Speaker 1: Hello, I'm welcomed stories all the time. Glad you are here.
Let's get into it. By the time the air conditioning
shut off and left the alcive floor at the mercy
of its own stale breath, the building itself seemed to
listen for me. That's the only way I can describe
it now, the sensation of being noticed by a structured design.
Never to care every Friday, stay late. Technically, I tell
myself it's just to get through pyroal laud it to
or quarterly compliance reports. But really I'm addicted to the hush.
The records force its two stores below reception, sprawling, windowless
warn where all files real files, paper, our box labeled,
and shelf clear back to some last year before everything
became a spreadsheet. We like to call it the crypt.
Though not in front of upper management. I sometimes bring
a little pocket recorder, mostly to keep myself company. So
even now alone at the end of this maze, our
murmur notes allowed Susan Grant human Resources Friday evening, no
one else on my floor, reviewing legacy records east wing
Bay five, the tip wers and hearing my voice echo
small steady anchors me tonight felt dense from the start.
The light struggled as I came in the flicker, turning
every row into a stuttering corridor of ghosts. I slaved
my badge through the battered access panel, noting again the
odd metallic tank. The archives can never fully shake this ay,
it's the insulation, a chemical glue leaching out after forty years.
Though the rumor persists that you are just smelling fear.
These are jokes, we tell ourselves, we who linger. I
placed my thermist down and went to boot the wheezing terminal,
but paused. A new folder sat in the blotter, yellow
diedges thick with that particular weight of old manilla. It
was corarely placed, neither pushed nor dropped, and its label
typed in fat block letters with a battered ancient cur
of fonterreied gren susanie. For a moment I just stared.
There was a care to the way it was set,
no post it, and pointedly it absent from my mental
log of today's tasks. No requisition slip, no node asking
for an audit. With a tightness between my rips, I
opened the flap insideward a dozen packet clip forms worn
glossy at the corners. Each page seemed foot free of
coherent time. One listed me is Paywell Coordinator twenty eleven
minutes two thousand fourteen, except they started as attemp in
late twenty twelve. Another detailed three month leave due to
medical slush, family complications in twenty sixteen. I've never taken
a leave of absence in my life. Colleague signatures trailed
some of these evaluations. Names I'd never heard, Tim Donnell,
marsh Bilichick. There's a time she had initial Dasichy, but
the handwriting is my own, or close enough that at
first glance wouldn't see the difference. Then things slept further.
There's a grievance letter from me in blue Ballpoint, requesting
a private review about recurring arquet disturbances. The tone is mine,
down to the clip politeness, the tendency to overexplain, but
the end aine is a mess. The last page, an
exitant of view form, had my name to day's date,
and beneath the signature lie in a smere, blackish gold
that I could neither read nor on looking close belief
king from any human hand. I pressed record and my
vosh shook on play back this isn't right, this shouldn't
be here. My words vanished into the steady gurgle of
the air vent. In that instant, I wished I'd simply
turned out the lights and left instead a lock to
folder away, double check the file room door, and told
myself to morrow would bring clarity, or at least some
one to blame. Morning always comes with its own numb rituals.
My name is Susan Krant. I've worked a chart Dinner
and Bray for too long. Perhaps they say loyalty is
a virtue, but the way it's practiced here, it's more
like an urtier. Dinner and Bray has three faces. The
glass and chrome main floors work six stride in crisply suits,
speaking softly about markets and strategies, the bustling third and
fourth while operations and peril grin through endless runs of
cost cutting, and deep underneath the old records floor, where
everything doesn't move quite right. Maybe I like it because
no one bothers me, Or maybe it's because the silence
lets you pretend you're essential, even if no one upstairs
remembers you exist. There are only a handful of admins left.
Every one else has been gently restructured or sent home
with severance in a gilt edged fruit basket. Most weeks,
my tasks sloop the same, reviewing IROs on boarding tempts
off boarding managers who already knew they were temporary. The
process never varies much. Every Friday were warned of new
compliance metrics, strimlining, digitization goals that keep getting moved into
some vague future quarter. Sometimes, on thin mornings, as the
coffee machine grumbles awake, mister Feldman will step into my cubicle.
He's our director now, mid fifties, genial, always with the
taft smile that says he's grateful you hold the place together,
but will still fire you if the numbers don't work out.
Appreciate you late nights, Susan, he told me yesterday, squeezing
a foams stress ball as if it were my neck.
If we ever get this stuff digitized, maybe we'll free
you from the two. I could tell he hadn't noticed
the faded gray circles under my eyes or the flatness
I carried. He seldom looked at people directly. Maybe none
of us do. Down here at lunch, I sometimes wander
the glass corridors, peering through the partitions at younger faces,
people just passing through intns here for exposure, middle managers
with their eyes always on the frones. If I nod,
most look past me. Once in a while someone does
a double take, as if re calling my face from somewhere,
then shakes it off. Upstairs is all white, noise, autimated,
always track lighting, the hum of new computers, and artificial
lumend set down below, though the wolve reverts. The archives
are made of steel and press board, each row only
a little less claustrophobic than the next. Here and there
I find trees is of former employees, a forgotten mugged
out behind a monitor, a feetab bawl of abandoned sticky notes,
one heel of a pair of loafers whose mate never
turned up. People come and go. Sometimes as updated or
end stats, I find myself hesitating. There was a woman
in Peril two summers ago. I think her name was
Lena or Laura Brown Bob always wore scarves. Funny she
faded from the or chart, then from memory itself. Everyone
leaves in the end, or so they say. I'm just
not sure anyone properly leaves here. Something about this building
catches and keeps. At five past seven last night with
the others talk safely into the weekend. I'd returned to
the records with my keyfall pumming in my pocket and
and uneasy coldness in my chest. I like these iyres
because they slow everything down. It's quieter. I can hear
my breath and the faint ticke of fluorescent light struggling
to keep steady. Far from home, there is no gentle
pressure from the outside and nothing to compete with the
top of half forgotten job folders. My nights follow a
small personal rituals. I always keep my badge on a
lion out round my neck, moving it with me between shelves.
Before settling at my desk, I checked the archavdoorlock once,
then a second and third time, just in case the
old handle has a peculiar give, as if the dead
book might slip on its own if I'm not vigilant.
I admit there are knights. I speak loud for reassurance,
room clear, susan grant, present, an accounted for. I've never
caught myself being answered, but sometimes the hrak kisses a
little louder, a faint echo, chasing the words down Aroul,
and always my left hand drawer, locked key on a
steel chain, keeps anything truly unsettling. The folder now rests
there and opens Since last night. It's strange how quickly
the wrong detail becomes an anchor in your mind. I
can picture it perfectly, even while I took off payroll
entries or review disciplinary forms. I know it's there. In
that knowing grows roots. To night, I'll stay again, because
to night I need to. Some one has to keep
the old ghosts in order. By Tuesday, it's almost easy
to convince myself I invented the whole thing. Then, while
resetting our caffel shells for a quarterly audit, my finger
catches on a fat file out of order, fluttering out
half an inch past its neighbors. Its tab is written
in the same antique courier yellow Corno's, Brittle's Press Flowers,
Keller janus m. The urge to ignore it evaporates the
instant I recall the sensation of my own fold or
scraping under my palm with a dry mouth. I slide
the file free. The cover page is cocked at an angle,
as if the broad clip never aligned properly. Details leap
out aggressive in their certainty position. Special projects coordinate at
high two thousand seven last evaluation twenty fifteen, under separation
and slachet. There is only a short line. The HR
manager's name is unfamiliar, but the handwriting is a passable
imitation of mister Felman's style. I cannot, in all my
years we come meeting any Janus color Inside things begin
to frey. There are two overlapping job titles, one stamped
and blue, the other in purple, dates contradicting each other.
