Chapter One. 08:30am
THE UNLIKELY HERO OF THE PIECE.
I stumbled slow up the long steps towards the warm, inviting light of the office foyer. A crowd gathered ahead of me, one I'd hung at the rear of, avoiding all the altercations that took place when so many people crammed through a lone set of double doors.
The grey-scale clouds and approaching winter made the trip to work almost unbearable; each morning felt like a thousand mile march toward a doomed battlefield. It wasn't too cold out yet but it was dark and the looming possibility of rain threatened to soak everything at the blink of a tired eye or the drop of a woollen hat. Lots of people wore hats, incidentally, thereby increasing the chances of such an occurrence. They also wore thick, waterproof coats with fluffy hoods on the off-chance of a freak storm, making the train altogether stuffier and more sweat-scented than ever intended.
Five minutes sat wedged between two huddled, sniffling walrus-men made me feel like a ham reluctantly roasted inside an unconventional yet mildly functional oven.
Of all the passengers, only one man in an inexplicable tweed suit appeared to enjoy himself at all, presumably glad to not be swathed by a plastic jacket. When I say inexplicable tweed, I do mean it; this suit was entirely tweed. It had more in common with a dogtooth-patterned burlap sack than a finely tailored three-piece, but he smiled at everyone, displaying his happiness for all to envy.
The sky leaked at some point through the night, giving the air a fresh, wet smell that tickled the nose. No sign of a comforting, all-day sun lay on the horizon. There hadn't been any for weeks. Between the winter recently gone and the one coming up, it felt as if summer vanished off to somewhere else entirely.
Maybe it went to Spain for a few months; I hear the weather is splendid there.
-
I adopted a look of classy determination as I stepped inside, just another young go-getter in the prime of life, but I sensed I looked ill and perhaps a little confused, so quickly gave up that charade. 'Aspiring' was a look I struggled with because I couldn't adequately quantify it. Couldn't emulate it as I wasn't sure what it looked like. Whilst catching a glance at my own face in a polished glass door, I saw my attempt at a smile broadcast as a definite frown. Even the limp tie around my neck gave off a thoroughly unhappy impression.
I suspected the building contained its own bastardised brand of gravity, but instead of dragging everything down without prejudice, it only tugged down the hopes, dreams and mouth-corners of every employee. It exuded displeasure, encouraged sadness and generated various levels of depression in every employee that correlated inversely to the size of their annual income.
For me, it was big on depression, low on cash.
I felt a mutual animosity with the building, as if it knew how I felt about it and it saw no issue with reciprocating that displeasure. It hated me just as much as I hated it. I'm sure, given the chance, it would hate everyone in the world.
Vending machines posed proudly a few yards inside the foyer, with large buttons and a soft, inviting glow. They promised so much more than they delivered because they were always entirely vacant of anything good, i.e. anything anyone may actually want to pay for and subsequently put in their faces. Plenty of stale crisps filled the racks alongside cheap chocolate bars containing nuts no-one ever heard of. The powers that be routinely stocked the drinks machine with obscure European imitations of popular soft drinks that tended to imitate the image but neglect the taste, filling the container with off-colour pig swill instead.
Have a can of Corque to wash down lunch. Go on.
'Enjoy its syrupy, guacamole flavours and tar-like texture,' said no one, ever.
I forsook any early morning snacking and strolled the vast, plant-lined entrance until I landed at the main reception desk, passing many a rancid painting that looked like absolutely nothing. A banal collection of 'Art' based around patterns of coloured lines and cheap, splattered paint were the highlights of this particular corridor. One piece bafflingly named 'Cinnamon Dreams' was the exact polar opposite of interesting. In fact, I'd go as far as to say it was shit.
"Morning, Susan!" I cried, too eager, as I approached the nomadic reception desk.
"Good morning, Joe, How're you?"
"Hungry, mostly. You?"
"I'm okay, thanks. Surviving! Could be worse...!"
"True!" I said. "There could be zombies everywhere! Undead monsters roaming the corridors, eating people's brains like peppercorn steaks and..."
I stopped when I saw her bemused face. "...ice cream trucks and such. Yeah."
"Strange thing to say, Joe. You know, for a Monday morning."
She spoke matter-of-factly, as if my imploding face didn't already convey enough shame.
"Yes...it was, wasn't it?" I said, not allowing myself time to question why the day of the week mattered. "I had a bit of a zombie day-dream earlier on the bus, before I tussled with a geriatric. I've not had a great morning."
I laughed heartily, because I had nothing else to say from my hole in the ground. Dumb guffaws served as my back-up plan, a reserve army of silence-fillers that waited to pounce willy-nilly from my mouth. She didn't join in, so I felt out of place and stared forwards at the big golden sign behind her, 'Tall Trees.', until she blessed me with a goodbye, giving me a window to dive through. Somehow the awkward, metaphorical hole continued to grow and embarrassment dragged behind me like toilet roll stuck to a shoe.
