The Atrium - Chapter 3

“Wait!” She called out to me from the open passenger window. I walked back to the car and leaned down to meet her gaze. We spent the whole day going back and forth about me starting the graveyard shift. It’s too soon, we don’t need that much money, I don’t know why you had to accept the offer without sleeping on it. It’ll be okay, it’s temporary, I can back out if I don’t feel it. Surprisingly, we didn’t end up fighting.

I wish we had.

I wish she would just get mad so we could get this over with. So it was easier to just get on with the day.

“I’ll be sleeping right next to you when you wake up.” I repeated for the twenty-eighth time. All she did was look at me, half-smiling, like she knew something I didn’t.

I wish we had just fought. Because I hated this feeling. The feeling that I’m being babied and my mother just can’t let me go on my own at daycare. Fighting would’ve made this easy.

If we had fought, I wouldn’t be carrying this weight. She never mentioned it again. At least, I don’t remember her doing that. But I did hear her all the time. Her voice just kept ringing and ringing inside my head, calling my name -

—

“Andrei?” Rosie snapped me back to… reality? I looked up at her from my screen. “Here’s the call log you asked for.” She handed me a stack of papers and I absent-mindedly took it from her hands. “Thanks, Rosie I’ll uh… I’ll take a look at this later, okay?” She always seemed concerned about something. It makes me feel uneasy, at times. The way she looked like she knew something I didn’t, but just couldn’t tell me.

But I had more pressing matters at hand.

Like my screen. Am I actually losing my shit? What the fuck? I typed this?

I dragged my mouse across the screen and hit delete. “I’m going out for some air.” I said to no one. But Maynard’s ears perked up and decided he wanted to tag along. “I’m coming with you!” I would have objected, had he not walked ahead of me already. I really wanted some time alone, even though that’s all it’s felt like lately. This job. This routine. It’s isolating.

As Maynard and I walked down the halls of the office, he decided to fill the silence with a parade of questions I wasn’t quite ready for.

“So boss, what are we doing?”

“Uh.. walking? To get some air, remember?”

“No, I know. I just meant… Well… Why haven’t you quit?”

“Quit?” I picked up my pace. I didn’t understand his train of thought. But this was the last of my worries. All I knew was I had to get out for a bit.

GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT

“Yeah, it’s such a boring job. Even I’ve been thinking of quitting.” He said.

“So… why haven’t you?”

“I’m waiting for you.” I felt rocks drop down to my stomach when he said this. It rang in my ear like a phone call I kept missing, but always meant to answer.

“For me? What, why?”

“Why are we here?” He asked more. For a split second, Maynard didn’t seem like himself. For a split second, when I looked at him, I could swear I’m looking at…

Myself.

“Maynard, you better start making sense -”

“Or what?” He asked, with a lightness in his tone like it was the most natural question to ask at that given moment. We’ve stopped walking somehow. It was only then when I realized, we’re still in the middle of the hallway. Walking towards…

The Atrium… “Seriously, what are they pumping through these vents?” The only thing keeping my sanity intact somehow was my sarcasm. “Let’s walk that way.” I invited Maynard to walk down where the office exit was. He didn’t move.

“No.” I almost didn’t hear him whisper. “The exit’s this way,” he said, pointing to the door of the Atrium.

“Maynard?” He only looked at me, with glazed eyes. “The exit… it’s this way…”

RIIIING!!

I heard a crack in my neck as I whisked around to the sound of a loud phone ringing. “Andrei!” Carl called from his seat. “That’s your phone!” I bolted to my station to pick up the phone mid step. “Thank you for calling -”

“CommTech, how may I help you?” That voice on the other end finished my sentence, cutting me off. There was no mistaking it. I glanced up from my station and locked eyes with Carl, with one hand holding up his phone receiver in his ear.

“Very funny,” I breathed out, only thankful to have escaped that awkward conversation with Maynard. I looked at him though, and still found him standing straight as a pole in front of the Atrium meeting room door. Looking straight at me. I held his stare. “What can I do for you, Carl?” I said through my phone.

“You can stop messing around, for starters,” Carl warned, a seriousness in his tone I didn’t expect.

“What? We were just taking a walk.”

“You’re still on the clock. Sit down.” He reprimanded. Like a teacher not granting me permission to the bathroom during a test. I scoffed at him. I hung up the phone and stood from my seat to continue our little one-off. He doesn’t get to talk to me, or anyone like that in this office.

“What’s your problem?” Perhaps it was the lack of actual productivity at work that made me snap. None of this had felt like work. Not the first day, not today, not any day in between. I didn’t see a problem in picking a fight.

Because at this point, I’d do anything to feel something.

Carl paid no mind to my retaliation and turned to Maynard. “Are you gonna keep standing there like an idiot or are you getting back to your seat?” Maynard stared back with gritted teeth. His breaths were too fast, too shallow, like something struggling to keep a human shape. And when he strode closer to the whole team, I braced myself for a fight between him and Carl.

Instead, he stood close to me. Back facing me. Like he was protecting me.

…and started barking at Carl. His lips curled back, teeth bared, a growl bubbling up from his throat. Then he snapped forward—like he might actually bite.

Like a rabid dog.

Carl stood unfazed, like he’s seen this movie a thousand times over. I didn’t know where to focus my attention - at Maynard’s feral outburst, or at Carl’s indifference. But before I could make sense of anything, I felt a tug at my arm. I look to my left and see Rosie. Quiet, calm, diligent Rosie, was now standing next to me with dark circles dropping from her eyes to her chin, her hair in tangles, wearing a… hospital gown?

She let out hushed, urgent sobs. “Wake up. Wake up please. Andrei, wake up.”

“Please…”

The lights flickered. A sharp buzz.

Then, silence.

A blink.

Carl was typing. Maynard was at his desk. The call log was open in front of me.

8:55 AM.

My headset hummed. The office hummed. The world hummed.

A call came in at Rosie’s desk

She answered. “Thank you for calling. How can I assist you today?”

The words slipped out too easily, like muscle memory.

Everything was fine.

—

The days melted together. None of us knew when one ended and the next began, but no one questioned it. No one tried to pass the time differently.

Rosie hadn’t gotten a call in a while. I joked that maybe all our customers were dead. No one laughed.

Maynard sat slouched at his desk, staring at his screen. Carl, as always, looked at ease—like nothing ever touched him. That should’ve been reassuring. Instead, I wanted to punch him in the throat.

I turned my attention to the stack of papers Rosie had given me. A call log. Page after page of the same entry.

Inbound call made by: Rosie (Customer ID: 717)

Inbound call directed to: Andrei

Time stamp: 8:55 AM.