'in which you deliver some mail'
You stare intently at the dry foliage of the plant, sticking a finger into the dirt. It was still dry, to little surprise. You were the one crazy enough to pack it down to this meeting room to try and revive it. Clearly, you didn't get that far. You were too busy moping in your loneliness.
You groan loudly as you push the rolling chair away from the table. Man do you miss Vivian... Justin too. Has it really only been one full day since you last saw them? It feels more like an eternity.
The sound of a ticking clock resonates through the room. You spin in the chair, turning to read the time. California had dumped you here a whole hour and a half ago, with no signs of her return being anytime soon.
A yawn fills the room. You lean back into the chair, rubbing your forehead. Mumbled curses fall from your lips as the pain in your head shifts from ignorable background noise to a throbbing menace, more or less incapacitating any thought. If that state could just hurry up, then you could be out of here. If only.
Slowly the hour hand makes its way around the clock. Once, and then twice. This was getting a little bit ridiculous. What happened to a quick stop? Three hours was not quick. Not by a long shot.
A sigh falls from you as you plant your feet onto the floor. You shake yourself back and forth, not daring to fully spin yourself around. You may seem to have a bit of a death wish, but you were no masochist. This headache was not fun.
This continues for a while. You shift the direction of the chair continuously. Back and forth and back and forth. The rudimentary movement was easy to focus on and alleviated a small portion of the pounding headache you were subjected to. It wasn't an amazing use of your time, but it made the agonizing wait a little bit more bearable.
"Oh! It's you!" Startled by the sudden voice you kick off with one foot and begin spinning in circles in the chair. A moment passes by with you blindly spinning in the chair. It takes a moment more for you to regain control of your thoughts and for you to plant a foot down to stop yourself from spinning.
"Uh... Hi there." What a wonderful first impression this is, "Can I help you?"
"If you wouldn't mind." The woman's voice was warm and a sweet smile fell on her face "I have a couple of parcels and messages that need to be delivered to the second floor, and I've not been able to find anyone else to help. They all must be off at a meeting somewhere... I wouldn't normally ask someone that doesn't work here to help with errands but..." She sighs, crossing her arms over her chest.
"Shouldn't you also be in a meeting then? If everyone else is?"
"Oh... Not that I'm aware of. I'm just this buildings secretary, I've never really had to bother with meetings as..." She stares at you knowingly, raising an eyebrow. "Trivial as the ones that most employees here have to face."
"You're... the lady who brought America that letter yesterday...," She chuckles softly as you stand up from your seated position.
"That I am." She places a hand on her hip, "And you must be [Name]? You've been quite the conversation starter around here."
"I have?" She nods.
"Oh, and you can call me Layla."
"Layla?" You test the name on your tongue, raising an eyebrow at the brunette, whose hair dangles around her shoulders in soft waves "Just Layla?"
"Yes. Just Layla." She laughs again, shaking her head slightly, "I promise you I'm no state."
"If you say so... And you need help packing parcels?"
"Yes, I do. There's just a few too many for me to balance on my own." Layla lets out a long sigh, brushing some of her hair behind her ear, "If you could just follow me."
At the swift gesture of her hand, you follow the short secretary through the winding hallways of the office. The walk was silent, neither of you going so far as to even think about saying a word. You watch her hair bob slightly from the movement, both of her walk and of the periodic glances she threw over her shoulder. It was never for long that she looks back at you. You wouldn't be surprised if it was simply to make sure you hadn't strayed off somewhere, getting into some place you shouldn't have been.
You let out a quiet sigh. With the tips of your fingers, you fiddle with the sleeve of your jacket. You fight back a yawn, dropping your arms to your sides. They swing slightly, and your hands brush against the baggy fabric.
Layla stops in the hall, pulling a set of keys out from somewhere within her blazer. She shuffles through them for a moment, before placing a key into the lock of a door adjacent to her. She glances back at you for a split second before disappearing into the open door.