The occasion forms of lap by months, and most jarringly,
Janus's performance review seemed en to leave with another staff
name one struck out on it. Every document but legible,
all the same alt pattern. Each page is a whole
of mirrors, entrees, overt in signatures, hesitant, incomplete cross outs.
I swallow the ethic ns. The same cold seeps from
the brass hinges of the cabinet, up my arm. I
set the folder aside and flip open the aucas log book.
Flip and pages. For anything else with the old block
system in the last year, it isn't subtle. There are
a half dozen similar anomalies names with striking, a similar
file numbers inked in that same still to script Garner
Cindy barton s rage drill line. Each is marked in
the rightmost column, unresolved, and every one of these odd
files bearers and consistencies, fabricated leaves, conflicting start dates, strange
lack of any clear ending. Sweat prickles along my neck line.
As I drot a quickless check double check, count seven,
all with gaps and suppositious endings. I flip through the
oldest interest twenty years back. Files begin to thin, but
the pattern persists and unresolve a folder with no clearer termination,
just a blank. It forms a quiet, impossible pattern, not proof,
but evidence for more precisely, motive for obsession. All that night,
even as I force myself through normal tasks, reconciling employee
on boarding, processing yet another retirement package, I hear the
names reciting themselves from some dim corner, as if they
are waiting for me to join their list. Saturday dawn's
full of rain, but I come in any way, skipping
errands and ignoring the part of me that wants to disappear.
Into Netflix and tea. I badge at eight thirty, a
caffeina high, helping to mass my growing Nausa. The halls
are deserted, only a desultory cleaning crew above, vacuuming carpet
that has never seen dirt. Below. I wrap acardic in tite,
settle my recorder onto a file box, and start sorting
folders into neat little stacks of the anomalous. I stat
my file, Janie's, Cindy Garner's It's more than trick of bureaucracy.
Each folder follows of rhythm, inconsistencies and dates gaps in
wark history. New pages clipton with newer staples. The oldest
corner is nearly translucent with age. I open the employee
database in punch in Janis Keller. A record appears she
was employed here, but her file ends with the database
status active slash pending, no departure date, no email listed.
Her performance logs stop in twenty fifteen, and the last
entry reads transferred sea Pegasus. Clicking Pegasus returns only a
permissions error. I try Cindy Garner, same story. Paper Wreckord
suggests pyerial twenty twelve to twenty seventeen staff databases active
slash pending, but her account was never reactivated as four Pegasus.
The link returns no longer in use flight by it.
I type an email tot asking about all project codes.
My message bunces back almost instantly. Use a permission error,
contact admin. Annoyed at check the eyed helpdisc requests require
manager escalation. I'm caught in a loop. Evan technology refuses
to answer. The longer I sit, the more aware I
become of the thin chorus of creeks, metallic settling, and
distant footsteps that never resolve themselves into anything specific. The
air stiffens with dust and aneumonia. The lights never more
than half bright, humming gutter overhead. I get up, make
bad on the hot plate and return to my rolling chair.
And now beside my careful stacks, another folders its had
I said it there. It's unfamiliar. A red leaded Foster Daniel,
unresolved date open five months ago. My hands ache as
I flipped the cover. The final page is the most
chilling final record last seen on site December eighteenth, but
to day is September sixteen. That date hasn't happened yet.
Something is badly and fairly wrong. I lunch for the
badge reader and print out everything I can on Foster
on Janis on myself. Pecoud logs tell a story of
their own tracing the entrance for Foster Gardner Patten, always
late night weekends. They badge in, but their cords never
recordinate it. There's an eery accumulation after the lastin's wipe nothing.
Janesi's badge entered at ten forty seven p m. May six,
twenty fifteen, but never left Foster's midnight on July one,
last year, and tree only. I dig up a request
form for old security camera locks. The app stutters and locks.
Fowls return half rendered, its green shots, flickering gif the
archive doors swinging open on the silent loop. The frames
between play too fast to see. Sometimes a figure is
there midstep, Sometimes in the very next blink, the aisle
is empty. Frustration mixes with dread. I call Light, leave
a message begging for support. The phone beeps and cuts off.
Might email to Felman returns a blant out of office.
Every stack, every lock, every whisper in the space seems
to be closing its geometry around me. My locker door
clangs as I stuff the files inside, heart racing. Only
then do I realize it's midnight, and with a shiver.
I lock the office with hands gun slick and numb.
I feel watch yes, but also when is capably expected. Sunday,
the office is officially closed. I bring my lunch and
compose myself, busy my hands with alphabetizing, hoping the world
will reassert itself. I flick on the lights. One bolt
flares and gutters out, immediately, leaving a dark blotch in
the far aisle. My desk is exactly as I left it,
save for the new arrangement of folders atop it. My
own file now sits on tops bread wide open. The
pages are in a new order. Recent and first listing
a meeting to night audio reviewing archive logs anxious noted
in Sonia. I look for my recorder, finding it dead
beside the folder, though notes section is filled in hand
diritting that match is mine, but loops too smoothly, as
if practiced rather than lived. Subject displays compulsive behaviors extensive
after Ayre's review, disregard for normal clock and slash out
auditory self reassurance, probablenxiety disorder, reconstructive pattern noted, I've dropped
the pen this These are my own words. Phrases have
only ever said aloud for my own benefit, never written down.
The bottom signature, once mudged, has started to form a
shape closer and closer to my own, only mirrored, the
scowling back on itself. Fear becomes more than a chill.
It is a wide drawn tit along my spine are
well searching for cameras. I poor droz, searching for any
sign that someone is playing a trick. I walk the aisles,
calling out a hollo, who's down here? I only get
back the relentless symphony of building shifts, ear moving files,
breathing in and out the secrets, the floors above wood ratherberry.
