An Office Somewhere

I dreamt last night of an empty office. I was there with two people who I can't remember, but I was certain that we were using the place as a hideout from something. The room looked like most generic offices – whites, grays, florescent lights, and cubicles padded with fabric to keep things hushed.

So there we are, basically biding time before answering for unknown sins. We had no work to do, nor did we share much in common. Each of us retreated to a cubicle and tried to be quiet. I wanted to use a computer but there was no power other than whatever was fueling the lights above us. The nebulous surges of threat had passed and I began to walk around the place. Along my stroll and feeling bored, I began drumming with my hands – first against my thighs, then against the walls. This was when I noticed something.

I thought I was the only one drumming. I’m a fidgety person and boredom only exacerbates this skittishness. So I found it pretty strange when I heard the same beat I’d been patting out – bah DUM, ba dah dah DUM – coming from somewhere other than my hands. I looked around the room and the other folks were just sitting lazily about, swiveling in chairs or resting their heads on desks. They were not making the sound.

I drummed slower this time. Bah DUM. I waited and heard nothing. I lifted my hands to finish the beat and then I heard it. Bah DUM. I came from over my head, from the ceiling of chalky cork and rectangular glow. I looked back at the others again. They were in the same lazy positions. I tried again. Bah DUM. I waited and started at the ceiling. Maybe ten seconds later, the same bah DUM shook out of a vent, right where the ceiling meets the wall. An echo? Where was this room?

I roused the others to demonstrate this find. They were equally perplexed, but offered no valuable feedback. The sound was somehow being absorbed and spat back out after an unseen journey though whatever space we had come to inhabit.

The point of view shifted to a spot maybe four feet above our heads. I was now being watched by this thing with a sniper’s vantage point. I saw myself standing there, next to the wall, but had dropped any control of the dream’s narrative. The lazy others and I were now being watched by a set of eyes perched atop the walls. Whatever it was, it rested there, fixed on us and the growing clamor of our heartbeats and thickened breaths.

I managed to force out a moan from my dream-restricted lungs. This woke me up. My eyes were still closed but I knew I was lucid and in the world. I lied there in the new morning, eyes shut and tried to slow down my breath. Then, somewhere in the black wakefulness, a moan came from the empty side of my bed. I froze.

It could have just been a delivery truck honking along Broadway.