1:30 pm
Dear Diary,
Where am I and how did I get here? The last thing I remember is waking up in an Irish girl’s bed – I know I’ve been there before – exhausted, and she was very unhappy but I don’t think it was because of me. She looked up with these squinting sleeping eyes and said, “So you’re going to have to go, then?” She looks exactly like what you would expect an Irish girl to look like.
Now I’m sitting in an empty meeting room, white walls, no furniture besides the oval glass table and the chairs. There’s Russian music playing from somewhere and Kronenbourg beers ads in Russian on the walls (the only decoration) so I can only assume I’m still in Russia. But why the French beer? And why the thickness in my head?
But I know nothing further than that. And I can’t even be sure this really is Russia, or that I’ve actually been there before. My God. My head.
Just finished a cup of sugary instant coffee. Tasted like cheap candy, and was only a little warm. As I write, the tea-cup shudders around on its saucer, from the jerks of the pen against the paper, to the unstable glass table, and then the cup rattles around. The way the sticky, thick liquid swirls around the green-stone cup makes me nauseous.
And I hated the sound of the metal spoon against the inside of the cup when I stirred in the sugar.
As far as I can remember I was asked here to do some sort of job, but the fact that it’s Sunday (an assertion dually supported by my diary notes as well as my phone calendar as well as, partially, by the emptiness of this typical office) and the fact that I’ve been sitting in this empty meeting room with white walls, a Kronenbourg poster, completely alone for the past 25 minutes don’t seem to support that. And what job was it in the first place that you’d come in on a Sunday? I can’t remember. And bring me away from the warm bed and warm Irish girl? I can’t remember.
Let’s think about this logically. Let’s continue to assemble the facts and then we can try to piece something further together. Yes. The facts are:
1. Irish girl’s bed.
2. Cold coffee dregs.
3. Empty meeting room.
And then we have the following inferences:
1. Sunday (?)
2. Russia (?)
3. Job (?)
And also:
There is a half-eaten chocolate bar and a heap of slimy, sticky pastries on stone plates on the glass table, they also rattle a little but not as much as the tea-cup on the saucer, and I can see my dirty black socks through the glass table. My entire body feels dirty. Dirty and exhausted. Maybe I’m supposed to go somewhere?
1:45. Still here and nothing’s happened. Alone with the sticky, sticking pastries and the half-eaten chocolate and the rattle rattle rattle when I move my pen like this. My phone still has reception so at least I can hope I haven’t been kidnapped. Some crazy thoughts are starting to come to me. Because
1:55. My last thought was that the phone still has reception, so I can’t be in a room that looks like a meeting room on a giant vessel out at sea or in space. Unless they’re very, very clever. I’ll keep my eyes open for any kind of evidence.
1:56. I’d just like to make it perfectly clear that that last entry was a nervous tick which I will erase shortly, a minor lapse in common sense. I was a little thrown off because in the middle of my note-taking a short bald man came into the room (he might very well have been the one who led me into this room in the first place but short bald men can look so similar especially if I was still a little drunk from whatever last night was when I arrived here in the first place) and told me in Russian that they’re not ready yet. Then he was gone in a flash.
But still, this is evidence. It supports both the ‘job’ and the ‘Russia’ inferences, and I’ll go ahead and tick them above, but also add in a question mark in the margins.
So, now, questions:
- Am I being paid for any of this?
- Am I being paid to sit in this room?
- Who are these people who aren’t yet ready?
- Who was the bald man?
Space ship indeed.....
2:00 Nothing has become any clearer. I’m not sure why I’m writing all of this down: maybe to appear busy when they finally do come in, or because I’m genuinely anxious. The scratch of my pen has begun to both frighten and irritate me. At first it was calming. Then the tea-cup got to me so I put it and the saucer down on the floor (won’t they be confused), and now the writing itself seems to drag and pull on all of the nerves in my head. But still, I continue, even if I’m not exactly sure why.
I’ve checked my bag (NB no food, so all I’ve had was that evil coffee, the poison spreads fast after it hits the heart) (I’m also of course lactose intolerant so the chocolate and pastries are a kind of joke) and the only clues I found there that pertain to my situation are:
- a map (for traveling? Was I hoping to go somewhere? Or am I just cautious by nature? Or did somebody need me to have it?)
- an overnight bag, containing saline solution, contacts case, toothpaste, toothbrush, ibuprofen (so did I intend on staying at her apartment last night? Or am I going somewhere today?)