I stare back at the page. My hand shakes when
I pressed the recorder once more. If anyone's listening to this,
I don't think I'm alone in these files. I don't
think the file's waked. I think they change. The lights
flicker somewhere beyond the metal shelving, something heavy and metallic crashes,
the echo drawing out until it forms a question I
cannot answer. My pulse robs in my ears. I drawled
the file to my chest, breathing slow, forcing come. Perhaps
this is only stress, I try to convince myself, But
a drowned part of me, a voice from old, half
forgotten nightmarees knows the pattern too well. This place collects
not just papers, but people and the stories of right
tongue content to stay in the past. That thought, more
than anything, makes me want to run. But I stay
inventory in hand, waiting to see what the next page
will bring. But I stay inventory in hand, waiting to
see what the next page will bring. For a while,
I do nothing at all, watching maybe, or listening, not
for someone in particular, but for the moment the building
acknowledges me. It doesn't. Nothing happens, not right away. There's
only the small, persistent hum of old ballasts overhead, and
the mechanical rasp from the hvact vent coughed do owt
out in irregular cycles. It's an old pattern, I remind myself,
probably no more meaningful than the fact that the elevator
always dips before reaching low level two, or the way
the exits signe outside the Arkhouse glares in a color
somewhere between blood and sunkissed orange. All of it detail, accident,
nothing worth fearing. Except now it's different because it's my
own pattern, and a review the details on mine I
return everything to drawers, lock up, and climb the creaking
concrete stairs back to the lobby, maintaining the routine. Light out,
bad swipe, count of keys in my hand at door closed,
and rattle twice on the main floor. The world resumes
its ordinary base. The security guard is a broad, disinterested
man named Warren, who barely lifts his head as I pass.
I nod, half waiting for him to remember who I am.
He doesn't. A night Susan, he calls, then smile, just
visible from his chair behind the glass window of the
lobby booth. It's raining again. I cross the slick concrete
parking lot, umbrella up, counting out the footsteps, just to
hear something predictable At my car. I pause, waiting for
the little thrill of relief that sher come with the scape,
and feel nothing, no release, if anything. The archives follow
me their way, pressing up through the foundations and through
the lines that snake beneath soil and pavement and into
my mind. At home, I tried to trick myself with
nose radio on its background, kettle boiling, dish or shrumpling
two rooms away, but the interior quiet persists, undeterred I
take out notebook's cross check my own employment, paperwork, offer letter, badge, receipt,
insurance forms. Here's the high day, October twenty two, twenty twelve,
consistent with memory, consistent with a spreadsheet next to it
my orientation checklist, which some one else initialed. But when
I check for that signature a freeze. The scribbles are indistinct,
the loops are naturally ran. I glanced to the kitchen mirror.
My own signature, sharpen cramped with stress is not like this,
but it might be if I'd been rushed, or what
told to me or some one else. I press my
fingers to my temples, fighting off waves of dizziness that
threaten to swallow me whole. I want to call some one,
my sister maybe, or an old friend I haven't spoken
to un too long. But what would I say? How
would I explain? HI? I think my employer is forging
documents with my name, except the documents as suspiciously plausible,
and also possibly rewriting themselves. The thought is absurd, It
is not absurd enough. My phone buzzes, not a text
not to call, a single event company push notification bouncing
from my calendar at week thirty seven compliance order over
duw iOS may require review. That's normal. I get it
at the end of most Fridays, part of the overzealous
timesheet enforcement the new regime enacted. Still, I look at
it as if it might say more, or might have
some code of message embedded underneath. I check the time,
a few hours left before sleep. If I sleep, it's Monday.
Before I revisit the archave, the week end passes with
dishes left in a sink bed, left and made as
if some more urgent presence might arrive in demand an explanation.
The dreams, when they come, are un differentiated rushes of
color and sensation, aisle stretching forever, foldos without names, ads
that I don't mind rifling through my own memories, and
seemless bureaucratic loops. I wake it forth, convinced them. Still there,
my spine molded to the uncomfortable cherch keep meaning to replace.
At work, that morning stuff uddle is brief. Feldman congratulates
the team on another smooth quarter, distributes new compliance print outs,
and taps a red star onto at everyone's paper. Copy
automation emminent expect workflow review. I take the ferry of
papers back to my desk, hands cramping around the faded edges. Today,
I decide I'll look for proof, not just oddity, something
concrete I can show someone else, even if it only
means bringing my suspicion into focus for myself. I spend
the morning translating hard copy attendants records into digital locks,
quietly noting where names repeat, O break sequence. Janis Keller's
file I find appears four separate times in the two
thousand seven index and then abruptly vanishes, except for a
note at the bottom see indrum status lock. I've never
heard of that before, but the language is mide and
so much company argued. It might not mean anything, or
it might mean everything. Lunch time, I skip kaffetire small
talk and eat at my desk, scrolling through ancient notes,
searching the deepest corners of the internal wiki. There is
buried under a thread data twenty ten, a comment about
ar cavel overflows still pending digitusation manual d it required September.
It's the last entry and signed, followed by brookenhyberlink. In
the afternoon, I retrieve a folders again mine Genesis Cindy's fosters.
I try to compare handwriting signatures dates with a ruler
and a sense of rise in panic. There is no consistency,
or rather, the only consistency is in the randomness some
forms assigned with my neat economical cursive, but in years
when I shouldn't have been here, some entries are entirely
block letters, shivering as if written left handedly, but in
the same pen I use for weekly stats forms. By
late evening, with the rest of the building emptied out
a trail, my badge passed the senior offices and back
down to the dark, heavy door of the archive. This time,
I don't bother speaking aloud. The silence has already overpowered
every comfort I could manufacture. And besides, there is something
about repetition of ritual of lock checking and bad swiping
that has begun to feel both compulsory and dangerous. Maybe
that's how this place gets whose small habits turn to traps.
By the time I flick in the row lamps, narrow
beam florescence barely denting the shadow wall. I can do
is re trace methodically each file's history. I scan, I sort,
I build a list, And it is only in repetition
those loops and rewinds that I notice the absence of
a single necessary ought fact. The exit interview, every file
for every vanished employee stops without closure. It is as
if no one in the building ever truly leaves, only
suspends indefinitely pending unresolved. Whatever word the system acquires. There's
a log for bathroom breaks, dental absences, parentally even cafeteria errors,
but final formal closure nowhere. It's not a minor omission,
it's avoid carefully maintained, utterly silent. A cold certainty starts
coiling in my gut, and with it a decision. I
need to break routine, staying late, recording myself, cataloging the
same forbidden corners. I can feel the patterns tightening around me.
The only way to understand might be to push the
pattern to force a contradiction, or draw the system's attention
in a way counter race. I decide tomorrow I'll attempt contact,
find someone whose trail ends without warning, and try, even
on the thinnest thread, to pull her back into the light.
I sit in my car for NELI and I are
before starting the engine. The next day, work begins with
a peculiar energy detachment, almost relief Sometimes clarity comes from exhaustion,
and today that exhaustion is all I trust. I spend
the morning pretending at normalcy. Emails, checkless on boarding, call
for a barely prison hire. But as soon as nine
hits and the brake comb smears with the specific onion
in laminate funk, I slip out phone in hand, with
a page of leads folded in my pocket. I start
with Cydy Garner I person now recordless a home number
from years ago and an address in murray Hill, about
half hour from the office. The phone line clicks, then crackles,
before drury Cell de fault shimes in this number is
no longer in service. One try, two three, same result.
I look up the address. Street view shows about at
Bungalow mail bus askew, yard overgrown, no sign of life,
no indication anyone still claims the space as theirs. The
property record show change in ownership of garnersy Eh replaced
by Willets Gene two years back. No forwarding info. Janis
Keller is next. Her whole history is a mirage of
po box, a disconnective phone, not one social or digital tree.
