Story-A-Day #267: The Stairwell

THE STAIRWELL

She walked quickly down the hall with her arm in her purse, all the way up to the elbow, and was digging around for her car keys. As usual, they had slid down to the bottom somewhere, well out of reach, and buried beneath all the other junk she carried around.

Frustrated, she paused to pit the purse on the floor and rooted through its contents with both hands. It worked, and she pulled the mighty ring from beneath the mound of pills and cosmetics.

It wasn't until she stood up that she noticed the opening, a stairwell that descended a story and a half at least.

There were a few things about this discovery that troubled her.

1) She was positive they hadn't been there before.

2) She knew for a fact she was on the ground floor of a building that did not have a basement.

3) The noises rises up from the door at the bottom of the stairs were a weird mixture of chamber music and industrial machinery.

She glanced at her watch and started off down the hallway again, but stopped after only a few strides.

Her curiosity had gotten the best of her and after a moment of hesitation, she quickly descended the stairs and pushed open the door at the bottom. It opened into another stairwell, identical to the first. When she opened the second door onto a third stairwell, she decided she had seen enough.

She quickly ascended the stairs to the first set where she noticed a door at the top where there hadn't been one before. She climbed up to it, pulled it open, and stepped into a third stairwell.

She was sure she had only gone down two flights, but she was rushed so maybe she had miscalculated. She climbed the stairs to a third door, which she pulled open into another stairwell.

She was starting to panic now. At the top of this set was another door. The strange noises seemed louder as well. She scurried up the stairs, struggling to catch her breath, and heaved the door open.

The noise pressed down eerily from the opening at the top. She sighed with relief. No door, so she was right, she ha simply miscalculated how far she had gone down.

She felt a wave of relief as she placed a trembling hand on the railing and slowly made her way up the stairwell.

She stepped through the opening at the top, and froze. She was in a large open room, a dilapidated warehouse of sorts. It was filled with large coppery machines, robots she supposed, but more like the ones imagined by sci-fi writers and Hollywood movies before such things were possible.

Some played classical instruments, accounting for the chamber music while the others danced, their metal bodies parting and slamming together. Periodic bursts of steam rose from the machines and up into the rafters.

After a few long moments of shocked silence, she turned back towards the stairwell to flee, but it was gone.

She felt the world tilt and go black as she slowly toppled to the floor.

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Story-A-Day #264: Painted Man

PAINTED MAN

"What does your tattoo mean?"

It was a simple enough question under most circumstances, but I found myself turning towards her in confusion. The sight of her bikini clad body gleaming in the sun almost made me forget why I had turned in the first place.

"What do you mean?" I managed to sputter through a sheepish smile that betrayed my hormonal embarrassment.

"The symbol on your shoulder; what does it represent?"

I reached towards my left shoulder, more confused than before. "The other one," she offered, clearly now as confused as I was.

She stood up, the ice cubes in her lemonade tinkling softly, strode over to me in three long, lean steps, and held up her phone. "Turn around," she instructed.

I did as she requested and heard the soft digital shutter effect of her phone's camera. She spun me around slowly, and showed me the photo.

"Is it Chinese for forgetful?" she asked playfully. "Or maybe Thai for I'm an idiot?"

She gave my shoulder a playful shove. I smiled back at her, doing my best to feign forgetfulness, although I am not at all forgetful. I remember the birthdays, anniversaries, and key moments in all my friends and families lives. I never miss an appointment.

"I'm pretty sure it's Japanese for dream," I replied. "I just thought it looked cool."

It did look kind of cool, but for the life of me, I had no recollection of getting the tattoo an getting a tattoo seems like something one would remember.

She had walked back to her chaise lounge and resumed her tanning. I let my eyes wander slowly along her coppery length, from her toes, right up to the halo of golden hair that framed her perfectly sculpted face.

Maybe it was a symbol for luck, I decided. Where it came from was a mystery, but if it was in any way linked to my current lot in life, I was fine with it being there.

Sometimes things are better left unexplained.

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Story-A-Day #157: Focal Point

FOCAL POINT

It had started out as an aimless journey, an idle afternoon wandering through the streets. He hadn’t set out like this in quite some time, with no intent and no set destination to speak of. Still, it felt nice to let his whims take over and go where he might feel like going.

As he wandered, a strange realization occurred to him. There was nothing aimless or random about his route. He was being directed by an unseen force, and while he couldn’t quite place a finger on what it was that was guiding him, he soon figured it out. He was following a series of almost imperceptible lines.

