…through the Block”

I take my shoes off as I lean back in my chair, stretching, shaking off the anger that had built in my bones.  I go looking for things that will anger me, but they are the things that allow me to feel alive and get my creative juices flowing.  I can write hundreds of thousands of words on why religion is such an annoying thing in the current world, but sometimes my anger gets the better of me and I have to sit back and stop, take stock, and remain calm.

I look at my blinking cursor as I start to think what I am going to write for this weeks topic.  I had tried to write a short story earlier in the day about two friends called Calum and Matt, one straight and one gay, one who is religious and the other who is not, and that they were moving flat.  It was going no where, but I was wary of jumping down the rabbit hole of trying to wrestle with the third person arguments of for and against, but it was already 500 words in and going no where - like a first chapter of a Cormac McCarthy novel, but without the bleak text and disassociated prose.

Prose.  I look at another newspaper article on the second tab of five open on my computer that talks about the new wave of Fashionable Atheism that is apparently appearing in the UK and my blood involuntarily boils and simmers again.  I look at my Microsoft Office Communicator status message “Good without god” and the deliberately lowercase name of the deity, and wonder what people who are religious think when they see it.  Are they as enraged as me when I see Romans 1:16?

I hope they are.  I am doing it to get a rise out of people, to protest.

I consider what I should be writing and that my lunch break is almost over.  I should’ve been focusing on a narrative, something similar.  Instead, I stand up and go and grab a coffee, or at least that’s what I want me peers to think.  I get half way to the door of my office when I see that my office co-habitant is not sitting there, his computer locked out.  I was certain he had been sitting there not a few seconds earlier.

I realise I am still only wearing socks.  I go back and slip my shoes on, before heading back to the door of the office and out into the corridor.  Suddenly, i realise something is amiss - the lights are all out, and each office door that lines the corridor is closed.  This is very uncommon, even after hours - the lights are sensor activated and the office doors are never closed.  The hairs on my neck pick up in response to the sight of the dark office.

I walk to my friends’ offices to see if they are there.  I slowly open the door and find that the office is empty - not even any furniture is there, no Scotland flags adorn the walls; it’s bigger than I remember it and darker than it should be.  Into the main corridor I look into another office - it’s empty too.  I am suddenly a little aware of something watching me, but I can’t quite figure out what it is.

I head to the lifts and push the button for going down - nothing happens.  No noise, no light, not even the temperature of the metal button transfers to my finger.  I press it again, but nothing happens.  I look to the window that is at the end of the hallway and notice that there is nothing outside.  The silence is so loud.

What is going on? I ask myself.  I can see myself typing this question in my head.  There is silence swirling around me.  White.  Black.  Text.  I walk to the other side of the office and head to the other toilet area, where there are several water fountains.  My lips are suddenly incredibly dry and my throat is cracking and I push the button on the fountain but nothing comes out.  I stand back up and feel suddenly a hand pulling at my right shoulder.  I turn around to find nothing there - no office, no cubicle dividers, no computers, just infinite grey expanse of nothing.  A whisper of something brushes my conscience, but it doesn’t stick.  No creation and no development.  There’s nothing there but me and my mind and I am looking at the end of infinity.

I hastily start back towards my office, but instead I turn to the emergency exit door and push the barrier entering the fire exit stairwell.  I work on the fourth floor, so it’s not too high up, but I dislike walking up them each morning.  As the fire exit door starts to close behind me I suddenly hear voices from the other side of the door.  I lunge back and pull it back open.

The office is busy again.  I am suddenly holding the door open onto the wildly busy office, telephones are going off, the lights are bright, and the air con is humming.  I slowly walk back to my office and see that everyone’s working away.  I am confused.

I sit back at my computer screen and it’s exactly as I left it, cursor still blinking away, my two characters, Calum and Matt, still in limbo.  They are still sitting outside their old flat in my story, awaiting my ending. 

Did I imagine it all?  Was the office empty or busy?  Did that even happen?

I know what I am going to write.