You remain in the hall for a moment. Your weight shifts across your feet as you stare at the white wall that peeks through from the door frame. Rocking over your toes a bit too far, you stumble forward landing in front of the open room.
A wooden desk sits against the far wall of the room. On it sat a large stack of paper, envelopes, and multiple packages. Layla beckons you into the room with her free hand, taking a stack of letters in her other. She tosses them to the ground behind her desk as you enter.
Layla sighs loudly, sifting through a new stack of envelopes. She tosses a few behind her desk again, setting the others back down on the table. You watch her quietly. She continues sorting, occasionally glancing back up to you. This pattern of silence continues until she drops the last stack of mail. She then bends down, grunting quietly as she picks up a cardboard box from the floor.
"Will you grab the two boxes?" Layla places her box on the desk for a moment, placing the two parcel bags into her own.
You nod at her request, stacking one of the cardboard boxes onto the other. With caution, you slide one hand under the stack and wrap your other arm around the side. With the packages secure in your arms, you crane your neck around the smaller box situated on top to glance at Layla. She takes her own box in her arms, walking out from behind her desk. With a brief nod, she exits the room.
With your vision partially obstructed, you enter the hall. While Layla fiddles with the lock you take a quick moment to adjust the placement of the upper box. It wasn't much better, but you could at least see more of what is in front of you. The floor on the other hand... Let's just say going up the stairs was going to be slightly precarious.
Once Layla locks the door and picks her own box up off the floor, the both of you make your way down the hall. You trail closely behind Layla. Occasionally you glance around to see where you were heading, other than following the secretary blindly throughout the building. Her hair bounces with each footfall and her hair shines from the sunlight cast through each passing window.
"Uh... Layla?" She glances over her shoulder at your words, "What exactly did you mean by calling the meetings 'trivial'?"
"Well..." She hums for a long drawn-out note, rounding a corner, "This is still a normal office building, despite our... less than normal employer. Though it has become much more common for countries in our modern-day to head buildings or companies similar to this one..." She glances across the expanse of the hall, before speaking again in a low tone, "Most of them are simply fronts. Most countries... Well America at least... He doesn't have an active role in actually running this company. His time spent here is mostly dealing with his personal and political affairs. And I, as secretary, make sure that anything entering the building ends up in its proper hands, so that America's personal affairs stay personal."
"Huh..."
"And really... I am just a secretary. My job is just to take phone calls, sort papers and direct people where they need to go if absolutely necessary." She juggles the box in her hands, pulling open the heavy door to the staircase open, "Most of those meetings would simply fly over my head. I wouldn't be much use in those meetings anyway."
"Are you..." You take a few careful steps up the stairs, going almost sideways so you could see where you were going, "The only person who knows?"
"No... There are a few others. Theres a treasurer, a receptionist, and two administrative workers." Layla sighs softly when she reaches the top landing, "And now you, of course... But you don't work here... And I doubt you're staying here for much longer"
With a quiet grunt, Layla pushes the door open with her hip. By the time you reach the door, it had swung shut. A loud metal slam echoes in the stairwell. The sound resonates in your ears, crashing against your eardrums like the dissonate noise of a drumstick against a cymbal. As your ears still ring, you push your way into the hallway following after the short secretary.
She held one of the parcels in her hand. Her brow was furrowed slightly as she stares down at the brown package, reading whatever was written on the front of it. You reach her side as she tosses the package back into the box she sat on the floor. She glances at you for a moment, before gingerly pulling the box on the top of your stack into her hands.
Layla reads the written address briefly. She glances around the hall entrance before placing the box on the ground. She bends down, tapping her finger on the side of the open cardboard box, thumbing through her stack of envelopes. A few of them exit the box in her hand. She places them into the internal pocket of her blazer, standing as she does so.
After a few moments of contemplation, she puts your box back in your arms. Promptly afterwards she picks up her own box, and makes her way down the hall with short, quick strides.
"[Name]?"
"Yeah?" You raise your eyebrow as you catch up to Layla.
