Piles of paperwork buried in dust, a clock on the floor stopped at 12:07, a computer blanketed by dirt, a desk and a chair thick with grime occupied a good portion of the room, the rest buried under a fallen wall. I shook the torch to try and get more light out of it, but its dull bulb remained constant.
Content nothing had moved in this room for a long time, I made my way out into the corridor, keeping the torch with me. Working back toward the reception, I passed the office and approached a door further on.
Computers, their reels deteriorated and collecting on the floor, stood idle. Punch card machines, buried under a blanket of more debris and dust, lined the far side of the room while tall cabinets stood along the other walls. More reels were stacked along the narrow walkways between the machines.
“Michael? Come on now. This isn’t funny.”
I remembered these machines, running, ticking as their lights flashed in a random order. I remembered the women typing at the keyboards, as the men in white lab coats collected the cards to feed into the next set of machines. I remembered everything here though I had no recollection of ever coming to Needshakha.
Back in the corridor, I was left with few other choices. Go back outside and wait, hoping Michael came out, or carry on through the remaining set of doors, deeper into the building and the memories I had left behind here, perhaps for good reason.
I glanced back at the reception area, bathed in the green glow of the reclamation of the outside world, placing my hand on the final door.
With a loud squeal of the hinge, the heavy metal door opened into a small stairwell. Concrete, which looked as though it had melted into the rusty metal uprights of the banister, formed each step. Three flights up, I found an opened metal door. Knowing how this would draw my little brother in, I stepped over the threshold and onto the damp concrete floor.
The long corridor, complete with a series of overhead pipes, stretched out before me, interrupted by half walls and brittle caution tape scattered to the floor. The door at the end led me to another stairwell, the railings twisted as though they’ve been hit with something large and heavy. With little other choice, I progressed forward.
Climbing another flight, I came to the next door opened about an inch. It too squealed a high-pitched protest, opening to another long corridor.
“Michael?” I called out, my concern growing stronger. “Where the hell are you?”
The howls of a cruel wind called out from the gaps around the next grey, metal door. I pushed it open, altering the resonance of the spirited breeze. Flashing the torch in both directions, something in the dirt caught my attention. I kicked the littered debris aside, uncovering a green arrow with the words ‘KELUAR - EXIT’, painted below it. Maybe it was being stuck in that hell hole for so long, maybe it was the desperate desire to leave, I didn’t know, either way, I felt compelled to follow it.
The green arrows stopped at a red metal door. ‘BAHAYA’, was sprayed between the two turn wheels. I didn’t know what it meant, or if Michael was on the other side. There was one way to find out.
Each wheel was stiff and in no rush to grant me access to this ‘bahaya’, but my eagerness to get out saw them open. I scanned the dim light of the torch across the room. Cabinets, filled with dials and buttons, some ten feet tall formed the wall on one side. In front, three large desk sized panels formed a ‘u’, shape, each covered with an array of buttons, lights, dials and knobs. Before these stood the remains of wooden desk complete with a chair, piles of paperwork and a clock stopped at 12:07; all blanketed with a thick layer of dust.
With apprehension slowing my steps, I approached the taller cabinets. The buttons had text and numbers on them, though I’d no idea what they meant. Most had been melted and singed at the edges, and the television screens dripped with plastic oozed from their casings, forming stalactites hanging from the metal of the cabinets. At the center, a series of buttons formed an imperfect circle, each labelled with a unique sequence of letters and numbers.
A man with a blue hard hat and white lab coat marched toward me as the memories of this place flooded the room with light and life once more.
“Pergi!” the man shouted, waving his arm toward me shooing me from where I stood. “Go!” he demanded. I stepped back toward the corner as more men in blue hard hats returned to their stations. The door swung open and a man in a white hard hat marched in. Removing his hat, he steadied it on the top of the desk, spying me cowering in the corner. Enraged, he shouted toward me in a language I didn’t understand. I could see the anger in his eyes, I wasn’t meant to be in here, and I wasn’t the only one who knew it. The furious man turned to each of the others, gesturing toward me.
