 |
| an actual dream edited only slightly for clarity |
| -by Soapsuds |
It was lunchtime, and the office was mostly deserted. I was hurrying down the hallway, intending to drop off the one-last-thing on my desk before heading out for lunch myself. I was taking the silent corridors quickly, glancing through the hallway-facing windows of the offices, through the corresponding outside-facing windows, trying to decide if in fact it was raining, and whether I would need a jacket.
I wasn't precisely expecting anyone to be in the CEO's big office, it also wasn't a surprise to find the senior staff holding a meeting over lunch. It was surprising that the eyes of the HR representative glowed red, as she lowered a limp body beneath the desk.
They all looked up at me–or craned around to look at me–and they all had glowing red eyes. I understood at once that this was not actually the senior staff, but rather things that had taken on the appearance of the senior staff, or perhaps taken over their bodies. Like vampires, or possibly body-snatchers. The head of HR straightened, and the others got out of the chairs. They were closing ranks, standing shoulder to shoulder, looking at me. The head of HR took a step towards me.
I had just a split second to realize that this turning-into-vampires thing was not to be expected as part of a normal working day. They were coming for me–but this wasn't normal, this wasn't right. Either it was a dream, or magic had somehow suddenly begun to work in the real world, and either way I might as well try some magic of my own–like that!
I flung out my hands, and they froze. I closed my hands slightly and bent my elbows, gathering them, and then pushed out with all my strength. They flew away from me, through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows with a most satisfying splintering crash. I ran to the window in time to see them all hit the racing current of the Charles River, several stories below. They had barely touched the water when they disintegrated into dust and were washed away.1
And I knew there were more of them. I knew they had taken over others in the office. I couldn't know who among my colleagues had been turned, but I knew the vampires were everywhere. The office was filling. People were back from lunch. They were everywhere, and for now I was safe, but soon they would find the broken window and they would know what had happened and–
I didn't have much time.
Two good friends of mine worked in the web design department, at the extreme other end of the S-shaped building. I couldn't leave them to whatever fate the vampires had in mind. Besides, both my friends were gamer geeks and readers of science fiction: their minds worked the same way mine did. If there was a war to be fought, against an invasion of body-snatching vampiric things, I had no doubt that the rest of the office would be useless. But my friends would be able to help me do something about it.
I stood hesitating for half a second, and then plunged into the supply room. It was shorter than taking the long snaking hallway, and safer.
Even with the lights off, it had a warehouse feel: cold, and clammy, and so utterly dark that I could not make out the jagged shapes of furniture I knew were right in my way. I fumbled for the light switch, my hand against the cold plaster wall.
And I froze. I had heard nothing, not the slightest hint of movement or breath, but I knew, I knew, that there was someone before me in the dark. One of them. Waiting here.
I forced myself to exhale. Acting normal was the only thing that would save me now. I slapped at the wall, cursing as though I could not find the light switch. I reached behind me for the door handle, trying to move quickly enough to seem normal, and not so quickly I seemed panicked. I got the door open. Just a little light shone in from the hallway. Not enough to illuminate a hiding place. I hoped. I grabbed a sheaf of folders from the shelf to my left hand, and closed the door.
The hallway was busy and bustling around me. A normal working day. None of them knew anything. Or maybe some of them were vampires. I couldn't see their eyes.
I had the folders as an excuse. I hurried down the hall, down the long curving S, away from the bustle and into an almost deserted department. And there I used my Jedi-fu gather-up-vampires-and-push-them-out-windows move to save two co-workers. Two young women from my own project team, in fact. It was as hard as I would have imagined to explain the vampire thing to them, but they had seen the bodies disintegrate in the river, and the things I had saved them from had glowing red eyes, so they accepted that something weird was going on. They allowed themselves to be dragged along behind me as I hurried down the second bend of the S.
The vampires hadn't reached the web department yet, though I could hear sounds of mayhem behind me. John and Seth looked up in surprise as I stumbled into their room, taking off their headphones and both asking questions at once.
They believed me. Not at once, but eventually. And they caught onto the Jedi-fu trick immediately. We made for the back staircase, pushing vampires out of windows as we went. The two women from my team were, predictably, no use at all. They squeaked when we encountered vampires, and would not even try to learn the Jedi-fu trick. John and Seth were great. We fought shoulder to shoulder like the final battle of any sci-fi movie, and the vampires never had a chance.
We reached the stairwell. An endless spiral of stairs coiled between us and safety. We pounded downward, not daring to stop or look back. Above us was the sound of overturning furniture, animal roars, people fighting monsters. The smell of burning. Throat-stinging smoke pursued us, but they did not. We had fought them off. We were escaping.
We burst out into the courtyard, into a misty cool day. The thick cool air and grey clouds were refreshing after the desperate flight down the stairs, after the swirling smoke. The river smelled clean and cold.
Behind us, flames rose to engulf the building. It burned like a torch from base to roof, and we knew that was all right. It was all right. All the vampires would perish inside. They could not stand the light and heat of fire.
We left the building behind and crossed courtyard together, victorious and headed for better things. A great dream. One of the all-time great ones.
And the punchline? John, Seth, and I don't actually work at the same company (nor does the Charles River run beneath the windows of any of them, but you'd probably figured that part out already). For a while, however, we did work at three separate companies whose buildings surrounded the same courtyard.
Within two months of this dream, at two week increments, all three of us were laid off. In my case, after assistant-project-managing an initiative to success, over the course of a long summer of long hours. In John's and Seth's cases, the respective layoffs followed serious overtime and/or the abandonment of weekend plans to go into the office. There's definitely a "sucked dry and tossed aside" aspect to this. One might even call it a "vampiric" aspect.
And as we walked through the courtyard (not together, granted, but still headed for better things) we left behind two start-ups and a mismanaged larger company slowly circling the drain. Or going up in flames, if you prefer the metaphor.
Coincidence?
I think not.
I only wish I'd pushed more of them out the windows before I left.