"Oh, wait!" she said, sliding out a draw of her desk to reveal a yellow plate with two slices of white cake on. "Would you like some cake?"
"I would," I said, spinning around quickly. "What's the occasion?"
"It isn't my birthday."
This didn't make as much sense as she seemed to think it did. I gave her a bemused look until she explained.
"I mean...someone thought it was my birthday and brought me some cake in. But it isn't my birthday. I don't have cake every day that isn't my birthday."
"Oh, it shows!" I said. I meant it as a compliment.
She handed me a napkin with a slice on. A corner piece, no less; 'onist xx' was written in delicate pink icing.
"I've been giving it out all morning but I've not tried it yet. I'm a bit scared to eat it, honestly. I didn't recognise the guy who gave me it. He was a bit...slimy."
I sniffed at it. It didn't smell like cake. "What kind of cake did he say it was?"
"'Birthday'."
"Oh. Okay. Um, I'm sure it's lovely. All that...jam? Is it jam? Whatever it is. Fantastic. If it poisons me you'll have to point the guy out to me, provided I'm not dead."
"Oh, well, yes I'll sure do that. Have a nice day anyway Joe."
"I don't think I will," I thought aloud as I dashed through the double doors. I deposited the cake in the nearest bin.
A fairly normal start to my day, if one ignored the extraneous zombie references and the potentially disastrous cake. I exchanged pleasantries with Susan most mornings on my passage through the grand and not-tacky-at-all reception area. This typically resulted in a painful, meandering back and forth in which neither of us knew quite what to say but I ploughed on anyway, like a salmon battling upstream towards a pack of waiting bears.
Susan is one of the 'good guys' however, and about the only person in the building to actively acknowledge me. I'm not sure why she calls me Joe because my name is Wes; it even says so on the employee pass slung around my neck. The one I show her every morning, the one that makes a picture of me pop up on her computer screen when I swipe it across the scanner. But I appreciate her smiley demeanour regardless.
The company with whom I am so gainfully employed is one of those faceless organizations with a staff of many thousands all over the world. They enforce a non-negotiable dress code of white shirt with a tie yet vehemently insist individuality is important. They say 'Each Employee Counts' and they say so several times a day on company-wide email updates, letting everyone know they're important enough to have their names included in the 'All' list in the
email address book. Initially I thought it could be a typo that intended to say 'Each Employee Can Count', but members of my team often used their fingers to add up. One woman routinely removed her socks and shoes if she came up against a complex sum, such as ten plus any number less than ten. Beyond that it's Calculator City, or she simply ignores the problem.
Somewhat conversely to the insistent message, I doubted they were aware of any of us; at least not as anything more individual than a large, amorphous, working blob that takes up office space and excretes customer service. I felt positive I could slow dance with any dead-looking Yucca plant in the room and nobody would bat a disinterested eyelid. No co-workers or management. Not even the Yucca. Because it's probably dead. And doesn't have eyelids. And is a plant.
If I were any lesser mortal, or one who actually cared, it may have strained my psyche. I knew that there must be others besides the confused Susan who knew me, but management tended to speak to staff like they referred to someone else and the rest of the workforce kept solemnly quiet in fear of attracting attention. The security guards that wandered the corridors often nodded a hello and offered a weather update as they passed me by, but I suspected they'd give the exact same treatment to a balloon with a face drawn on it.
So long as I turned up when expected, stayed for the pre-agreed hours and spent the day fielding calls from displeased customers, I essentially got left to my own devices.
I strategically timed my many trips to the free tea machine to avoid lingering behind a sociable fool fighting to make thirty cups all with slightly different specifications. Occasionally I'd have some water instead.
-
I saw my desk across the office, located to the left of the middle near one of the many pillars which held the rest of the building up. My own island in the ocean of wasting lives.
I made the most of my 'staring into space' time walking to it across the expansive floor. Outside, as viewed through thin windows and slatted blinds, appeared rather nice in comparison to indoors, with its overbearing air-conditioning and so many pale, sickly faces. I saw a breeze mess with people's hair and blow frilly skirts skywards. Autumn fully embraced by nature; a time of year widely renowned for prettiness. Leaves descended to the ground and gathered in puddles like sloppy wildebeest around a watering hole, too heavy to blow about, slippery enough to endanger all but the most careful walker. Given the amount of trees nearby, there were a whole lot of leaves.
Personally I preferred springtime. Less morbid. Not as many things openly shifting off their coil of existence. I hated the cloying air of death that clogged up my lungs during the autumnal months. Trees shrivelling to husks and jettisoning their leafy payload like passengers from a sinking cruise liner left me with a feeling of emptiness. It instilled me with 'sad' and was the reason I never gave flowers on special occasions.
'Congrats, you've survived another year on this Earth,' the gift-card from me would read, 'Here's a beautifully wrapped bunch of colourful things that probably won't see out the week. I hope you enjoy them as they wither and die!'