"Can you see the room number on the other box?" You glance down at the packages in your arms. Awkwardly you place one of your arms under the box, propping the side that leans down up with your lifted leg. You slide the top box over to the side, revealing a number of 238 scrawled on top with messy pen.
"220"
"Okay..." Layla sighs quietly, continuing her walk as you struggle to readjust the boxes in your arms. Once the boxes were stable in your arms you chase after her.
Layla's strides were fast, and you struggle to keep up with her despite your height difference. She rushes through the long hall, her hair bouncing with each heavy step. Her head was stuck twisted to the left, scanning the numbers plastered on the doors. As the numbers count up, her footsteps finally slow, before she comes to a stop in front of door 220.
Layla shifts her box to her hip, quickly opening the door for you, "Just set the box on the table. I'm heading to 238 in the next hall over. You can bring the other box and meet me there, alright?"Before you have the opportunity to respond she takes off down the hall.
You shake your head, sighing as she disappears from view. You linger in the hall for a moment, glancing into the small office space. It was small. Almost as small as the tiny storage room you had been shoved in when you first were brought to this building.
When you enter the room you notice it was a bit more spacious than the other room. The table in the room was shoved against the right wall, and the chair was pushed out to the left side of the table. A few papers were in a neat stack on the side of the table, along with an open newspaper that sat in the center.
You rest the large box on the table, slightly crinkling the side of the newspaper. You scan the outstretched pages for a brief second, partially reading the printed stories before picking up the smaller box and exiting the room.
Once in the hall, you follow the same path that you watched Layla take moments ago. You round the corner and pace down the hall. The offices, this time on your right, counted up from 221. You count them as they pass. Each door had a similar distance between them, with the occasional half-dead plant sitting against the wall in the blank spaces.
The room 238 was situated two doors from the end of the hall. The door was pushed fully open, the doorknob resting against the wall. As you approach the entrance of the office, Layla pokes her head out into the hall.
"There you are." She dips back into the room with you following shortly after. "Just set the box down on the desk again. Then we can head off."
You set the small box down on the table, nudging the stack of envelopes to the side as you do so. You hear the sounds of shuffling papers and glance over to Layla. She stood hunched over her box of letters on the desk. She pulls the full stack of letters, out from the box and scatters them on the table. You watch quietly as she organizes the letters into different stacks. Her work was quick and within moments she had the stack split into two.
"Here." She stretches one of the stacks out toward you, "You can take these. All the office numbers are written on the front. They're all for the far side of the building, two halls down from here."
"Okay."
"Just meet me back downstairs when you're done... Or you could head back to that office you've been sitting in." She smiles softly at you, "I'll come find you there."
"Sure, that works" With your confirmation she nods and exits the room. You step out shortly after her, closing the door behind you. Layla had, unsurprisingly already disappeared from view, leaving you alone to find your bearings.
To start, you make your way down two more hallways, making a right turn down the hall. It was an equal length of all the other halls, but the doors leading to offices were much more sporadic. From your count, there were five on either side, along with an assortment of other unlabeled doors.
The first door you had to find was was for 275. The next 278. In the next hallway over you placed letters into 280 and 282. With those four rooms done, you were left with two more letters. One of which was for room 287, which you tossed on the table, the same as you had done for every other letter. The last, however, had no room number on it. Simply an address and an incomplete return address with a simple stated name. Now doesn't this look familiar?
Your stomach stirs as you stare at the names written on the envelope. Canada as the return address and America as the recipient. You stare blankly at the end of the hall, your grip tightening around the edges of the envelope. Your hands begin to shake, but you let out a stiff breath and take a few steps down the hall.
You glance down to the right of the hall. The visible windows cast light into the room. With stiff shoulders, you make your way toward the windows. The walk was agonizing and with each and every slow step, your anxiety grew tenfold.
The doors that stood in front of you were tall. Even taller than you remember them being. They felt suffocating to stand before like they, in all their wooden glory were collapsing down on you. You took a few more steps toward the door, breathing deeply as you raise your fist up to the surface. You knock on the door and push into the office, the letter held loosely in hand.