“What do you think’s up there?” I asked Rachel as I pulled back from my desk and stared at the elevator door.
“I dunno.” She replied absent-mindly twirling her hair as she pulled back from her computer and the huge pile of papers next to it. “Probably executive suites. Those are always on the top floor.”
“I’ve seen people go up there, but there’s no number on the elevator. Hey, you want to go check it out?” I got out my paper bag lunch and she got out hers.
“Yeah, I guess.”
The elevator went up one floor and we got off. It felt drafty and cool as the A/C hit our faces. It opened onto a vast expanse of open area where another business had once thrived. Clustered in piles on the floor were file folders stuffed with papers. Scattered cabinets and furniture were thrown around like they had been shipwrecked on some desert island. I picked up and read a few snatches of meaningless forms and carefully put them back out of respect for the dead.
“Look down there!” I exclaimed when I strolled up to the large pane glass windows and glanced down.
“Dolphins!” Rachel yelled and we both watched a pool of them swimming in circles in a huge tank.
“Those outta be freed!” she added.
Next thing we knew, we watched in fascination as someone opened a gate in the side and one dolphin swam free, zipping like lightening down a tube and disappearing. The rest were left behind to continue to swim furiously in circles.
Rachel looked back up at the sky. “Look at the clouds up here. You can almost touch them.”
I watched as the puffs swirled around our building and hurled themselves into it. The wind whipped the flag that waved stiffly far away in the front of the building.
We sat down by the windows and put our backs to the glass to feel the sun and get some warmth.
“Still looking for a permanent job?” I asked her as I took a bite of tuna fish sandwich.
“Yes, I have to have one!” Maria took a bite of hers, too. “Or we can’t pay our bills.”
I sighed in agreement. “I’ve been looking for one, too.”
We became silent in the quietness of the moment and ate our lunches in the vast expense of emptiness. I turned to look once more out the window and searched the fences and dumpsters of the backside of the theme park next door as if the answer to our dilemmas was written on a wall somewhere.
Finally, I got up and crumpled up my bag.
Rachel stood up, too.
“I think I’ll go exploring now. Do you want to go with me?”
“No, I’m only taking a half-hour lunch today. Got a lot to do. I better get back.”
I slipped over to a back corner and noticed a darkened corridor I hadn’t noticed before. Curiosity overtook me. Turning through a large wooden portal and hearing the beep of the security system, I was startled to see what looked like a library full of books. They were neatly lined up on mahogany shelves and were in new, unused condition. A lady sat working at a near-by desk.
“What’s this?” I asked. “A library?”
“No! These books are not to be touched by anyone! They are all the volumes we have ever published.”
I noticed they were mostly picture books and school books. It was then I realized I worked for a publishing company. I remembered how long ago I had been a teacher and I then thought of my own unfinished and unpublished book still on hold.
“And, this area over here?”
I pointed to marble floors, gold planters and ornate furniture.
She straightened her back. “Those are the executive offices and they’re off-limits, too. I am the president’s administrative assistant.”
We chatted a few more minutes.
“I better get back. Nice to meet you.” I lied and backtracked down the corridor to the elevator and headed back down.
“Hi!”
“Hi!”
The elevator repairman spent every day fixing the same one while listening to the radio.
A few weeks later, Rachel got the job and it was my last day.
I said my good-byes to everyone and passed the elevator man. He waved at me as he continued to tinker on his on-going project. For my last trip down, the faint strains of his radio impacted me as the door closed.
“And she’s buying a stairway to heaven…”
Then the thought struck me; there are the enslaved and there are the free.
I hurried quickly and happily to my car.
It was great to be one of the free.
