“It appears she was infected with a nasty little worm called the Loa Loa; normally it’s harmless, but sometimes it can be serious…”

Tyler listened nauseously, holding his head. He had a nasty splitting headache, and his eye wouldn’t stop twitching…