- a fresh pair of boxers (if they’re mine, why aren’t I wearing them? They look like they could be mine – and they feel much cleaner to the touch).
- a lighter (I don’t think I smoke, though. No, I don’t).
2:05 I dare not venture out of the meeting room. If ‘they’ aren’t ready then ‘they’ aren’t ready. No sign of the bald Russian, neither of them (if they were different people – unconfirmed) though I have heard a strange sound that seems to come from the other side of the white wall just opposite me. Not photocopying, not computer tapping, not call conferencing, nothing like the usual office sounds. I’m trying not to let my imagination run with it.
2:06 Imagination running with it.
2:08 Dangerously close to falling asleep suddenly. Nerves eased I guess. Wish I could have more sludge coffee but I’d probably regret it later so it’s probably for the best right now that there’s none.
2:10 Now I can hear voices (in Russian, so most likely I am in Russia, and apparently I can understand Russian). They are about to “print something.” For me?
2:12 Wait, there’s an earlier entry about being able to understand Russian. Why can’t I keep it all in my head at one time?
2:16. Must not have been for me. The copying. Voices gone but sound on the other side of the wall is still there. Maybe slightly fainter but still there.
2:25. The bald man returned, brought a small yellow dish of canister salted almonds and peanuts. He said nothing and then left. I was going to say something but realized I had nothing to say. If I am here for a job I can’t let on that I don’t know what the hell is happening – that’s unprofessional. My nerves are on their last string.
2:30 What was that? What the hell was that?
2:34 I try to remember where I was earlier today and it’s just a jumble, this feverish sweaty mass of breathing and white light and missed time. And it’s strange, I try to remember what the Irish girl looked like, and all I can remember are my own words, “She looks exactly like what you would expect an Irish girl to look like.” No face, no body, just a series of images that come to my mind when I say those words to myself but are out of focus and won’t come together and in the end I’m remembering some film I once saw. And, of course, I remember her “So you’re going to have to go, then?” and her accent but nothing more. I can’t remember any other words she’s ever told me.
I look back at my first entry and see that I wrote she was unhappy. But why couldn’t I remember that without having to read it? And why wasn’t she happy? And what else did she say to me?
“She looks exactly like what you would expect an Irish girl to look like....”
2:45 The nuts are gone. Next I’m going to scrape out the sugar dregs from the coffee cup.
2:46 And there’s no water.
2:55 I’m back, I’m sitting, and I’m shaking. I haven’t searched that carefully yet, but I don’t think there is any way out. Of this place, I mean. This room has a door, other parts of the ‘office’ seem to have doors, but I don’t think there is any way out of this structure, whatever it is. Of what I can remember when I came in, there were these huge doors that took forever to open. I don’t think I thought anything of it at the time....
I had just been trying to keep myself calm, I think, while those giant doors were opening. And make favorable first impressions so of course I didn’t notice anything. Like at a party when you’re worrying about how you’re standing and how you’re dressed and then don’t remember anyone’s name or job and then you’re afraid to ask.
3:05. It’s funny. The things. That come into your head.
3:10. Oh God Oh God, I just realized what the sounds are, coming from the other side of the wall. It’s a group of men (I hope) shifting around, watching me. They’ve fed me coffee to make me sick to my stomach and salted nuts to make my head hurt and now they’re watching. Or: planning worse. No sign of the bald man. No sign of anything. I can’t even feel the table move now as I write.
3:11 Must just breathe.
3:13. That’s it, I’m going to get up and explore outside the room, find out where the bald man is.... and maybe he will have pity. Maybe he can be moved to help me escape. Or maybe I’m just not in the right place.
Why can’t I remember her name?
3:20. My God, my fucking God it’s far worse than I ever imagined. You leave this little meeting room and you’re out in this hallway the most non-descript office hallway you’re ever been in your entire life, and you walk down the corridor. But here it is. You can walk a ways in either direction, past door and door and door, but then the corridors inexplicably end. In perfectly normal-looking white walls. There are doors everywhere, but all of them are locked and none of them will budge. Didn’t try all of them but they must be locked. My fucking God. All I can think to do is sit and scribble. Literally nothing I can do but write to myself. And the doorknobs were all cold, like they had never been used before. I doubt they even have rooms behind them. Maybe just painted on.
