Hi. I haven't posted here for some time but I'm still a big fan. Anyway, I had an interesting dream last night and it inspired me to write a short story based on it. I hope no one minds if I post the first part of it here for your (possible) entertainment.
Existence and the lack of it (part 1)
Jane Paters worked in the London office of a small commercial relocation company. Their business centred around helping other companies move their operations from one office to another, quickly and with a minimum of down time involved. Jane was a secretary and receptionist who had become a dependable and well liked character in the office. It was Monday morning and she was just returning to her desk after a tea break when Mr Johnston the site director walked in carrying a large computer monitor with a crack right across the screen. It was evidently quite heavy from the concentrated look on his face and he was soon struggling to open the door to the store room while supporting it's weight.
“Can I give you a hand there Johnston?” asked Jane in her Yorkshire accent, already walking over to help. For some reason Mr Johnston preferred people to use his second name as if it were his first. “Oh, thanks Jane. If you could just hold the door open from the inside that'd be great.”. She duly obliged and soon they were both inside with the monitor on the table, both looking at the open closet door on the other side of the room. Jane noticed pretty quickly there was something slightly odd about this closet; it was like looking into a black hole. Despite there being plenty of light in the store room, nothing was visible in the closet whatsoever. She then noticed that Johnston seemed to have gone a little pale and was suddenly looking very anxious.
“Are you OK?” she asked. “Be very careful with that closet. It's dangerous.” he said, walking over and closing the door. “Dangerous? What do you mean? It looks a bit funny, like there's nothing in it and the walls are painted black.”. Johnston paused for a long moment and then spoke. “Jane. I had hoped you would never be in this situation. What you are about to learn may be the most awesome and horrendous knowledge any human will ever know.”. “Johnston, it's a closet.” she said flatly. “Watch.”, he said. Johnston picked up the broken monitor and placed it just inside the closet door, leaving it open. “It's from the CPL Ltd. job, that thing. One of our removals guys dropped it by accident while they were unloading, but the client didn't notice at the time so I brought it here. Can you see it on the transport manifest there?”. Jane picked up the clipboard from the table and scanned through it until she found the reference to a 30 inch NEC monitor. “It's the only one that big on this job.” she said.
“It won't be for much longer.”. He closed the closet door and Jane had a feeling she could only describe as like something becoming nothing. When he opened it a couple of seconds later, the monitor was gone.
To be continued....tomorrow
Steven