Lillian Gimley was, on the surface, a perfectly average woman. She had no more than the usual amount of wrinkles for a woman of her age, and her blonde hair was rigorously curled each morning.  Her clothing was neither bland nor ostentatious, and when she spoke, it was with an even tone. There was only one thing that distinguished Lillian Gimley from her neighbors, and that was her immense capability to be as irritating as possible at every available opportunity.  She was by no means an evil person; she was simply a thorn in everyone she encountered’s side.

Every day, after waking up and leaving the house, Lillian Gimley walked to her local café and ordered an extremely long and complicated order. Every day, without fail, she would demand that it be sent back, as some part of it was incorrectly measured (she could taste the difference, she claimed, every day). The poor workers of this café would draw lots every morning, to determine who would be the one to contend with Lillian’s bothersome attitude. After acquiring her beverage, Lillian Gimley took a long, (but not too long), path through the local woods to reach her place of employment: Lillian Gimley worked as a supervisor at the local paper mill.

She had attained a reputation as the most unfortunate supervisor to be assigned to. Her office was always teetering  on the edge of disaster, stacks of forms precariously perched on the edges of desks, waiting for a poor, unsuspecting mill worker to innocently bump into them. Once this event inevitably occurred, Supervisor Lillian, as she was called by the workers, would command the mill worker at fault (for it was clearly their fault) to stay and organize the stacks they’d knocked over (and it was always more than one; once a single stack fell, the rest followed like dominoes). Aside from this, Supervisor Lillian found other ways to annoy those under her. She would continuously walkthrough of the main mill operation, critiquing the workers there; oftentimes having no clue as to what she was commenting on. It became a tradition of sorts to gather at the back of the mill at the end of the day to commiserate about what minutiae Supervisor Lillian had chosen to pick at that day. Truly, the town was shocked the mill workers had yet to cuss her out, as they’d been quietly threatening to do ever since her first week at the mill.

Nevertheless, Lillian Gimley continued about her day unaware of the grievances harbored against her, and, from the mill, continued to a local restaurant that was unlucky enough to be her favorite. Once arrived at her destination, Lillian Gimley would demand to be placed at the most desired table, one in the back corner, bathed in cool lighting, and far enough away from the music speakers as to be relaxing, but not eerily silent. Inevitably, the table was reserved, and twenty minutes were wasted away arguing that she should have the table anyway. She was always escorted to a table further from the back, near the broad windows (a spot once meant to appease her indignance, long since proven futile; merely tradition, now). Then, she would order her meal; another overly complicated order destined to be confused. A repetition of the scene at the café earlier that day would take place.

Thus finished with her dinner, Lillian Gimley would pack herself up and walk home, again through the woods. Unfortunately for her, today she would not make it to the end of the path. Halfway through her walk, Lillian Gimley was interrupted by a large and rather disheveled wolf. She merely had time to let out an echoing scream, before her throat was torn out by the, apparently quite hungry, wolf. The wolf proceeded to shred the body of Lillian Gimley quite thoroughly. The wolf proceeded to consume a truly impressive amount of her shredded corpse, and once sated, loped off for destinations unknown.

For the next twenty-four odd hours, the remains of Lillian Gimley laid still, decaying on the ground. It was not until the woman behind the counter of the café she visited each morning realized  that she had not seen Lillian Gimley yet that day, that anyone realized she was missing at all. Eventually the town organized a quietly reluctant search party, to comb the path she walked each day to work. (Everyone knew the path she walked to the paper mill; they all took great pains to avoid it). Soon enough, a tall man found the ruined remains of Lillian Gimley, and called out to his fellows, and a crowd thus formed.

All that remained of Lillian Gimley was a mound of gore, covered in scraps of clothing and wolf spittle. The group left to go inform the proper authorities; they certainly weren’t going to carry the mess back themselves. Word spread quickly throughout the town as the news disseminated, and within the hour, everyone knew that Lillian Gimley was quite thoroughly dead.

The woman behind the counter of the café quietly breathed a sigh of relief when she heard the news. Oh, maybe she felt a little sad, as anyone does when they hear of the loss of life, but the feeling was overshadowed by the relief she felt with the knowledge that she would no longer have to draw lots with her co-workers every morning. Similarly, the mill workers, when they heard, all pretended to feel a sadness everyone knew they didn’t feel. And, at the end of the workday, they cautiously let their grins split their faces, confident in the assurance of isolation. After all, it wouldn’t do to celebrate such a gruesome death. And when the restaurant workers heard the news, the hostess breathed a sigh of gratitude to the wolf, before nervously glancing around herself to make sure that no one heard; and the waiters high fived each other on the way home, a silent acknowledgement of the lifted burden.

And several weeks after, when the remains of Lillian Gimley were burnt to ash and placed in an urn, the town she had lived in continued to run. The café continued to enjoy a steady stream of customers (most of whom had orders of perfectly reasonable size); the paper mill acquired a new supervisor (who had previous experience as a mill worker herself); the desired table in the restaurant continued to be booked in advance (and the walk-in customers well respected that fact). The house of Lillian Gimley was put on the market and was soon bought by a young couple with a child on the way. The horribly gruesome death of Lillian Gimley was quickly no more than a notation in the public records- certainly not anything the people of the town would ever bother to remember.