Heather was busy typing up her report on the effect of gamma rays on the Green-spotted Geiko. She specialized in that. Heather was a touch typist, a very, very good one. As she was typing she noticed some typos. She'd go back to correct them and sometimes she could and sometimes she couldn't. Odd. The computer must be going. She glanced down and noticed that one of her finger was stuck on the keyboard. Now, that was really odd. The finger didn't hurt. Well, of course, it wouldn't. It wasn't sending any signals to the brain. Her hand, minus one finger, didn't hurt at all. Odder yet, it also didn't bleed. She shouted over to the next cubicle for Jerry to come over. Maybe he could explain this. This had never happened before, not to her. She'd have noticed.

Jerry, who studied dead fish, came right over. Heather pointed at her finger sticking to the keyboard and showed him her hand with the missing digit but no blood. She did this with a puzzled look on her face.

"What about it?", he asked.

"Isn't this a little , uh, strange?", she asked. What about it? He said that as if he saw this everyday or something, she thought.

"You talking to me when you don't have to is strange. It's a strange world, sweetie."

"What should I do?", Heather asked, as if Jerry was someone with common sense or someone who gave a rat’s ass. None of the women here talked to him when they didn't have to. Heather couldn't imagine what type of woman would be attracted to Jerry. She once went into his cube just as he blew his nose into his trash can. She quickly stepped back and psyched herself into keeping her lunch down.

"Well, that's your choice, you know? I don’t really give a rat’s ass what you do. Free world, you know. It's your body, or, umm, a part of it. Hey, I‘m no chauvinist." He was a chauvinist but saying it never helped. Lying about it did.

"Your no help either, Jerry", as if she believed he could be.

"Yea, see this?", he said as he pulled an eye out of his pocket. It was all shrunken and leathery looking. It had a chain attached to it. Jerry sometimes wore it around his neck when he went to certain bars. The sort of woman attracted by that wasn’t the kind you’d want to trust with your kids with but that wasn’t what Jerry was after anyway.

"That’s gruesome looking. Why. why do you carry something like, umm, that around?", Heather asked him. What a freak! Wonder if he shows this to attract women. Jeez, what kind of woman would be attracted by something like that? She’d have to be pretty strange. Then again, so was Jerry so maybe it worked out okay. Keep the freaks all in one group. Then again, their kids would probably be freaks. Maybe that why Jerry 's a freak.

"Because it fell out of my head and it won’t stay in. I’m not throwing away a perfectly good eye. I can't see with it but it's still useful. I had it preserved. It‘s in my pocket instead of my socket". That was the line Jerry used on women. It always got him a laugh or a look of disgust. If he got a laugh, he’d zero in like a vulture on a field mouse.

"So, how does that help me?", Heather asked. Were men attracted to women with missing fingers? What kind of men? Freaks or liberal, free thinkers? If he hits on me- ugh, no way. Jerry probably hits on every female he sees, using both eyes.

"You lost a finger. Too bad. I lost an eye. Too bad. Crap happens, that's all this is. Get it?",Jerry told her. Boy, he thought, what a dumbass. How’d she ever get hired here. Wonder if she dumb enough to go out with me. he also thought. No, she acted kind of weird about the eye.

"My finger's laying on my keyboard like it wasn't ever attached to my hand and you say 'crap happens'. How does that help me? All I'm getting is typos now", Heather said.

"Well, I can't teach you how to type. You're supposed to know that already. Yea, I see all the typos. Gotta do better'n that if you want to keep your job. I type better than that with just two fingers. You have nine left."