Since Midman is two thousand fifteen, I message a former
HR coordinator from that year, but the email bounces flagged
as invalid. Is it possible all records could be so
cleanly cut? I com a lumny data vises, even throw
her name up on LinkedIn, where it lingers unresolved, just
another ghost among the sea of profile picks. Twice I
almost Kollfeldtman my voice rehearsing the questions did you ever
meet Jennis Keller? Did any one see Dan Foster? After
July last year? But abandon at each time, half afraid
of what his answer might do to the fragile order,
I still maintain I three o'clock. My hands have settled
into a nervous, repetitive dance, checking the drawer, smoothing the
top file again and again, as if waiting for it
to tell me what happens next. I look down. My
file is no longer where I left it, but tucked
into that box tray on the left. Impossible unless I
moved it and forgot. I stare at the outbox for
several seconds, willing the world to reset. It doesn't. I
retrieved the folder and beneath it find a slim envelope
company brande my dress tapped in that antea courier inside
a single slip review archive sea attached urgent administration. There's
no attached. There's nothing, in fact, except a thin card
inside the envelope of my badge number printed below the
words clearance temporary expires en slashe astare. I am used
to ambiguity, but not this kind of taut prittle precision
expires en slashe not a date, not a range. I
set the envelope aside, tapping the card against my palm,
trying to decide if this is bureaucracy at its most incompetent,
or some sly inside juke to which I have never
been privy. The afternoon blows passed, task after task, always
with the catch, the full logs off, then on again.
My lunch date with Nina, the office admin upstairs, cancels,
last minute with the bland sorry, last minute payroll issue.
I am left circling orbiting the problem. Who keeps moving
my files? How does my own history shift so easily
beneath my hands? I decide I will confront Felman, or
failing that, at least locked down the arc in such
a way that no one else can meddle. At least
not without my knowledge. At six, as shadows star prooling
in the corners, I stand, fold oppressed my chest and
walk the perimeter of the ricker's floor. Each aisle feels longer,
less familiar. At the far emergency exit just copets the
firsheal thick enough to record my tracks. No one else
has worked here for weeks, may be months. Shelves sag
and creak, though under the hush of forced air in
old cardboard's moldering sigh. It could be just age, or
if could be watching me, the very architecture bending around
this particular moment. Suddenly, unexpectedly, a shaped limbs at the periphery,
a box shifted half an inch, dislodged from its ordered row.
A folder drop flat with a rose cross. It's another
run resolved. My heart stutters. This one's for Barton s,
a name only half familiar from the old logs. But
the photoclip to the cover stairs back, with bluntness of
face blow, just enough to shake me with a hint
of inappropriate recognition. I reach for it, hands trembling, breath
caught up in my throat. At the touch, the photo
seems to swim briefly carroty, chased away by the angle
of the overhead lights, the edges of the folder, or
sticky as if lately unwrapped from a humid palm. I kneel,
checking for finger prints, but see only my own. That
makes less sense. The foul shift perhaps, But whose hands
bring them? Whose intention moves these artifacts closer to the surface.
A particular moments, always in announce A noise, sharp, distinct umstakable,
draws my attention away from the folder, down the main aisle,
in the pyramid of light spilling from my half shot
office door. At all, shadow slides by, unvanishes before I
can call out. I lurch to my feet, folder in
one hand, foe and griped tight in the other, hoping
for a reflection, a trick of the glass, anything but
what a fear company at the edge of the archives
closer than permission, she'll ah. I race down the aisle,
hoping to catch the shape again, or at least reassure
myself it was never there. But the hall weight is
empty except for the suggestion of movement, to slow, oily
drag of shadow with drawing just out of sight. I
retreat to my office and slum the door hand numb
on the glass knob. I dammed the lock in place
for old skull, a hardware bolt not reliant on badge
access or electronics. For the first time in a decade,
I dragged the battered would chair against the door or
a MITCHI of barricade I would have mocked as paranoid
just weeks ago. The phone rings, not the office line,
but myself. Screen shows unknown. I answer, fearing, hoping for
an ordinary prank late night spam. A hush, then a
thin hiss. No voice at first, just breathing or interference,
or perhaps a careful removal of a handset from a
cradle far away. Then I'm mistakably my own voice, Susan Grant,
Friday evening, no one else on my floor, reviewing legacy records.
The sound is Tinney, echoing the exact same words I
record a days earlier. Only after a strange, static punctuated pause,
my voice continues, something's change. I'm not sure I know
who I am any more. I break the connection with
the stab of panic, tossing the phone on to the
far side of my desk. The battery icon flickers red,
then the phone goes dark. The quiet in the office
is absolute. I tuck the folders away, grab herson coat,
and lock the door. Before leaving, I make myself scan
every shelf, every file, just to confirm that whatever presents
a glimpse left no further trace. But Bardon's folder is gone.
I know because I sorted it with There is an
anomalous stack, and it has disappeared, leaving behind a depression
in the dust that is warm to the touch, as
if it had been pressed by a living, sweating palm.
At night, I dream again ifs and ends, and leaping
half remembered threats. I waken a slick of cold sweat,
sure of something unnamed waiting for me, just beneath the
threshold of morning. The next week is different. Everything sharpens, hardened,
takes on a quality of inevitability that cuts. I do
over rituals. Each morning, my badge reports a new temporary
access status on the tank clock. At first, I dismiss
it as a system error. By the third occurrence and
am unable to feign indifference. Emails arrive from a familiar
addresses a system admin internal review, but when I reply,
the bounce backs start instantly. No such user. I move
through my tasks like an automaton, never quite present, always expecting,
hoping and dreading an equal measure that something obvious will
make itself known, that the pattern will break in a
final clarifying crisis. But instead the world SAgs under the
weight of the pattern, bowing and stretching, but never breaking.
Wednesdays are always slow, even in the best months. Peril
is settled on boarding hits all. I find myself pacing
the wrecker's floor, building new piles with sweaty, nervous fingers.
I rehearse speeches to fill men, to warn the security guard,
to any one who might happen through, But none come
until a quarter to seven, when the intercomer relic system
of cracked white plastic atop the near shelf crackles to life.
M ask grayad which you please report to the archive
at your convenience. The voice is positively ancient, gravelly and calm,
with the forced blandness of someone reading from a script.
It isn't Felman, nor any one I've ever known in
this building. The intercom dies, burning the after image of
attention into my mind. At first I freeze fil clutched
in hand like a shield, Then, as if drawn by
some imperative outside myself. I moved down the central aisle,
past the rows of Alphabetiz's ruin to the main conference nook.
There is only the lingering scent of dust and the
soft clap of the ceiling fan. Laboring in fits and
starts eight ten. No one stands there. The office is empty,
but upon the battered meeting table a new file waits,
Grant SuSaNi in the same font, but every line filled,
every past, thick and heavy with fresh black ink. I
thumb through it quickly. The content ripples, sometimes shifting beneath
my eyes. The last sentry says end of record, appending
subject's formal review, present in archive, a space for a signature.