I pulled my torch in closer. I didn’t think they meant me any harm, but this heavy battery would have given them a nasty clout.
The furious man pointed toward the door, and glared into me as the rest watched to see what I would do. I looked to the door, and the man nodded. I obliged and made my way out.
The memory faded back to the dim light of the torch as I pulled shut the door, finding myself again alone in the dark, unlit, corridor, as footsteps echoed along the deteriorated wall. I snapped to face the source of the sound.
“Michael?”
Undeterred, I raced along the corridor against the flow of the green arrows beneath my feet.
Chapter 30
RememberA.N.C.E.
“Wait up!” I shouted ahead, “Stop running. Wait for me.”
Ahead, the sound of footsteps echoing against the walls faded as though they were gaining ground on me, the cracks, dips and upturned concrete of the floor slowing my progress as I negotiated each.
Trying to keep up, I raced down a rickety set of stairs, along another corridor, and skidded to a halt, my path blocked by a fallen iron pipe. I glanced behind to confirm there was no other choice and squeezed myself under the rusty metal.
I hesitated, watching the men in blue boiler suits walk toward me, the dim light of the torch replaced by the warm glow of my memories here. Nodding, they smiled to me, chatting to one another in the language I didn’t understand, though they seemed nervous of someone or something else. Like ghosts, they passed through the iron pipe as if it wasn’t there, talk turning to bickering and waved arms.
‘INTI’, the sign on the wall behind the men indicated with its green arrow pointed further into the darkness. I recognized the sign, though I did not know the words. I knew however, it led to a circular room, with a smaller one inside, more fitting in a miniature submarine, with a thick metal door secured with turn-wheels, a simple metal bench, a large dial and a clock. I knew it allowed passage through the thick wall and into the inner circle of more dials, buttons, pipes, walkways and wiring. I also knew we weren’t meant to be there, but neither of us cared.
The glow of my memory was shattered as the sound of the footsteps resounded about the walls. The deteriorated corridor returned to the dim ebb of light from the torch and the pristine corridor of my memories faded to the peeling, cracked forgotten clutter of broken pipes, torn wiring and almost utter darkness. The men in blue boiler suits disappeared into the distance, breaking into a sprint away from me.
Following the sound, I weaved my way along the corridors, ascending and descending stairs. The maze of tunnels, stairwells and more corridors twisted around the building, though no matter how fast I ran, I couldn’t catch my little brother. I slowed to a stop, panting, as the green glow of the mossy windows on the front of the building radiated from the hallway ahead.
Using my sleeve, I wiped some of the grime away and peered through the green stain, scanning the courtyard of the plateau to see if Michael was in fact waiting outside for me. The last time I looked through here, the street looked different, with a stall filled with fresh fruit, alongside another with fish from the boats, and two distinct groups of people. There were the men in white lab coats and the men in blue boiler suits. And though they themselves didn’t mingle in the street, they looked a world away from
the fishermen and the fruit gatherers in their traditional dress, bare feet and withered arms outstretched toward the workers of this building.
A man, dressed in a well-fitting brown suit with a slim tie and polished shoes, pulled a boy back from the stall. About Michael’s age, the boy, complete with a backpack, returned to heel as the suited man bent down and wagged his finger into the child’s face. An older child, perhaps a teenager, stood behind the pair, kicking at the dirt as though there couldn’t be anything more boring.
“Alex!” Michael cried, his voice carried from a door further along the corridor by a wind howling and groaning as it twisted and turned toward me.
I jumped into a sprint toward the large ‘INTI’, sign and placed my hand onto the handle of the door, retracting it at once. The metal was icy cold. Stepping back, I noticed the light escaping underneath, a brilliant light, brighter than any light I’d ever seen, interrupted by the dust being whipped up by the howling wind.
