Blue Shirts

Every single man at work is wearing a blue shirt except me. The shirts, per company policy, have collars, some have a pocket or logo printed, and so far I notice managers wear a darker shade of blue like midnight blue, navy, dark slate blue, the rest of the men in dodger blue, sky blue, medium blue. There is now an unexplainable sameness to the men, as if I'm seeing the same person walking and working everywhere, regardless of age, ethnicity, body type or facial features. It's Blue Shirt Tuesday, a co-worker in steel blue says. Didn't you get the memo? I laugh, thinking he's joking, but he stares into me and, after a beat, leaves my cubicle.

The women don't care. They think it's cute. Men In Blue, they call them.

After lunch, the office is devoid of women. A group of men, five in all, walk by my cubicle, looking at me with slant gazes, their collective blue glowing and bothersome in the fluorescent light. They do this every ten minutes. At times, they whisper to one another and snort. An hour passes; I spend gaps of time shifting in my seat and rearranging supplies on my desk and glancing around to see if anyone is staring at me.

Two men in blue are in the break room, laughing and talking, but stop silent when I walk in. They see the empty mug in my hand and stand in front of the coffee machine, arms folded. One of the men, in periwinkle blue, looks familiar, but their color infects my vision with spots. I ask them if they have seen any of the women and the man in periwinkle tells me to mind my own business and the other shoves me in the chest. The refrigerator hums.

In the parking lot, someone has slashed my tires and keyed ellipses in the driver's side door. They must have known I would try to leave. I look to the sky, which is perfect and clear, and let the expanse of scattered blue light swallow my inhibitions whole. There are three hours left in the work day, and I walk a few blocks to the mall and buy a blue shirt. The man who helps me is wearing a cyan tie and turns pleasant after I change. Back at work, I pass by a royal blue, who smiles and nods at my assimilation, and return to my cubicle. The man from the break room, periwinkle, comes to me and we begin talking about work and the weather, and we speak as men do with no women around. He looks so familiar yet I can neither place his name nor remember my own. He drives me home at the end of work, and I count all the passing men wearing blue shirts - in their cars, walking on the street - and think how similar we all are and how quiet it is to be apart of them.