If he looked for them, they vanished, but as long as he kept his mind idle, they were there. Sometimes it was the line of the curb next to the road, but every now and then it would skip over to the corner of a building, up to the line of the rook above, along a crossing power line.

He was compelled to follow this translucent path, to see what his eventual destination might be. He followed it along the street, up an alley, through the parking garage, and down a neighbouring street. He continued, tracing the barely perceptible line along the sidewalk, up the hill and through the parking lot.

As undefined as the line was, it remained rigid, always straight and always moving ever onward. It was a strange realization that there were hidden pathways through the city. It wasn’t one distinct route either. As his mind wandered, he noticed off shoots, paths untaken that would lead him to different places.

He followed the main route, walking aimlessly, hour after hour, towards his unknown destination. When he approached the round-about, he figured his journey might have come to a spiraling conclusion. But there it was, edging along the power lines that gleamed in the approaching twilight.

He followed the line up the steep hill, cars buzzing past him as the accelerated towards their destinations. The line cut up a side road, and he followed it, along the narrow paved lane, until finally the line disappeared into a spray of gravel.

It was not the conclusion he had expected. Why would the invisible lines, those hidden focal points, lead him to a spray of gravel at the end of a forlorn laneway?

He turned, and the city reveled itself below, awash in the glow of a resplendent sky painted in vivid strokes or purple, pink and orange. The best thing about a good mystery was when the solution finally presented itself. Such was definitely the case here. He took in the scene as the colours slowly faded.

As he turned to leave, he noticed something in the grass by the side of the road. He bent and picked up a weathered old wallet. It was familiar, and a dawning realization washed over his as he slowly folded it open. There was his old high school student card, and library card, some old five dollars bills barely held together. He had lost it years ago.

He opened the small snap button pocket and pulled out the silver money clip that his father had given him for his fourteenth birthday. It was in perfect condition.

It turned out that some mysteries were bigger than others. As he set off back down the hill, he wondered what tomorrow’s path would bring.

Story-A-Day #72: At Fault

AT FAULT

It was a beautiful winter morning, cool and crisp. The sun had just crept up over the horizon, bathing the early morning sky in a swirling tempest of pinks, peaches and magentas. It was just cold enough that the air was filled with frost adding an ethereal shine to the air.

I actually whistled as I made my way to work, even though the simple act of puckering my winter-dry lips threatened to crack them into a million pieces. I don’t know if it was something in the air, or whether I had slept better than usual the night before, but I was in a pretty good mood. There was an extra little spring to my step and it felt nice. It can become pretty easy to get sucked down into the doldrums when the winter blues set in – not enough vitamin D, hibernation tendencies, aching joints; all good reason to hide away for six months of the year.

I was just making my way across the parking lot when I felt the first low grumble. It felt like a big truck passing by, which was entirely likely and no reason to really register it. When the second rumble hit a few seconds later, it was definitely not a truck. The ground shook beneath me with such force that I almost lost my footing.

Just outside the entrance to the building I could see a couple women smoking, Sandra from Shipping and Receiving and another woman I didn’t recognize. They lurched sideways and a large fireball shot into the sky next to them. Sandra tumbled sideways, landing awkwardly in front of the door.

It took me a moment to regain my composure, then I ran towards the door. Smoke billowed up from a gaping hole next to them and the air was cacophonous with the honking of car horns; security systems gone wild.

Something was wrong, very wrong. I helped Sandra to her feet and guided the two women away from the door and out into the parking lot. Sandra was limping; streams of tears running down her face.

Another rumbled sounded and the windows at the east end of the building blew outwards into the parking lot. It didn’t take long before all hell broke loose. The doors burst open and a flow of screaming people flooded into the parking lot.

There were two more aftershocks before Emergency Services. By the time they did arrive, the parking lot was packed with shivering employees and ample conjecture as to what had happened. It was a terrorist attack (not likely due to the inconsequential nature of our business). It was an earthquake (possible, but again not likely due the localization at our building). There had been an infrastructure failure in the gas tanks or furnace in the basement (Possible, although no one would no until the crews could get in and do an assessment).

It was clear that the answers would present themselves in time. For now though, my only priority was to make sure that everyone was okay, and that those without coats were able to keep warm.

I didn’t do this so that people would get hurt.