Mine stares back, blank and expectant. My hands shake as
I read. I want to leave, to scream, to break
the crump in more closing geometry of this room with
one decisive act. But if I do what, then the
record will remain, The room will persist, the archive, alive,
with its glacial and yielding memory, will continue ordering, slotting erasing.
A final detail, small and almost mercifully mundane, catches my
eye at the folder's bottom, A paper clip pole's receipt
for completed eggsit review the box employe's signature. It isn't shut,
but hadmen approval of stumped in a round, scalloped and
print that sinks into the paper nearly deep enough to
break through. I look up, expecting to see fellmen, or
even just a reflection of myself in the glass of
a near by cabinet. There's nothing, no one. I am
as alone as I have ever been, yet curiously watched,
implicated by my own mounting involuntary attention. I close the folder.
I press my hand to my chest, steady my breath.
There is no answer forthcoming, but one is always demanded.
I placed the folder delicately on to the shelf nearest
the table and returned to my desk, every fit full
heavy as if we died, with silt and time at
my seat. I record a new message, just in case.
My voice then but clear. This is susan grant. My
folder won't let me go. If any one's listening, there's
a pattern here, a process I can't see. It's not done.
The tape wars. I sit perfectly still in the distance.
A metallic clatter rings out a shop, definitive sound like
the old elevated drop in its lawns, slow inches toward
whatever all lies beneath sub base went too. My file,
the very one I lay to rest just minutes ago,
sits back atop my inmocks, open to the lost and
signed page, waiting once more for my attention, and sodily
presumes a pattern and disturbed the arc of exhaling around
me in its endless, paper bound vigilance. I realize now
this is how the story ends for some and begins
again for others. Not with a bang, not with a scream,
just the barely audible hum of old lights and the
soft were of pages turning all by themselves. The folder,
My folder sat in the exact same place where I'd
left it, except it was opened to the signature page.
It's impossible weight, the chilly ink, the incomplete loops of
my name, mirrored in a familiar script. None of it
belonged to this morning, or even to any morning. Every
line of the page drew my eyes and refused to
let them leave. In the humming silence of the record's floor,
with the door locked and the lights stuttering above, I
stood a moving just absorbing the new configuration of fate.
The pattern wasn't just repeating. Now it was circling and
closing me. There was no more ambiguity about that. I
slid into my creaking office chair, listening hard, waiting for
the sound of steps outside the door, for someone to
burst in and reveal the trick. Nothing. Just the faint
rasp of climate control, a click in the ceiling, the
soferable wheel of my seat pifting as I hunched over
the file. When I reached for the folder, my finger
at its felt numb, as if the blood had stopped circulating.
I forced myself to read each line again. The final
form demanded the signature, and beneath it box checked exit, review, Admin, approval.
The stamp deep red and scalloped, solid as dried blood.
My part blank patient. I shut the folder and pushed
it away. The room seemed to contract, the ceiling lowering
by inches. The silence wasn't empty now, but waiting, expectant,
as if the air itself had become invested in whether
I would pick up the pen and finish what the
record seemed to demand. No one called, no one knocked.
I wanted desperately for something to interrupt me. A power outage,
a voice over the intercom, even mister Feldman's often platitudes.
But only my own noises broke the hush, the scrape
of chair o legs, my shallow breathing, the quick crap
of my knuckle on the desk, to prove I was
in some way still here, I left the folder on
the table and circled the room, scanning every shelf again,
confirming that the stacks hadn't shifted in my absence. Each
folder in the unresolved pile looked subtly different than before.
Regis sharp. Her color is more saturated, as though they
had been refreshed overnight. Even the dust carried new walls,
fresh as finger prints. I rolled back to my desk,
shees squeaking against the tile. It was ten past eight
in the outer corridor. The elevator whined from far above.
I sound too distant to bring comfort if my phone
stayed dead, its last act of playback of my own
haunted voice. I tried locking into the system and tending
to file a request for administrative review. The terminal sputtered,
loading a plain screen, then returned a flashing prompt temporary
access grounded, depending please see hot copy. My throat tightened,
even the system, once an impartial tool had learned to
redirect me to paper, back to the archives. After a
few minutes of staring at the dead screen, I grabbed
the recorder and clicked it on. If you are hearing this, ferraudit,
or for whatever comes after. I have not signed the documents,
I have seen the pattern, and I know the signature
is the point of no returned. I won't add mine.
Not yet. My voice quivered, despite my best effort to
keep it stiddy. A sharp stack burst on the intercome
another false start, perhaps or maybe just the building's aged
wiring made me jump susan grant, report to records, roast
Sea at your earliest convenience. The voice was mechanical, layer
of it, old static, Not Feldtman, not Warren, not a
name I could assign. I checked the clock, time staggered
twenty minutes missing, impossible, I'd sat lost in thought or
not thought at all. I pressed my palm to my forehead,
willing my own brin to pare reality back down to
a single simple issue. Stayed or run by Standing again,
I realized my office, once a personal bastion, had become
merely another checkpoint in a process larger than I had
imagined it was never mine. I belonged to it, not
the other way round. Yet something new burned at the
edges of awareness. If the system required a signature to
resolved me, what happened if I didn't provide one? Was
that the gap in pattern the exit point of all
those missing files, their spot in the secrets, and finish
blank lingering in company memory only as a whole. I
stuffed my file how it terrified me now, into my
purse and left my desk deliberately untidy, let the record's
room puzzle over my absence for once. My palm left
a sweatsheeen, and the doors batted steel as I stepped out,
closing it behind me. The hall we waited for a
sant tubes in the drop ceiling tremble, their cold white,
ghosting my shadow as I moved. All I wanted was
the living, ordinary world above the real world. I started
walking at the elevator. I hesitated, shivering as if wind
could reach this deep. When the doors opened, with a sigh,
I braced for a figure, a trick of shadow. Nothing
appeared save the slandered mirror in the back wall, reflecting
my own pinch face. I press al. The button failed
to light, but the elevatorrumbled upward all the same, The
doors parted on the ground floor, and sunlights build through
the building's glass entry. For a moment, I was ready
to believe I'd escaped. The ash room was half full cleaners,
a haarudited consultant, a pair of interns bickering over a
bubble wrap and the shred bin. None of them looked
at me, but none looked through me either. No one
asked why I was up from the archive at this
unfashionable ire, clutching a swollen folder and walking with the
stiffness of a haunted movie extra. At the reception desk,
Mar nodded. She knew my face, but not my mud
had good morning trailed off as or gaze slid to
my hands. Ye, here for the quarterly update, not exactly.
I started to say more, but stopped. What would I
tell her? Let Felman know I'll be working remotely this afternoon.
She gave the kind of shrug reserved for request just
outside her job description, but she nodded. I stepped outside,
feeling the heat of late full on my cheeks, the
real world sprawling with traffic, pigeons and the syro trace
of bus exhaust. Each mundane moment was sharper for its
stretch of reminder of how easy it was to slip
back down those concrete stairs and vanish with the others
who had never left a clean signature behind. I reached
the street at the corner, I forced myself to look back.
