Mindless.
(23/6/1998)
The one thing I can safely bet that everyone hates, are Mondays. The only people who do not hate Mondays are those cheery people at work you see with no cups of coffee, two pristine pens clipped to their breast pocket, and hair neatly combed and sprayed into a sort of wave form, typically these people are called Steve, I am not entirely sure why. But Harley of course, was not a Steve, He was a Harley, Harley Minter to be exact, and He was the opposite of what you would call a morning person. He didn’t find the idea of going to work very exhilarating. This morning was a particularly ordinary one, the thick humidity of the summers air hung low in the room, and through his half open window he managed to catch the sound of supressed pitter-pattering of water on tin, and the metallic continuous drips of liquid falling down pipes. Harley rubbed his eyes and let out a ragged groan. Oh, yes, and it was bucketing down rain. What a pleasant morning.
After spending a considerable amount of time in the shower, Harley decided that today was going to be absolutely horrid. He began to snap out of the trance when he noticed the amount of steam in the room begin to suddenly rise, nearly clouding the whole room. Frowning, Harley turned off the water flow and turned on the air filter. After approximately half a minute the thick steam dispersed and he continued on my morning routine, without any care in the world, checking his hair, even though that head of black fuzz wasn’t really going to be tamed anyways, and making sure that he was actually wearing clothes before leaving the house, as he had done that to many times to be completely honest.
A quick drive through the town to pick up an extra large coffee, two sugars of course, and speeding through a few dainty red lights, and It was 7:55 on the dot. Harley was early for work. What a peculiar occurrence. Harley walked inside the old, peeling, stinky building and continued to the stairs. Each step he took earning a creak or a snap from the old timber. He made a mental note to himself to remind Josh to get onto that, before someone breaks a leg. The office was falling apart, the walls a sickly green hue and mould spreading in the corners. The lights flickering every once in a while, the stairs with their odd creak every time someone put a pinkie toe on them. Come to think of it, Harley, not in one year of his six years of working as this horrid pace, had noticed any kind of new paint job or any maintenance that had been done here.
“I must get Josh onto that!” Harley though to himself, as he continued to climb the stairs. Harley began to ponder the thought of quitting this awful job, and maybe finding somewhere else to work, he was only 35 after all. The idea became more and more silly the more he though on it. Why would he want a new job anyway? He was perfectly content just the way he was. Sheesh, Harvey though. For a three-storey building, he certainly had been climbing these stairs for an awfully long time. Hang on a minute; was that the same patch of mould he saw five minutes ago? And that chip of paint! I passed that only just now! Harley began to feel uneasy; the walls around him becoming more and more familiar as he continued to climb up the creaky stairs.
“That’s it! Enough of these bloody stairs!” Harley exclaimed, as he turned around, prepared for the long journey back to floor one. What Harley was not expecting was that when he turned the first corner in this flight of stairs, was that he would arrive precisely at the door to his office. The unease in Harvey’s stomach continued to rise as he turned, ever so slowly, around. Harley choked on his own breath. He must be going around the bend, he must just be hallucinating, because there were no stairs behind him, just the corridor to his workmates offices. The stairs were straight through the left door, down a hall and to the right. This couldn’t be happening, Harvey though. I must just be imagining things. Harvey decided that he wasn’t feeling well and that he should just take the day off work. He was sure his boss wouldn’t mind, he might think we was on the smoke, but Harvey was sure he could prove him wrong after a day or two.