“Alex!”
I barged open the door.
A blinding white light stole my vision, burning into my eyes like a fierce flame. I raised my hand as I turned away, releasing the torch to the floor. The spirited breeze bit at my skin as the air whipped my A.M.I. jumper into a frenzy. My eyes adjusted, and the pain subsided. I lowered my hand.
Before me, most of the building including the floor, along with most of the six or so stories beneath it, were gone. The small rooms, gone. The walkways, the pipes, the wiring, all gone. There was nothing here. No walls, no floors, no memories, no ghosts of the past; nothing.
Standing on a small ledge, of what should have been the large circular room, all I could see was a small portion of the remains of the floor below and ahead, a mountain; its side gouged out. The trees and forest which had grown beneath the remains of the building looked tall, but they were still a long way down from my ledge.
A small blue bird with golden feet, singing to the sun, paused to glance at me, swooping down from the remains of the wall beside me. It dropped toward the trees, gliding toward the deformed mountain, disappearing into the forest.
My eyes were drawn to the remains of the floor below. A few feet of concrete stuck out from the wall, but it was enough for the metal lattice of a set of stairs to cling to. At its base, something familiar fluttered against the spirited breeze, trapped beneath the rubble, the charred remains of Michael’s dinosaur backpack. With caution, I approached the steps.
Blanketed by dust, the once red dinosaur of the backpack was stained a dirty brown, while the edges were singed and burnt. I swept the dust off and freed the piece from the rubble. The plastic was brittle, and crumbled in my fingertips.
My hands!
Withered, long boney fingers seemed to obey my commands, but they were not my hands. They couldn’t be. They looked old and scarred.
“Alex?” the familiar man’s voice asked, disobeying the wind and echoing about me.
I looked up to the source of his words.
“Dad?” I asked, addressing the shadowy figure above me.
He didn’t respond, instead offering out his hand.
“What happened here?” I asked, though my father did not speak, instead pointing to the door which led me here.
Approaching the empty frames of the windows in the corridor, my father drew near, pointing forward.
“The glass? I know,” I replied, “It was here, I know it was.”
The speechless figure pointed again.
“I know. I said, it was here, but now it’s not.”
My father remained unmoved, as I looked past the window frames to the plateau below, the suited man and the child approaching the building, the teenager hesitating, glancing up toward us.
43 Years Earlier
I looked up to the upper floors of the building, drawn by something, I didn’t know what. It felt like someone was watching me. I didn’t know. The sooner we went home though, the better.
“Alex?” my little brother called out. “Are you coming?”
“Yeah, yeah,” I replied, rolling my eyes, following Dad marching toward the tall building at the center. The glass on the front gave it a mirrored look, but it was hard to disguise the red and white chimney poking out from the giant concrete cube behind it.
Dad stopped short of the door and turned to address us both, “Now remember, please, this is a place of business and not a playground. You stay by my side and don’t wonder off. You understand?”
“OK Daddy,” Michael chirped.
“Yeah,” I sighed.
It had taken days to get here by boat. I didn’t know why we had to come. I’d rather have been at home, in bed, asleep. Work was for losers, not me; and what was with the steep climb up from the harbor? Why did they build this thing halfway up a mountain? Why build it here anyway?
“Alex!” Dad snapped. “You’re not even listening to me, are you?”
“Er?” I replied, unable to hide my complete and utter inability to reply with anything other than ‘yes’.
“I bring you all this way for a better life, and you can’t even give me a moment of your attention,” he barked, his brow furrowed, “can you?”
Michael snickered, as Dad sighed. “Come on, this is going to be fun,” he paused, patting Michael on the shoulder, turning to face the door. Taking my little brother’s hand, he moved forward. “I’ll show you where I work and then, hopefully, if I get time, I’ll take you for a tour of the place. It’s all new and shiny. I know you’re going to love it.”