And, further, I can’t remember where I came from, how I got in.....
3:24. And the noise... it’s not coming from the other side of the wall. I sat by the wall, heard the sound, but it came from the other direction this time. So I came back to my chair. Sometimes it sounds like it’s coming from all around me, sometimes even from behind me. I am going to close my eyes and try to sleep.
3:27. The best thing to do now: is to wait this out. It can’t be as bad as I think it is. Something will change with time because time makes things change. It’ll all seem funny and hilarious tomorrow. And I’ll tell... that girl all about it.
3:28. It’s like a low, slow grating, like that sound that passes through your head right after someone scrapes their nail on the chalkboard, that sound that reverberates in your head and won’t settle and you can’t get control over. It just screws you all up inside. And hurts your eyes and your teeth.
I think my imagination is getting the best of me.
3:35. Now I am resigned. My imagination can go on if it wants because I have given up - I don’t even know why I’m writing any more. My other greatest fear has been confirmed. Even though I have signal on my phone, clear bars of indication, no calls can make it through. Tried texting myself but it didn’t send and didn’t confirm. What could that possibly mean? I mean, it’s impossible?
And what the fuck was her name? I even have to look at my earlier diary entries above to remember anything, to remember what she told me. Even: that there was a she.
She was Irish it would seem.
3:40. Wait, my address book is empty. On my phone. As is most of my diary. Wait.
3:50. I thought I heard the sound of a photocopier from the hallway but by the time I went out it was gone.
I’m going to go try every one of the doors.
4:06. Tried every door.
4:09. Tried every door a second and third time.
4:10. I’ve just hurled the pastries against the wall. They made a pleasing, fatty smack and left a gooey trail a foot or two down. Their greasy outlines are still against the clean, clean walls like silhouettes. Next I’m going to hurl the cup through the glass case covering the Kronenbourg poster and then smash the stone plates through the glass table and get bits of glass all over my dirty socks.
4:15 “Bald Russian Man!” I yell in every language I know, “Bald Russian Man! Guards! I make up German phrases: “Balder Russischer Mensch!” “PEOPLE ON THE PHOTOCOPIER! I’m putting this plate through the table unless you come right now and give me my work! I don’t care if they’re ready! I don’t even care who they are I’ll work just open one of the doors!”
4:23 The stone plate went solidly through the center of the glass table and the table itself creaked and crumpled up into itself. With one of the exposed steel legs, I’ve managed to give to door to my meeting room a good bashing. The sound of the leg on door went thump thump down the hallways and bounced nice and solid off all the locked doors. I’ve also discovered that these locked doors, though they will get dented and scraped, won’t go down. I think I even broke a finger trying, one on my left hand so i can still write no problem. Some of them, I think, are just steel walls with a door painted on, but not all of them. And my shoulders hurt like hell.
4:55 Now I know why they gave me the lighter.
5:27 My God, the strangest... strangest things. I don’t think I will even bleed if I put my hand into the glass.
5:29. Yes, I will. I will bleed.
6:05. And I am...? Was so worried about that girl (as I can tell from earlier entries) but not at all worried that I don’t know who I am! Or where I am! My God, what distraction! It’s horrifying the little things your mind clings to in moments of crisis, like that girl, who that girl was, how it stuffs all of the other horrors away when you still maybe could have done something about it.
6:25. If the bald man would but show his bald little head.....
6:28 Yes, positive I know what the lighter is for.
7:000000000 Still writing on the floor, cause the table is gone. Where is the table, you ask? It’s all over me! And inside those locked doors and against the walls and some of it even inside of me.
AFTER EVERYTHING I’m putting these pages into my over-night case. I can only assume that this is working right into their plan but I have no other choice – because the lighter is here to burn this place down and that’s the only place the pages can go is into the over-night case. Maybe from the rubble they can.... much better than I expect for me. Sorry for the blood smeared everywhere. It’s time for this place to erupt and for the noises to stop and the photocopier and if I
m lucky even those giant doors I’ve just read that I passed through earlier will go down and maybe I’ll even catch one of them, off-guard, burn some red heat through a bald head
Oh, it glitters, the lighter as it catches and clicks and my clothes have caught on much faster than in my wildest dreams as they sparkle with ash and spark and glass, and all this extra paper and the backpack and these clean clean clean walls And it clicks and fuses, all this flame And it feels wonderful, so wonderful, that I can give them everything they need from me
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