Was it always to be that we were born alone to live alone and die alone? I don’t know, but I do know that only once the world lost its ability to sleep was I ever truly awake. Mankind had never known such connection, such rapid communication in all its history, and yet man had never been so alone.
So, when what started out as just another late-night news segment, another blurb on your social media feed, another object of marginal curiosity in an endless stream of objects to be consumed like the vacuous black holes we had all become… When that ended up being a truly cataclysmic event, it was discovered in very short order that there was no one with the answer.
But that’s not where our story begins. Our story begins in a breezy November, on the sixth-floor of an apartment building where I shared modest accommodations with an old college friend of mine named Cole. And I say friend, which at the time was a bit generous. Cole was a known quantity for me.
Most friends you drift away from, they move away, or they get married, some have kids, and no matter what you tell yourself, you know that at best you’ll get a passing “like” on your post or a text around the holidays. As it happened, Cole was the only one I knew and whose company I tended to enjoy that stuck around Denver after graduation.
He did so mainly so he could take a job that gave him the luxury of being able to work from home, a luxury I truly envied. And seeing as we were both fairly broke and single and didn’t see any hope that that might change in the near future, we decided to go in on an apartment together.
Now, I could have easily done my job from home if I didn’t work for a woefully behind-the-times tight-ass who still believed in traditional offices. In fact, I didn’t know a single person… that is, a single professional office worker, who couldn’t do their job from home. But such was corporate culture.
Instead, I commuted all the way from our apartment in Arvada to my office in downtown Denver where I worked as an advertising researcher; Broadway and Seventeenth, right across the street from the Colorado Bank and Trust, the eleventh floor.
I couldn’t complain too much, it was a good view and a good job, with generally good people and I enjoyed poring over data and statistics well enough to not be completely bored out of my mind. I worked with this statistician named Carla who had what amounted to a NASA computer filled with tools and programs of her own design that could extrapolate a defined trend from unfiltered, raw data.
She was basically a wizard, up in her stony tower with her beakers and cauldrons, spinning gold from yarn. She could talk your ear off about things you didn’t comprehend, and I’d often let her as I quite enjoyed everything about her. The way she sounded and the color of her hair, her vanilla-scented soap smell to the mottle of her wood-frame glasses.
The windowed elevator I took every morning chimed with each floor it passed. I gazed on groggily as the reflections of Denver’s skyline, of glass and steel facades, bounced off the walls before crashing into my eyes. The morning sun was harsh in our east-facing office, warm even despite the chilly, early-winter air.
I flashed a grin at Rhonda in reception as I walked past her desk and waved my keycard on the door to our main office. I don’t think she noticed me, not with her eyes glued to her screen, not with my nondescript, corporate drone appearance.
Rows of cubicles lined the wall which faced the big, floor-to-ceiling windows, a creaky photocopier on its last legs sat in the middle next to a cupboard with a telephone and a ration of office supplies. It was all just beige. Beige as far as the eye could see. A sea of beige that could capsize ships whole.
Finding my cubicle in the same place as before, I began to stretch luxuriously when Carla poked her head over the top of my felt-lined box.
“Did you try the new coffee?” She asked.
“New coffee?” I repeated dumbly.
“Yeah, they got a new flavor in. Pumpkin Chai, and yes, it’s as great as it sounds.”
“Mmm… Well it sounds delicious.” I feigned delight, in reality that sounded terrible. “You didn’t happen to make me one, did you?”
“As a matter of fact, I did.” She carefully hoisted a full mug of steaming coffee over the top of my cubicle and lowered it into my waiting hands. “Because I’m a good friend and because you’re still somehow incapable of figuring out how to work our coffee maker.”
“Yeah, you know me. If it’s got more than four buttons I’m generally out of my depth.” I said, still trying my best to sound sincere. “Coffee in a pod? It’s madness.”
“Mhmm, sure. Say, did you wrap up your report for me to analyze? The Harper and Lee account?”
“Uhh, yeah.” I muttered as I turned on my computer. “Give me a minute to settle in and I’ll send it over to you.”
“Sure.”
“Hey, um, you know I’m going up to bat with Dixon later?”
