It’s 10:30 at night, and I just want to go to bed. I want my blanket, I want my pillow, and I want it now. I step out of my car and feel the warm, summer air trade places with the full-blown AC. It’s a graceful way to transition into an evening in June. I slug my way to the door code box. The beep of the door code being punched in is an artillery barrage on my ears, but that’s ok, a few flights of stairs and I’m in a first class trip to dreamland. The old door swings open and the stairs present themselves as an amusing obstacle course. It’s just a small carneys game for the weary sucker, the big prize at the end being my bed. I accept the challenge and make my way up, eyes getting heavier along the way. Each creaking step mocks me, but I ignore it. I make my way to the top and my head becomes lead as it fails to stay above my shoulders. The door is there, just have…to…push… through. My knees start to give as I grab the handle, turn the knob and go through. I need to sleep so badly. The door opens with a flashing light, a light I know all too well. The flash of light I see is the damn fluorescent flickering on and off again as I sit in the budget meeting.
Two coffees down and the CFO sounds as though he could bore a Jack Russell. Predictions, analysis, planning, blah, blah, blah. My mind wanders on various things and then it hits me, wasn’t I just here? Did I go home? No, it’s 2:30, too early to go home. Way too early to leave, way too much to do, right? Right. One thing I do need to do is use the bathroom, bad. I can barely understand a word he is saying, old fart. How do I get out of this…think, think, think? I know! The old fake cell call trick! I reach into my black coat pocket for my phone and find it vibrating; I’m actually getting a call. I see “DAD” in bold letters on the screen, perfect. I slightly raise the phone, point to it, point to me, mouth a fake sorry and begin to stand. The CFO waves me off without looking up. As I get up to leave I try to look around the room for dirty looks. No one notices, no one looks up, no one moves, no one has moved, I don’t recognize anyone. I shrug it off and head for the door. I’ve freed myself from that prison and I look at my phone again to call my dad. Wait, why am I calling dad, he died last year. He had a heart attack while fishing. Anyway, I move on. I move past people I can’t recognize, answering phones I didn’t know we had, and speaking in words I can’t understand.
Do I even work here? Yeah, I do. I think. Oh, speaking of phones, nature is calling, got to go.
I make my way to the bathroom area when Barbara steps out and greets me with a giant, toothy smile. I remember Barb right? Barb…Barbara in the pink dress, from the Christmas party. She says something I can’t understand but I nod anyway. As she walks by I remember that she works in HR and her favorite color is purple, like the dress she just wore, or was it pink? I turn around and see Barbara from HR, I was right; it’s a purple dress. Where did I get pink? I turn to the men’s room but shocked to see that it says LADIES on the door. I instinctively turn left and there is the MENS room. It was always on the left, right? Right. Yeah, left. My knees feel funny again and I can’t stop yawning. I’m going to sleep good tonight. I reach for the handle and go through.
The freezing air slices my face with its typical winter trickery. I always hated winter. Then again, I thought it was supposed to be June. I check my phone and in bold letters it says JANUARY. WINTER ADVISORY WARNING! More wintery trickery. It reminds me that I need to call Dad when I get a chance. My brown coat is no match for this wind. It’s a contender for a one-sided fistfight. I need to get to my car. I’m on the rooftop parking deck, so this shouldn’t be too hard. I look around the sea of silver sedans and can’t seem to find mine. I pace around the rows and rows of cars and have a sudden thought, since when do I park up here and what do I drive again? I look for my keys but can’t find them, just my cigarettes that I light out of instinct. Since when do I smoke? Always, I thought, for the last few years at least. I put the lighter back into my gray coat. My gray coat, wasn’t it brown …or black? I can’t remember. I turn to the silver sedan beside me and look in the glass for a reflection. It’s black, just like always, right? Right. Just then my phone rings, it’s already in my hand. I don’t look at the screen as I answer it. “Hello?” No answer for a few seconds, then a voice, “Hello David.” It’s a woman’s voice. “Have fun today?” My name isn’t David, I think, but I answer anyway.
“Uh…not really…no. I’m pretty tired; I just need to go to bed.” Not sure how else to have better answered that. Her voice was a little more authoritative this time, “Actually, now more than ever, you need to wake up. The Arbiter isn’t too pleased with you.”
My eyes burst open and I practically catapult from my bed. My brain feels like static noise in a confined space. I sit on the edge of the bed and try to catch my breath. Focus…focus…you’re awake now. My heart slows its panic as I try to regain control of its quivering. I look at the clock and it says 1:30am. I need to get to bed, I have a budget meeting tomorrow, and I have a lot to do. I can’t leave early either. I lie back down and attempt to go to sleep. Suddenly, as if on cue to my closing eyes, my phone gets a text message. Who the hell is texting me at 1:30 in the morning? I grab the phone angrily and am about to give the sender a piece of my mind. The message is in bright bold letters: THIS IS YOUR LAST AND ONLY WARNING…WAKE UP ~ Architect. I sit up and the phone is in my hand, I am in my car. I am in my black coat. I can’t remember how I got here. It doesn’t matter.
It’s 10:30 at night, and I just want to go to bed.
