Chapter 1
Three walls. Bare walls. Tom looked along the surface from left to right, the pins he had stuck into it no longer held any paper, instead they stood as a reminder of achievements and dreams long since diminished. His eyes once more focussed on the screen sat a few inches away from his face. He saw the flashing symbol in the corner meaning he had received further pointless correspondence. He sighed silently to himself and turned fully on his chair, rotating so that he obtained a fleeting glimpse of the outside world through the glazed slit behind him. As he rotated he surveyed the rest of his office. Everyone was firmly placed in their own cubicle, each with their attention consumed by the harsh light of their computers. The light in the office was dim and the air was stale. Tom stood up, and began to walk towards the corridor. Nobody lifted their head to see him leave though he wouldn’t have noticed if they had. As he pulled the handle on the door he was hit with a strong gust of fresh air and bright light streaming through the windows lining one wall of the Tower. He took three steps forwards and the city below came into view, though obscured by a thin mist and dowsed with a soft drizzle. He put his hands into his pockets and watched, allowing his mind to wander freely, observing the swirling vapors across the metropolis below.
He couldn’t be sure how long he remained motionless in that position and he was only shaken from his malaise by the sound of the door opening again behind him.
‘Tom, you have a phone call, it’s Tanya on line one’
Tom turned and saw Lucy peering around the door and leaning in such a way as to make an absurdity of her attempt to remain in the office. He nodded ‘I’m coming’ he said, the timbre of his voice entirely in keeping with the weather outside as he accelerated towards his desk.
He sat down hard on the cheap office chair, its supposed ergonomic qualities did nothing to alleviate his despondency, he picked up his telephone receiver and pressed the button below the flashing red light on his handset. He heard the line click and the sound of breathing on the other end.
‘Hello Tom speaking’
‘Aren’t you going to apologise for my having to wait?’ came the sharply barbed voice
Tom ignored the comment; she had always been a pain
‘How can I help you?’
Tanya then outlined her issue, her voice and account consistently trying to lay the blame for her own incompetence at everyone else’s door but her own. Her irritating, raspy tones and superfluous arrogance created nothing but antipathy toward her in him. After several minutes of making agreeable noises and offering baseless platitudes Tom was finally able to hang up the phone. He sat back in his chair once more, as the back support creaked and his eyes lifted toward the damp stained ceiling he realised in a moment of revelation that he had no idea what he had agreed with and what his role would be within the decisions made. Deciding that the conversation was unlikely to be one of major importance (his having had similar conversations with her many times before) he inhaled deeply and began to organise the paperwork strewn across his desk.
His objective for the rest of the day; input enough data into enough computer programmes to facilitate the movement of the paperwork on his left hand side into the tray on his right hand side. It was an infuriating procedure, mind numbingly dull but requiring sufficient attention to detail to make it exhausting at the same time. Tom set to work turning page after page after page and loading the data. Each imaginary figure he inputted was greeted with either a green light or a red one, depending on this result he would either be able to move the paper over or be forced to study it more closely, changing the minutiae of the input until the light turned green. It was the same every day. The same routine, the same process and the same feeling of emptiness. It would only be a matter of time before his job was done by a computer programme; every second he urged to hurry past was another towards his eventual obsolescence.
Tom had rather stumbled into this area of employment; following the completion of his schooling he had stayed in the same city for university and upon finishing his studies he had been crippled by the debts accrued therein, and had therefore required work desperately. When an opportunity arose he snatched at it, and here he was, seven years later, only slightly higher on the ladder than when he had started, his debts now simply manageable rather than non-existent, and thoroughly trapped in the grey paper world of administration.
He moved the mouse idly around the screen, clicking from side to side, dragging windows back and forth, accomplishing nothing but whiling down the moments until the clock at the bottom of the screen showed 4:28. The digital timepiece allowed him to edge out even slightly the amount of time spent at his desk. For each break he would leave two minutes before the official time and he would arrive back two minutes after its mandated end. This tiny victory of insignificant time was a final futile attempt to maintain control over his own world, to raise his middle finger in defiance at the black tie dictators consuming his life.
Finally the clock ticked to the requisite time. Tom stood quickly from his desk, took his jacket from the coat rack in the corner of the office and made his way towards the door.
