Men don't receive flowers. Men aren't given pretty gifts and affectionate gestures. Men are not thought of with quiet contemplation. Yet here he was, with flowers on his desk and co-workers lingering over his empty chair. People were taking it hard, like he'd ever been someone that really mattered to them. Sousa went so far as to stare at the phone like it had insulted his mother.
"Why's everyone looking so glum? It's just me," Ray gestured to himself with a shrug, but no one answered.
The other agents huddled together in silent little groups, not talking. Sometimes they looked at each other briefly. Mostly they just looked at their shoes. Nobody looked at him. Maybe they couldn't.
"Get over it already. Quit acting like nobody has ever died before."
You expected this kind of thing in this line of work. Not this lingering around when no one could see you, but the dying part. It wasn't right being a ghost when you didn't even believe in that sort of thing. He hadn't expected anyone to be this upset about it, not for him.
"Hey, cut that out now, I didn't ask for no flowers. Come on, you think I'd mope around for you?"
It wasn't like they had ever done anything nice for him before. What was the big idea, starting now that he was dead? It wasn't exactly a funeral, where everyone stood around eating little sandwiches while they wrangled a priest into saying how great you were, but that didn't half make it business as usual, either. If this kept up, he might start thinking people were genuinely sad.
"Look, I'm sorry, okay? I messed up. Can we all pull up our socks and get it together, instead of carrying on like a bunch of women? Leave all that fuss to the little missus. And the other little miss."
He was never going to know if any one of them had ever liked him, but he was starting to think they might have tried a bit more than he'd realized. He almost wished he'd put a little more effort into playing the game of get-along. He would have made friends if he had thought there'd be this kind of scene, given them a real reason to get worked up like this, or given them something to talk about over drinks so they could get all their misery out and move on. He almost wished he had made friends when he still had the chance. It mightn't have been bad to have someone make a little bit of a big deal over him back when he was alive. He went to his desk and tried to touch the bouquets. He had enough time on his hands now he could spare a minute to appreciate the gesture. It would have been better if he could say one last thing and be heard, so he could thank the lads for thinking of him. He almost wished he could smell the flowers.