Bibliofemme: Extras

It's an odd feeling, being in an empty office at midnight. That cardigan draped over an office chair, or the coat left hanging on the rack, seem almost sinister in the semi-darkness. It's as if they retain something of their owners' presence in them. I think people do leave some sort of an imprint on the places where they work. The quietness is so unnatural. It never is completely silent, there's always a slight, far-off hum that you can hear if you sit still and listen carefully. It's there all the time.

I often feel the shadows moving.

Of course, the machines don't help. Certain things are never turned off. Computer servers, for instance, or that telephone equipment in the closet near reception. The machines click and buzz occasionally, as if communicating with one another. I've got used to them though. I sit with my thoughts filling the room, while they operate in some parallel, digital office. They're company, really.

Sometimes I need company.

There's a guard on the complex, but I know his pattern. He checks around at nine o'clock, then again, briefly, at midnight. He's based a good distance from my office, down near the front entrance of the block. I have a key, and use the stairs from the car park. I have a right to be here, more or less. Well, I have a right to be here during the day, anyway. I work here. I'm the Assistant Regional Organiser, in fact. Second from the top, a good job. It might seem odd for me to be here at midnight, though. That would be awkward. I always leave at around six-thirty every evening, but I come back later. I keep a bag in my locker, with underwear, socks, and a spare shirt. Every night I wash out socks and underwear with the hot water in the toilets, then I dry them on the radiators. I put a shirt into the dry cleaners at the Pearse Street DART station every morning, and collect it every evening. I can wash myself here. I look respectable enough.

I know I'll have to do something eventually, this can't go on forever, but right now I just can't.

I can't think about it. I get panicky and muddled when I try. I'm doing my job and that's the main thing. Nobody else knows.

Not sleeping is the hardest bit, but then, I hadn't slept for months before I came here. A few drinks help. I go to the pub every evening, to fill in time, but I have to be careful. Too much drink might make me careless, and I can't risk that. I've been here for nearly three weeks now, and I've drunk less than ever before. I have about two pints each evening, sometimes three. That fills the time until I can risk creeping back to the office. That first weekend, I went a bit overboard, drank too much, and that was dangerous. I left the carpark door open. Security sent a message around next day warning everybody about locking up the offices. They didn't know it was me. Now, I'm very careful about how much I drink.

If she could see me, she'd be amazed.

She always said I drank too much. That's why she threw me out, officially. It was really because of Bill the Yank, though. She was having an affair right under my nose, and I was too trusting to see it for a long time.

Of course, she even turned that against me, said I was always too drunk to notice. As if that excused her treachery.

I feel a bit like a ghost, or maybe not a ghost, more like one of those unclaimed souls in Limbo, you know, floating around in a sort of non-existence. Not happy, not unhappy, just there. Forever shut out of Paradise though. The theologians got rid of Limbo, somebody told me once. They're wrong, I know it exists. They were just wrong about who goes there, it wasn't unbaptised babies and all that stuff, it was people like me. I'm in it now, and I can't get out.

The weird thing about it is that nobody else knows.

They see my daytime self, and I look normal to them. They don't know it's only a sort of shell, programmed to say: 'good morning, yes I'm early as usual, busy day, must get on'. The real me is trapped inside, shivery and pale, saying 'help me, I'm alone, please bring me back', but the sound never escapes.

I think the receptionist is suspicious.

She's always early, to escape the traffic and to deal with the recorded messages before the phones start to hop. Her hours are officially 8am to 4 pm, but she seems to be getting earlier and earlier. She arrived in at five past seven yesterday. I was ready, but only just. The shock made me look pale and shaky, and I know I was sweating. She asked me what was wrong, but I passed it off as a hangover. She keeps asking leading questions. The other day, she asked me if I only had the two shirts now, and where were the lovely ones I used to wear, did I dump them or what?

She's very pushy for a receptionist, but I can't afford to alienate her. She's a very shrewd woman.

She asked about Catherine the other day, too. 'Your wife never rings these days' she said, full of false charm. 'Such a lovely woman. She used to ring here all the time. Is she away or something?'

She is away, of course.

Her friends have all had emails, telling them she's gone to Spain for a fortnight. The fortnight's up now, though. I don't know what to do. It can't go on forever. Sooner or later everybody will know. I can't go back to the house. She's there, waiting.

She'll always be there now.

At night, sometimes she comes here to me, and I wake up in a sweat, trying to force out a scream that won't come. I don't know how she gets here. I think my sleeping mind draws her, all shrieking and angry, with the blood dripping down her face. The last time, though, she wasn't bleeding, but her face was mottled, purplish.

She can reach me when I sleep. We are linked. That can never be broken.

I don't understand it at all, really. She can't be in Limbo. Perhaps this is Hell, and we are both trapped here, forever, for our sins. Mostly it seems too quiet for Hell, though, except when she comes. I always thought of Hell as a noisy place, full of fire and blood and anger, not this quiet, grey, flatness.

I dream about her, back there in the house, gradually swelling, filling it with a smell of decomposition. Sooner or later, she will burst the boundaries, invade the neighbours with her foul essence, and somebody will be sent to investigate. They'll find her. I didn't hide her, just left her there. She's on the sofa, where she always liked to be, facing the dead TV screen.

Meanwhile, I'm here, trying not to sleep. In Limbo, or perhaps it's Hell. When they come, will I leave this place and return to the ordinary world? Perhaps they'll just arrest the shell-replica me, the one that's still working in the office, and lock him up. The real me will stay behind, forever floating in this quiet, midnight office, among the shadows, looking through dark windows at the street below.

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