‘See you tomorrow’ he muttered, an utterance that was met with a murmured response from indiscriminate areas of the room. Once again pushing out into the corridor he turned sharply and began to descend the nine flights of concrete stairs that would lead him to the exit. The descent was oddly pleasant; the cold dank staircase was now leading him to freedom, at least for the next few hours. At the bottom he pushed the door open, feeling the cool evening air caressing his face and hearing the distant sound of the rest of the world around him. He was tired but he was happy to be out of the Tower.
Tom strode down the concrete path which led down to the main road, from here he would catch the bus back to his flat. As he reached the intersection he turned back and surveyed the Tower. A hideous affront to the sky it stood twenty three storeys high, grey concrete punctuated with glass acne, a mid-century monstrosity housing hundreds of people competing for the most mundane tasks. Drones.
The mist had continued to descend over the course of the day, and it now mixed with the evening twilight to provide ambient background to the music Tom could hear through his earphones. He reached the bus stop quickly and, taking a seat in the smashed shelter he pulled his mobile phone from his pocket, and upon seeing the amount of notifications decided to turn it off. Tom was tired, he simply wanted to relax, at home. Spend some time ‘on himself’; though that was always something constantly unobtainable.
Eventually the bus appeared, looming with great orange eyes through the now thick mist. Tom was still the only person at the bus stop and he raised his arm in front of him for the bus to stop. It didn’t. Instead it continued onwards, spraying him with surface water as it passed him by. Tom swore loudly and gestured to the driver, his metaphorical gesture now a reality. This was all to no avail, and, as the bus continued along on its predetermined route Tom span around to consult the timetable. Upon seeing that he had still another twenty minutes to wait he once again removed his phone from his pocket and switched it on.
The notifications once more displayed across the top of the screen, each one with banal updates from his pocket tribe. There were birthdays, opinions, updates and photographs from people who he barely knew a decade before but whose existence seemed to be dependent on everyone they had ever met being party to their every whim, action and activity. He sighed as he swiped them away until there was only one left. A message, from an unknown number, which said simply
’You have won our monthly prize of £1 million! Simply reply ‘win’ to this message to confirm your details’.
Tom snorted derisively to himself; he had no idea what sort of ill-educated, deluded and quasi-sentient people were replying to this kind of obvious scam. He deleted the message and proceeded to fiddle with one of the many applications he had installed on the device to waste exactly such a time as this. Finally the second bus arrived, and, stopping for him and allowing him to enter, began on his journey home.
The windows of the bus were covered in condensation, with many of them having crude images on them drawn by the children and adolescents travelling to indeterminate destinations. The air felt thick, overly humid for such a cool day, and layered with a mixture of scents which were impossible to discern, though something about it was fundamentally unpleasant. Tom increased the volume of the music playing in his ears and allowed his mind to wander once more as he stared blankly through the hazy glass into the mist flashing by outside. Eventually he became aware of his own reflection, staring back at him. It looked gaunt and pale; the semi-transparent outline showed him exactly how he felt; incomplete. As the bus drew close to his stop Tom reached up and pressed the bell. The sign lit up ahead of him to acknowledge this and within a matter of seconds the vehicle ground to a halt. Tom thanked the driver out of courtesy and stepped out into the cool evening air.
The rain had now begun to clear and with his home in sight Tom felt his mood soften. His pace sped up with his destination now in sight and before too long he was standing in front of his building.
The building was typical of its type and time, grey with streaks of brown adorning the edges punctuated with windows in a predictably symmetrical fashion. It rose from the ground some fifteen storeys, at once monstrous and eminently forgettable. Tom strode towards the monolith and entered the code on the stained keypad. The door opened lethargically before him and he was hit with the overwhelming scent of stale smoke entwined with more than a hint of urine. He held his breath as he made his way to the staircase. After climbing one set of stairs he allowed his breathing to return to normal; experience having shown him that the smell could only climb so far. Three floors later and he was home. The door was a pale wood which seemed somewhat illuminated from within, entirely out of keeping with the rest of the dilapidated and depressing building.
‘404’ he whispered to himself and sighed ‘here we are’
After much fumbling he located his key and inserted it into the lock. He heard and felt the mechanisms move as he turned it and with little force the door swung open to reveal his home.
The room was dimly lit by an orange street light shining up from the road outside one of the large windows adorning the living room, the long shadows it cast seemed to reach out toward the door and pull Tom in. He removed his jacket and threw it carelessly onto the small chair immediately next to the door and, reaching for the light switch, made his way into the newly illuminated room.
