Something From Below

Down the Hall to the Left

"Well John, nice to meet you, I'm Eric" the strange man said. The name didn't seem to fit the portly man, and John felt he might be lying but didn't want to press things further, considering the acquaintance like nature of their current relationship. Deciding that things had taken a satisfactory turn, John had remembered a key thing to ask. Where he was.

"So Eric, what floor are we on?"

"John, well were in Office B1 of course, did you miss the sign?"

John felt confused for a moment.

"You must've missed the sign. The elevators been broken for sometime but there's still the stairwell. Mind yourself to take note of the staircase, the cubicles can be quite difficult to navigate."

John felt even more confused by these developments, he felt he was in another world, somewhere far from earth. Feeling alienated, John continued to listen to Eric.

Eric started to blabber on about this and that, spinning a yarn from the whole ball of string. John felt a little strange and decided to interject

"I've been recently promoted to B1, would you be able to give me a little tour?" John asked

Tripping on his words, Eric found himself agreeing to this strange person.

"Sure John, sure. If you'd follow me?"

They stepped outside of the commons room, back into the cubicle maze, and looked around. John couldn't really make heads or tails of the place, being notoriously bad with directions. He did feel lucky for finding the place by pure chance,

John followed Eric through the cubicle maze, stopping periodically for Eric to elaborate on something important, or seemingly important, as most of this was rather mundane to John. He felt rather odd still. Until they reached a row of offices along the side of the rather large room.

"This is the reason for the rainstorm, Martha"

Looking inside, the room seemed hazy.

Martha stepped out, with a cigarette in hand.

"It's a none smoking floor but that doesn't stop her, nor does the boss. He seems to have adjusted."

Eric pointed to a tall man wandering nearby in the cubicle maze. The man was also wearing a raincoat, albeit something more inline with the neutral of the office environment. He was almost camouflaged due to the coat.

"That's the floor manager, Greg."

John nodded, he would have to get used to seeing him, lest he sneak up on them. Eric continued the tour, and they made a few more stops before stopping at one last office: Johns. It was near the stairwell, luckily, and only a few turns into the overall maze. John was lucky to have a spot, and to have been taken through the maze but he didn't feel any more secure in navigating it, besides the small corner that he was assigned.

John wondered if this was truly a promotion.

Maybe his boss was playing with him, being promoted from A1 to B1. He was already at the top of his department, at the top of the building (metaphorically), and this seemed a strange place to be nestled in a corner of the building somewhere.

John went back to his office, and Eric departed, heading back to his own office. John placed his box of soggy things next on the desk, and turned on the lamp. The room was damp but he wiped off the chair and sat down. It was home now, and he'd have to get used to that.

---

Sometime passed and soon John had to head home, he left for the night and came back the next day, feeling rather refreshed. He climbed the stairs, wandered through floor A20, until he found the stairwell, and then walked back up to his office. This whole process took an hour or two, faster then last time when taken as a whole but still utterly slow.