Once the building loom. Twelve stores of careful rectangles perched
atop the secret catacombs no one ever noticed. When I
finally reached my car, I sat a long time with
the folder in my lap. I thumbed it open, hoping
against all logic that something might have shifted. It hadn't.
The signature line remained half complete, its call as clear
as ever. Unlocking the glover box, I slid the folder inside,
closed the compartment, unwaited for my breath to even the
aired and still heat of the car. The situation felt artificial, staged,
almost as if just by coming up for air, I'd
entered a new temporary system, well loophole. I made a plan,
go home, check my own records, compare every scrap of
documentation I could find. Force the dissonance wider. If the
company paper trail had grown roots into my private life,
I would rip them out at each red light, every
pedestrian that crossed in front of me, every cyclist frecing
against the walk signal. I searched for a stray glance,
a sign of recognition. No one noticed me, No one
noticed my distress. My carmrage turned stopped, just like any
other in the line. I was ordinary again, if only externally.
At home, the hallway was brighter than usual, But Mikey
scriped loudly in the lock, as if to mark my
return inside. I tossed my purse on to the coat rack,
set my phone, now in explicably powered back on on
the kitchen counter, and hurrowed to the small office nook
where I kept my own files. A fresh folder was
already waiting for me on my chair. No, I told myself,
I had not left it there. The cover, identical to
the one i'd hidden, read Susan grant Out's schedule. My
badge number was printed and faded courier along the bottom.
Inside an internal memo stamped last night with my own
name again, a signature drawn with that same long curvature.
The mirror of habit that trailed into Flourisher did not use.
My hands shook as I dug through every envelope, scanned,
every FI doub to use on boarding forms, even an
old fold index card. Cataloging lapped up. Asset numbers now
nearly all of them now bore some sign of tampering.
Dates written in pencil over pen initials in the wrong ink,
each variation thin as cobweb, barely perceptible unless you were
looking with intent. A wave of NOSSI crash threw me
the full force of implication, landing at last, the boundary
arc out to life no longer held. The pattern permeted
every level. I collected every folder, every single sheet with
my name, and spread them across the table. On a
note bed, I listed the inconsistencies. Employments started in twenty
eleven not true. Payroll transition in February never happened, Badge
recy the same number, but dated twenty eleven instead of
twenty twelve. Vacation taken in July twenty sixteen did not exist.
The errors aligned almost like a genetic map. Two lives,
similar but not quite overlapping. Was one of them real?
Had I already disappeared, then failed to complete the loop.
My phone vibrated again. Another push notification compliance status sea
attached for update. There was no attachment. I set the
phone face down, ignoring the urge to fling it into
the wall. At the window. As quinted at my reflection
first split second in the street lights yellow, my mouth
carved downward and back too far, the echo of an
expression I didn't recognize as my own. I blinked, and
for a moment I couldn't recall the exact shape of
my signature. The urge to call someone rose and fell.
I reached for the phone, then drew back. I had
already tried lines to Janis Cindy, old coworkers from before.
They were nowhere on met disconnected numbers. No such person
at this address. Even the Alunney databases and social platforms
so on their prison now produced only dead ends. Instead,
I returned to my notepad, tracing the lines with a
blunt pencil. Jobs. I never held dates that shifted under scrutiny,
repeated absences for illnesses. I never endured a shadow. Life
had been layered at hot mine, slowly incrementally, until the
reel and the fabricated were less divided by a line
than by a fog. Electric light so reliable began to
waver My overhead lamp, always warm and steady, flickered as
if on the verge of failure. I listened hard to
pass the from of the fridge, the street how wine outside,
half hoping to hear something from the files, maybe a whisper,
a rustle, nothing but my own shallow breathing. A realization
struck me, sudden, cold, irrefutable. The system wasn't only capable
of inserting new history, it could remove it digitally, legally,
at the level of memory itself. Maybe the stories I
told myself about coworker's fading away were not stories at all.
I collected the folders back into a box, taped it shut,
and pushed it as deep as possible under my desk,
as if the act could shield me from further manipulation.
Werines set heavy in my bones. I wanted more than
anything to lie downe on the floor, to sleep until
some one told me the next step. No guidance arrived,
no knock brought comfort. Instead, the glimmering line between who
I was in what the files said thickened to new visibility,
a fissure through the center of my mind. Night settled again,
Hungry as always, I locked the doors shut, the curtains
tight and lay in bed, phone out of reach, all
the light on. Yet still, in the moment before sleep,
I saw the file, its signature pitch pulsing, shifting, anticipating
not my compliance but my tension. The intrusion was not
just told, but alive. Next morning, I worked with an
ache behind my eyes and the slight taste of iron
in my mouth. The first thing I did was check
beneath the desk for the file box. Nothing had moved,
but in a kitchen a post it note blank, save
my badge number and the time seven seven. A m
sat face upon the counter. I tore it into strips,
flushed them down the toilet. Still the number linger burned
into the nerves beneath my skull. At work, the mood
on the main floor shifted a subtle, but there people
nodded more briskly. Feldman's office remained closed, blind, snap tight.
Maun didn't look up from her monitor in the elevator.
The quick slide of fingers across phones felt less like
indifference and more like preparation for a world in which
certain names might disappear at any moment. I passed my
badge at the archive entrance access temporary sea desk, read
the little ocidi in the door. I swept again and
it let me in. The archives were colder than usual.
The buzzing overhead was now a consistent wine, layered under
the faint drip of water somewhere deep in the a track.
I reached my office. As I crossed the thrush, the
light snap on of its own accord. My desk had
been reordered, all the unresolved. The files Janus, Cindy, Foster, Barton,
and my own lay in a pocessed stack, arranged not alphabetically,
but by some a noble code. Atop the pile a
single red folder labeled review executive signature required. I recognized
the style, the same bowl Caurier, the same odd spacing,
this time signed not by Felminol myself, but with the
looping and flathomable scroll light. Come to dread. Next to
it a blank sheet, pure white paper so thick it
cast a shadow, and beside it a silver pen and
cat a smudge of blueing painting. A sickle on the
pad beneath my knees nearly buckled, and I snatched the files,
pushed them into a drawer, and locked it with a
trembling hand, but when a straighten, the red folder had
returned to the center of my blodder undeterred. At that moment,
an email flashed on my screen internal review finalization to
night seven, zero p m attendants mandatory. There was no sender,
no contact address, no option to reply, just the time
and place the wrecks archive my own office on the
periphery of vision. The wall began to separate the walls
of the ark. I've curved subtly at first, then openly,
as if frooms were no longer operating by the usual geometry.
The electric clock above the central aisle tick forward, then
back five minutes ten. The LCD on my badge let
then dimmed, then FLASCI code unreadable, alien script flickering for
a split second before vanishing. I checked the staff room,
searching in vain for another face, someone to explain away
the chaos. The break room was deserted, except for a
half eaten sandwich in an abandoned mcmarkdale pattern. The name
pulled at me and echo from a folder now lost.