The walls had retained their neutrality despite Tom’s lengthy tenancy, a combination of having neither the time nor the financial ability to change them. In front of him lay a large rug of deep green flecked with blue covering the cheap wood effect laminate flooring beneath. On top of this rug sat both a glass topped circular coffee table and a pale sofa, large enough to seat three people comfortably. The sofa faced the wall on which was mounted a flat screen television. The set, being of considerable size, had been bought following his most recent promotion, from a discount warehouse in the city centre. Behind the sofa a dark corridor led off to his bedroom and the bathroom whilst between it and the door was a small kitchen area which was straight out of the pages of a discount DIY shop catalogue. This place had never truly felt like home, but it was the best he could afford within a reasonable distance of the Tower. Sighing deeply, Tom flopped onto the sofa taking up the entirety of its length and turned on the television.
The figures appeared instantly on the screen, which cast its light out into the room. The news broadcast was in full swing, images and commentary intertwined to provide a thoroughly dispiriting world view. Death, destruction and anguish. The faces of people the world over contorted into pain and forced to relate the causal events to a baying group of unaffected foreigners armed with cameras. The documentary age in its full glory. Tom changed the channel idly, every new selection brought a new form of human agony. Racial tensions, religious division, political discord and natural disasters were littered around the airwaves and the flickering images making those affected into a cheap soap opera. Tom eventually settled on a repeat of an old comedy show, something to lighten an otherwise dark and gloomy day. Though he had seen it many times before, the light hearted nature of the programme lifted his spirits and relaxed his mind as the night set in around him, the creeping darkness making his home a beacon to the rest of the city. Following numerous episodes of the same show he was ready for bed, his eyes now stinging with tiredness.
Tom rose from his seat, turning off the television as he did so. Turning slowly he made his way down the darkened corridor to his bedroom, turning off the lights on his way by, plunging the living space into its previous orange tinged darkness.
As he reached the room he clapped once, the lamp next to his bed turned on in response and illuminated his quarters. The bed was unmade with the dark blue duvet screwed into a ball at the base of the mattress and the pillows still displaying the indent of the previous night. The floor was littered with debris, nothing substantial but noticeable nonetheless. In one corner was a pile of clothes still requiring laundering, and in another was a pile of clean clothes which required hanging. The walls were covered in posters accrued through years of events and from friends long since married and moved away; interspersed with shelves filled with books and films. Behind the headboard was a small window, covered by thin blue curtains which were always closed. As he closed the door behind him he sighed deeply, of all of the places he spent his time, this was the one where he felt most himself, most at home. He quickly removed his clothes and climbed into bed, pulling the duvet tightly up around his shoulders.
Within minutes Tom lapsed into sleep. His body relaxed and his mind wandered free without interference for the first time since his city view from the Tower. As the darkness enveloped him he found himself once more in a familiar place.
Tom looked around, the walls were crafted from large grey stones glistening with moisture which dripped noisily and echoed around him. Ahead of him a wooden stairway coiled upwards into the gloom perforated only by small candles suspended in the air. He was trapped and, with no clear point of his entry, he began to climb the stairs ahead of him. After no more than four steps his ears pricked as he heard footsteps behind him, he turned sharply on his heel and behind him saw a familiar figure. It stood some seven feet tall and was clad entirely in white from head to toe; or at least from what appeared to be a head to what he assumed to be a toe, everything was obscured under a thin wispy veil. The figure sighed a long and ominous sigh; ‘m’here’. With that its left arm reached out and it began to climb slowly toward him. Tom turned and ran upwards but no matter how fast he ran and how slow the figure seemed to be moving he could not get away, in fact, it constantly gained on him. Eventually he saw a door at the top of the stairs, a large door crafted from old wood and having no handle. He rushed forward and tried desperately to open it, but finding it locked, launched himself shoulder first repeatedly into it, all the while the figure gained ground until it loomed over him. ‘m’here’ it sighed once more reaching forward with long, bony hands barely covered by a glistening almost transparent skin. The tips of its fingers within inches of his face. He cried out.
He woke, screaming.
He was covered in sweat and sat bolt upright in his bed. He turned to his clock, the red digital display showed he had been asleep for only a couple of hours. Tom lay back down and prayed that he would not find himself once more in that place, the same prayer he had prayed every night single night for as long as he could remember.