“Yes, and you have my sympathy, truly.” Carla took an indulgent sip of her coffee, slurping it loudly.
“It’s just Dixon wants something to show for our work on the Finch account, something positive?”
“Data’s data, it’s job isn’t to be positive, it’s job is to tell the truth. Just organize your quarter over quarter KPI’s and, y’know, make it look nice for the customer. If it’s a message you’re trying to craft, then you need a salesman, not an analyst.”
“Well, I know that but try telling that to Dixon.”
“Dixon, Dixon!” She scoffed under her breath, being careful not to let anyone that mattered hear it. “Dixon knows that… on some level, at least.”
“It’s just that Dixon wanted me to find a positive spin on the latest batch to come in from their new ad buys and it’s eluding me. I mean, you know how he gets.”
Carla sighed and took another sip of her coffee. “Alright, send over what you got along with the Harper and Lee and I’ll plug it into the Matrix.” Carla had affectionately named her computer “The Matrix”. “Even though I still think the guys over at Finch would be better served by an unfiltered, unflattering even, look at what the data is telling them – none of this rose-colored glasses crap.”
“You’re a lifesaver. Oh, and uh, me and some of the guys in the office are gonna go to the bar after work today. Did you… want to go? With me?”
Carla’s stance changed as she shifted her weight to her back foot. Surprise? Embarrassment? I had overstepped the clear demarcation of our friendship, I was sure of it; I shouldn’t have asked and now I looked like an idiot.
“Sure.” She said, sounding surprisingly pleased. “Find me after work. I’ll be looking for those data dumps.”
I breathed out for the first time in what felt like an hour as she walked away, waiting just long enough for her to be out of sight before excitedly pumping my fists in the air. Remaining as silent and reserved as possible so as to retain my privacy.
As the light from my monitor filled my view, my reflection from the once-black screen had been obscured into oblivion. It was suddenly hot underneath my stuffy dress clothes and my skin itched anxiously, so I got up from my seat to survey my dominion, looking over the tops of grey pillboxes and their bunkered occupants, before making my swift escape to the bathroom.
There and then I found myself alone again with my reflection, old comfort. I wiped my brow and the back of my neck with a few damp paper towels before resting my arms on the cold porcelain of the sink.
“Woo!” I let out once I believed myself to be alone. I’ve got to skip lunch and go home early to change into my nicer clothes… No, wait, that’s stupid, you’re just going to show up to the bar in different clothes? Damnit, Ben, why did you wear this stupid, fucking shirt today. It’s ugly and you hate it.
“Ahem.”
The sound of someone clearing their throat behind me sent me shooting upright. Glancing in the mirror I could see it was my boss, Dixon, with the stall door shutting behind him as he approached the sinks.
Dixon was a tall man, conventionally handsome, somewhat older than me and with jet-black hair, the kind of hair that slicked back over the ears. And although he was a snappy dresser, he had a penchant for the same style of navy-blue suits. The man must’ve owned a dozen or so of them. Just where did he think he was? Wallstreet? I’d swear he based his entire look off of Gordon Gekko.
Not that I cared, he could dress how he liked. Dixon was an account manager on the fast track to make partner. Even discounting the fact that his father played golf with our CEO, he would have fit in just fine on his own with the rest of the advertising mucky-mucks. Just another door-to-door salesman only with a trust fund and a Harvard education.
“I’ve never seen someone so happy to wash their hands.” He said with his lips curled up around his teeth into a cheesy smile.
“Just been a good morning, I suppose.” I said uncomfortably as I turned the faucet on over my hands.
“I can only hope it’s because you have good news for me on the Finch account.”
Dixon stopped just short of the sink and slapped me hard on the back with his dirty, unwashed hand. Our eyes met in the mirror as his grip refused to yield, they stared back at me, icy and inquisitive. His eyes were lifeless, dead eyes. Then he breathed in sharply through his nose before patting my shoulder once more.
“Alright.” He said finally. “I’ll see you out there.”
Water was still cascading over my open palms as I watched Dixon exit the restroom. Relieved, albeit thoroughly embarrassed, I worked quickly to finish up and compose myself, grabbing some fresh paper towels on the way out to touch the door handle with. He never did wash his hands.
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