The next hour passed in a fever. E mails disappeared
as I wrote them. The logs for badges in and
a vanished mid line. The CCTV request replied to valid,
review scheduled. The wall bent round the structure of the review,
all other events erased or delayed in its path. When
six o'clock child, the urge to run became a physical impulse.
I took my phone, opened the stairwell door and looked
both ways. No one outside the stair spiral, every landing
a double the last. I took them, two at a time,
checking for an exit sign, finding only blank, immaculate, dry will,
and the echo of my own fast breathing, up and up,
then down, passing basement one, then two, then something on lable,
each level the same as the last. I stopped out
of breath at what should have been the ground floor.
The door there read only in turn a review, arc
of access, no fire codes, no building directory. Behind a
glass rose and shells stretched endlessly, lit by a chee
line of fluorescence, receding to a vanishing point. I backed away,
harp pounding. When I looked back, my own office stood
behind me, far done, rosy doro dar lights already on.
No choice. Now the summons was real. Something cold and
invisible cut my neck, guiding me forward. I gripped my
badge and stepped over the thrushold inside. The files had multiplied,
their contents, slithering from open drawers to spill across the floor.
They slid into neat piles, many more than before. The
Every folder now bore the red unresolved attack, all with
a peculiar mirrored signature imitating mine on the table. The
pen waited across the room. Mister Felman stood with his
back to me, the weak cone of a desk lump
out lining his stiff posture. His hand rested on a
file larger than any had seen before. Page is bursting
at a seams, every utter surface death tooped shelving credenza
was washed with paper, all stamped with either review or cleared.
He didn't turn until I drew closer, and even then
his face was rung out of focus, as if ended
in a photograph left too long in the sun. His
features arranged themselves with if it mouth, forming a smile
that didn't reach his eyes. Good timing, Susan, he said,
he always drew find your way here in the end,
his calm almost welcoming to inspect a wild urged scream. Instead,
I forced a steady reply, what is this? Why? My file.
Why these people? What happened to jennisonce Indian? Every one?
He lifted the file with one hand. His page is fluttered, loose,
yet didn't attach, conjugating like living tissue, before settling back
as if nothing had changed. This is the system, he
said quietly. It sorts, It keeps what's needed. Let's go
what's not. Farfen more completely than any of us expect.
His gaze never left my face. The unresolved become part
of the process. Sometimes they adapt, others just fade. My
knees locked, I saw in the reflection on the steel
cabinet behind him. Faces layered behind his indistinct but insistent,
a croud built from the file's photographs. Each I blocked out,
each mouth stretched as if midscreen. I set my jaw.
I'm not signing. For the first time. Irritation showed on
Feldman's face. The review process expects compliance, susan. The signature
is only the last step. Most simply jewet and move on.
Where do they go? My voice was raw. He turned
the red folder around, offering the pen a gesture hollow
an ancient all gentility and predation. Some exit, the stores
are no longer here. Some become part of the pattern
holding the walls in place. The logic was circular, relentless.
To refuse was to perpetuate limbo. To comply was to
raise myself at the deepest level. But the room, the
room was no longer just a workplace. Isles collapsed in spirals,
shells folded in what drawers opened of their own accord.
There was no way back, no way forward, except through
the confrontation. Felman pressed the folder forward, Yo line, Susan, please,
the pens tip listened. I dropped my hand to my
sides and shook my head. No, I would. For a moment,
time itself paused. Even Feldman's expression stuttered, his features flickering
along the axis of memory and forgetting. Something in the
air shifted. The files closest to me began to hum,
their pages, shivering, signatures pulsing out of sync with the lights.
My mind swam with images, myself at a hundred desks
and a hundred outfits, cameras watching as I sat and
processed to those endings. Through the low glass at the door,
I glimpsed jutt as circling the archive floor, pacing in
search of closure that would never come. I lurched backward,
colliding with the wall that hadn't stood their moments before,
breath thudding in my chest. But the folder may fold, afloated, free,
its pages flapping, blowing. A dry paper went through the chaos.
The text, well contracted, shifted before my eyes. The signature
line blossomed, faded, then reappeared, pen dancing across it, as
if working through invisible and seen motions. I don't accept this,
I whispered it to whom I didn't know, maybe to
the Akavs themselves. Feldman straightened, moved to block the only
visible door, arms wide face a Marionett's. He always say that,
but it never matters. He entoned, the edges of his
body flickering, as if filmed at a low frame rate.
The review concludes, Whinter finished, not before the walls tightened.
Files stacked on all sides, pulsing, shivering, anticipating. Each folder
now bore my name, each signature and echo of my own.
I watched as the text adjested in real time, the
facts of my life reassembled in the margins, signatures overlaying signatures,
each more crooked and unfamiliar. I forced myself forward, grabbing
the red folder tearing at its pages. The paper resisted,
shivering at my grip. I ripped and treaded, breaking the binding,
sending sheets whirling, but each page regenerated, re knitting at
the edges. Feldman's voice rose, still neutral, still flat. You
can't break the pattern, Susan, not from her. The lights guttered,
the archie vials folded inward, closing off the edge its
layers of records, building a cage around me. The hum
of the files grew to roar, a vibration at the
edge of perception, carrying voices, whispers. After all composed of
fragmented data, employment history, lateness, lock, badge, numbers, review notes.
In the Maelstrom, I caught a final glimpse of myself,
reflected in the rippling ink of the folder's signature line.
My own face startled, unmurrred, not quite mine. The pattern
was whole. The arc have weeded. My hands tensed in
the folder, the pen slick in my palm, reality warping space,
distorting every sound at once too loud and too distant,
and with one lust tryst one final shuddering collapse of space.
The arc have closed around me, all trace of my
body disappearing within the shifting stacks. For several seconds, there
is nothing, no space, no time, just the relentless pulsing
hum of the system's memory and motion. Something shifts, cold, electric, impersonal.
The lost pages of my folder drift to the ground
and signed, their rings slow to dry. I reach blindly
for the pen. The folder's edge bite against my thumb,
leaving a thin, bloodless line. I kneel, knees aching against
the tile, and press my palm flat over the signature block,
the ink rising and falling in a slow tide beneath
my skin. All around the file shift, whispering, building new
forms from names and dates in recycled lives. There is
a the final click, low and metallic, the door locking,
or maybe unlocking, or maybe just ceiling shed. It occurs
to me that I am still breathing, though I no
longer feel the air I left my hand. The page
is blank, except for a faint print to mine, but
faded barely a line at all. All is silent. I
consider the room, the metal shelves, the yellow folders, the
hum of the old lights. All of it remains as
it was, imposing and blackable, And then I understand there
is nothing more to sign the system is finished. There
is nothing more to sign the system is finished. Yet,
even in this still paper, dense air, uncertainty rustles at
the margins. The room brightens incrementally for esconce rolling along
the ceiling in a way I had never seen. I
expect someone Feldman, as shadow, anyone at all, to appear
and declare the process ended. Instead, the silence drapes itself
densely over me, as if weighed down my shoulders and
holding me inside its intent. The folders, hundreds, thousands, perhaps,
are perfectly ordered now, no longer spilling or crawling, but
filed tidy, with a kind of dreadful absorption. I see
my own name appearing where it never should in index files,
on updates, lips embedded in all payroll manifests. Each instance
bears a translucent o valet as much where the data
cannot quite saddle and unresolve a good I scan them, instinctively,
seeking the raid to resolve stamp, and finding only absence.
