Once upon a time there lived a person, who never told anyone his real name. Some used to call him Mr. Jones, so let us stick with this name for the sake of the story.
Mr. Jones, apart from his off-scale arrogance, happened to be an extremely agreeable young man, who stole more than one brittle woman’s heart. He enjoyed his daily rendezvous, and always got away with them. He was very good at his job: master of avoiding questions, never using the same name twice with the women. Only his close pals knew who he really was.
Mr. Jones – a modern heartthrob, a twenty-first century Don Juan. He had many faces, but one face for them all, for poor women. They didn’t stand a chance.
It happened on a Wednesday.
He took the bus to work on that day instead of taxi, because he lost his wallet the previous night. Having no time to worry about that, he hurried back to his dull desk. Just like anti-Clark Kent, he became an ordinary office rat during the light hours.
Behind his round glasses, pretending to be typing, he was carefully scanning the room for his new victim.
‘What the hell?’ he heard himself yelling.
‘I’m so sorry! No need to worry, I will get it myself.’
He looked up and saw a young woman, the one he had never seen before, or at least her fine red ponytail, leaning over him to get the pen she accidently dropped on him. It rolled behind the keyboard, but she just did not see it.
‘Here,’ he said, handing her the stupid thing.
‘Thanks. This is my first day, I didn’t mean to disturb you, Mr.–‘
‘Jones. Mr. Jones. And you are?’
But she was already gone.
And Mr. Jones, for the first time in his disgusting life, fell in love. Just like that, from the first sight of the red ponytail of the woman who didn’t even tell him her name.
The rest of the week he spent drinking and clubbing. He couldn’t believe what was happening to him – his heart was eating his brain. He called in sick and asked for a non-paid leave for a couple of days. By the end of Sunday, the brain had been digested by ninety-six percent. So Mr. Jones decided to get back to work the next day and find the girl.
They ran into each other in the hallway. She claimed she didn’t recognise him.
‘I am not very good with faces,’ she lied.
‘Neither am I, but I remembered your ponytail.’
‘Too bad that’s all you will ever remember of me.’
Before Mr. Jones could do anything, even though he probably couldn’t without the help of his brain, the girl ripped his heart right out of his chest, put it in her purse and took the first taxi to the airport.
Never take the bus on Wednesday, was Mr. Jones’ last shadow of a thought.