The receptionist flashed my father a smile, lavishing my little brother with ‘ooohs’, and ‘ahhhs’, as he explained how ‘Daddy’, was going to show us around.
“You can take them through, Mr. Jolski,” she declared as soon as Michael had finished.
Nodding to her, Dad ushered us through the next set of doors, and we followed him along the corridor, around the corner and to the door of his office. Pulling the lanyard around his neck upward, freeing it from his suit pocket, he presented the card to a panel on the wall.
“It’s like a spaceship,” Michael gasped, turning to see if I too was impressed.
I flashed him a false smile and he rolled his eyes.
“What’s all this stuff?” my little brother asked, pointing to the piles of paperwork, as Dad closed the door behind me.
“It’s er?” Father paused, “my stuff.”
A snort escaped me, as Dad turned and frowned at me.
“What’s that?” Michael asked.
“It’s a computer,” Dad replied, returning his attention to my little brother. “Want to see it work?”
“Yeah!” Michael gasped, thrilled to bits by a plastic box and a keyboard. “I mean, yes please Daddy.”
Ten thirty? How could it be ten thirty? Please tell me that clock was broken, I thought, glaring at the minute hand, waiting for any sign of movement. ‘Tick’.
“Mr. Jolski?” a lady asked, calling through the door, accompanied with a light tap on the metal.
“Just a minute,” Dad shouted back, pushing my little brother up from his lap and marching toward the door. “You’ll have to excuse me a moment,” he declared, collecting his jacket from the coat stand. “I won’t be long.”
“Mr. Jolski?” the woman repeated. “Mr. Sulloman says you’re to come at once. They’re delaying the test, waiting for you.”
A curse slipped from my father’s lips, and Michael slapped his hand to his. I smirked and Dad looked to me, though he knew as well as I did there was no point asking my little brother not to repeat that when we got home. Dropping his shoulders, he sighed, swinging open the door. “Stay here,” he insisted, glaring at us.
“He’s very upset,” the receptionist explained, my father slipping through the gap, slamming shut the door behind him. The panel on the door turned red and the light in the ceiling dimmed to a dull glow, leaving the small desk lamp to illuminate the room. I glanced toward the coat stand as Dad’s lanyard swung against the hook, falling to the floor.
&nbs
p; A gasp drawn of sheer horror escaped my little brother.
“We must take it to him,” he declared, pointing to the lanyard.
“Why?”
“He needs it. It’s important.”
It was a chance to get out of that stupid, little room though, I figured. Go explore. Go find the stuff they didn’t want me poking into. “Yeah, OK. We’ll take it to him.”
Michael whooped, jumping for the coat stand.
“You’ve gotta be quiet though,” I declared, snatching the lanyard first.
“Hey!” he protested, glaring at me.
“Quiet!”
My little brother glared at me. “Fine.”
“Good,” I snapped, unlocking the door with the pass card.
Michael stomped forward; his arms folded like a furious toddler.
“Hey,” I shouted, halting his progress as I grabbed the seam of one of the straps on his backpack.
“Let me go.”
“Leave that stupid thing here,” I replied, gesturing to the dinosaur on the face.
“No,” he protested. “Henri has to come too.”
“Who the hell is Henri?” I asked, as Michael swung the backpack off his shoulders, unzipping the top and digging around inside.
How much stuff had he got in there?
My little brother’s pout turned to a smile as he thrusted a tin toy into my face.
“This is Henri,” he declared with pride.
The toy had two thick, yellow discs, with painted on eyes on the top one, joined in the middle with ribbed, black plastic tubing, topped with a glass dome, and a compass sticking out on a bracket at the base.
“What the hell is that?” I asked.
“It’s Henri, stupid.”
“Right,” I replied, unsure I wanted to ask any more questions about a toy he seemed to have cobbled together out of all the junk he could find in his room. “Whatever.”
“That’s them!” my little brother exclaimed, breaking into a sprint along the corridor. “Let’s go.”
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