The overhead lamp, before so prone to wavering, now shines
with implacable steadness. My fingers skim along the battered desk.
No folder leaps up at my touch. Nothing regenerates under
my hand. If I listen, the arcads are not merely silent,
but expectant, as if the system, having failed to see
its ritual completed and its signature required, does not know
how to resume. It takes a few moments to realize
I am outside of time. Are very nearly so. The
clock in the wall reads nothing. Both hands point at midnight,
whether or not it is night. The digital badge reader
on the interior door blinks it awaiting a scan it
may never receive. The only action remaining is my continued
presence and unvild existence. Something shifts toward the outer core door.
Change in the hallways air, not a footstep, not the
click of heels with the rasp of passing fabric, but
a pressure. Sure that pressage is movement. The knob rattles faintly,
then stops. A minute later. The doll thunder of the
h fact makes itself known, like an immense animal clearing
its throat. This, whatever is happening, should be ending, I think,
but it hangs indefinite. Is this what happens to all?
The un resolve to those who do not sign No fanfare,
no removal from the building, no sirens, only the echoing
lingering after effect. I reach from my phone coal inert,
as if between possible tasks, no notifications appear, and the
screen is drained to blank gray. I want only to
signal I am here, still here, but there is no
way to transmit this fact. A washer fatigue overtakes me.
I find myself blinking solely, as if my own body
is a phile archived and now only partially recalled. My
mind wanders in accidental circles. The routine walks between my
desk and the break room, the friction of paper between
thumb and forefinger, the root comfort of locker codes. Badge
swipes the lock at the archive door. Minutes or irons
might pass. The ocaves do not mark time with the
same regularity any more. Out in the hall way, perhaps
an adjacent reality of living, people perform their end of
day rituals, looking out, brushing crumbs from keyboards, draping jackets
over the backs of chairs. Me I am neither gun
nor present. I am in suspension, original entry and disturbt
unresolved in the deepest bureaucratic sense. A scraping echoes through
the duck cric this time definet perhaps a cart pushed
along by the cleaning crew, or the slow passage of
some one on the floor above. My heart thumps with
a childisho up that I might be seen, rescued, interrupted
by voice or questions, something ordinary and loud, But no
one enders. The archive holds me as it always has,
behind paper in the folds. Between decisions. I test all
the doors leading off the record's floor, seeking aggress by
any method. The far exit, once opening on to the
emergency stairwell, carries only darkness, some impassable density that shrugs
my hand away. There is no crush bar, no mechanism
that would signal a path out. Each time I tried,
the feeling returns, not forcibly restrained, but measured and set aside,
left on a shelf in some metaphysical inventory. All the while,
the stack of my own files remains at the burning
edge of my vision, signature line still empty, the margins
still raw in vulnerable, as if expecting blood ring to
fill the space. I sit on the edge of the
battered table, tracing the grain of the finger nail. My
own presence seems to displace nothing. Memory stairs Feldman's admonition
that some become part of the pattern that to resist
is merely to extend the process infinitely. There is no
evidence of any one else. No ganis Keller or cindygone,
of flickers across the rows. Perhaps they have succumbed or
dissolved into the anonymous into seas, or perhaps like me,
they persist and finish. Neither memory nor absence, just blank lines.
In a machine that keeps the light on, Suddenly the
overhead bulbs snap off, not with the usual decline, but
a definitive extinguishing that drags after images behind my eyes.
No panic. I have been here too long now to
be startled by the dark. Instead, the red, stunned by
led of the old auxiliary silver, clicks on the pinhead
of color that maps out a tiny corner of the room.
Its pulse is almost like a harpy slow, then steady,
then slow again. There is a knock, a gentle unhearred
when on the glass panel of the office door. I
look up, but no one wait in the other side.
Only my own vague reflection blurred at the edges. Then
a voice electronically flattened threads through the p A review complete,
await further instruction. I swallow down, nassa. My mouth is dry.
Words kicked against the roof of my mouth. I want
to say I've done what possible. There was no final
act to submit, no signature, no submission to the systems
and spoken contract. I am, perhaps for the first time,
outside of it. But something else tots the shell spread
new folders. At the edges. There are titles, a fresh
set of cords, and familiar names at the top. I
realized that the archive's appetite was never only for endings
at feed as well on beginnings, on the arrival of
the next name, the next soul to attempt the pattern.
Without thinking, I approached the nearest newly minted folder and
open it. The contents of blank all save the cover,
which reads and careful printed block archive admined to be assigned.
The byline below is not mine, nor any name familiar
from hr rolls. It occurs to me that I will
not be called upon again, not until the system falters
or some one repeats the refusal. I glance at my hands,
then at the last page of my file. The faint
rescue of my pomperant remains, but like all else here incomplete.
From somewhere itsideed just beyond solid wall. The buzzer sounds
sharp and brief. Instinct tells me it's time to leave.
Yet I hesitate, feeling the air press him with a warning.
Whatever connection holds me here is not fully broken. I
recall the survivor files I saw before, those rare stores
of transfer and escape with clearance from the executive hand.
Was there always su raut, even a difficult one for
those who would not sign. If so, I am not
given its rude map. Perhaps in refusing I bought time,
or I accepted the fate of completion. More likely I
simply outweaited the patten's patience. Footsteps at last reel, echoing
the cleaning crew making their rounds. I stepped back, folding
into the aisle, half expecting to blink out of existence.
The woman with the mob, tired, humming off key, pauses
at the threshold, peers in, shrugs, and moves on. She
doesn't see me, Perhaps she never did. As her cart
rattles away, they overhead lights obey her, flickering to life
against spilling faint warmth along the metal, shoving bringing edges
and corners back into focus. In the far row, the
cover of my file glows faintly, but when I reach
for it, my hand passes through. It is an odd
relief in its way, to know the story is in
complete but still mine. To know that in refusing the signature,
I became a question the system cannot resolve. Mister Feldman's
office up of rewickned, a muted light, the tap of
a keyboard, the gentle click of a new HR message
drafted ready to be sent. I can almost hear the
words record anomaly, concluded, archive review ongoing, await further staff
and notice. The building for once veels neutral, not hostile,
not welcoming, only blank, pending further interest. The door to
the archive swings open behind me. Coal air presses down
the aisle as I turned, uncertain, expectant, lighter than I
have felt for days, I step across the threshold into brightness.
The distant sound of morning traffic threading in from somewhere
above ground outside in the corridor, the familiar world resumes, mutiphones,
distant laughter from the main office, and elevate a chime.
Live proceeds with all its usual banality, the hum of
the system quickening, preparing for its extra vision, and within
the marrow of the building, among the endless road and
their shifting index. The archive pauses and finish umred, waiting
for the next antitur in the page. And that is
the end. Thank you for listening, and I will see
you in the next one.