A Disembodied Voice

The buildings at the University were scattered like used textbooks with facades of wood, masonry, and concrete for covers. In their radical inconsistency the buildings showed the decades of disagreement and the independence of the faculty as well as the ebb and flow of “new ideas”. There were Greco-Roman columns, gothic buttresses, and brutalist masses of concrete, sometimes all in one building. 

Not all the buildings were in use, of course. Grant funding is a fickle mistress. A program could be killed by a simple change of focus leaving miscellany behind. Eventually, a new program would come along and repurpose or throw out the remainders. In this way, the University ecosystem mimicked the life and death of the forest floor so often reported in many of the books available on University shelves. 

It was not clear, though, which buildings were not in use as they all looked so used and student clubs hung banners and posted fliers on anything that stood upright. 

Eldridge Hall was one of the unused buildings positioned like a rock in the flow way of students on their way to class. Alexia opened the door and stepped in. It was not locked. She had not, however, meant to open this door. She was lost. She was supposed to go to her chemistry lab. Her backpack was so heavy and today had been particularly stressful. The periodic table was giving her fits and her roommate, Annie was “sick”. Why the quotes? Because calling a hangover being sick when it happens every other day just didn’t work for Alexia. Alexia was over it. She was also over the periodic table. Alphabetize it already! 

Alexia looked around as the door closed behind her. It was dark, but not too dark. She was in the anteroom of what seemed to be a mansion. This was definitely not her chemistry lab. She thought she should leave, but something was off. 

It was a mirror. It was not quite right, creepy even. Given how ornate the room was, she felt the mirror should have a decorative frame or at least some gilding, but it did not. This, however, was not what was not quite right about the mirror. How did she know this? Because she was looking right at it and despite her many years of experience with mirrors, the mirror was not reflecting Alexia her face back. Instead, it reflected an empty chair. 

Alexia quickly surveyed the room, there were no chairs. Faced with a scenario like this, Alexia had been sure she would have screamed and run out. She was not a proud woman, she knew she had fears. But, she did not scream and run out. She was transfixed, and she remained oddly calm. The more she stared at the chair, the more she started to feel something indescribable, an upwelling of the room itself. 

“It is just a chair, I am sure you have seen one before.”

Much like the mirror that reflected something else, Alexia was sure a disembodied voice would have sent her running—and screaming—but, there was something matter of fact about the voice that transfixed her. She had seen a chair before. The disembodied voice was absolutely right. And, with that acknowledgment, she felt free to stop staring at the mirror. Indeed, she did stop staring at the mirror. After all, it did not stare at her so why should she stare at it? She turned to open the door, but then she paused. She had just heard a disembodied voice. While she had seen a chair before, she had not heard a disembodied voice before. This matter was so far unaddressed. 

“Um...” she ventured. “I have a question.”

Nothing answered her. The anteroom was silent. Alexia was a determined person. Sure, she was not very determined to get to chemistry lab, but a haunted mansion, this was a different story. It was haunted, right? Her mind rushed to recollect what the building had looked like. Her mind was sure it had at least three gargoyles. Those were harbingers of a haunt, right? And, regardless, the room she was in now smacked of antiquity. That had to mean something. She could not give up. She would not give up. 

“What is going on here?” She asked into the room. She had tried to be as assertive as she could. Her friend Jack had told her the only way to get answers was to demand them. She was not sure if he was right, but it seemed worth an attempt. 

Again, nothing answered her. The silence amplified her heart beating. It was beating steadily faster. Alexia felt a combination of frustrated and crazy and more than a little creeped out. She was standing in an abandoned University building, she was not sure how she got there, and she was demanding the room itself answer her. Then again, she knew what she had heard. She tried again. She was obsessed, maybe even possessed. Who could tell?

“I know you are here.” This time she had imbued her voice with a certain matter-of-fact-ness to match the tone of the disembodied voice. 

This time, something in the room changed. It was as if the room itself were slightly annoyed and weirder, Alexia, by virtue of being in the room, also became slightly annoyed. It was a strange feeling. 

“Maybe you do, maybe you do not. But, all told, what you may or may not know is, if you were to know it, boring. Nothing interesting is going on here. Do not let your unfamiliarity with the unfamiliar trick you into conspiracy and plot. The unfamiliar can be dull, and here it is. Not every unfamiliar thing is a cave of wonder.”

“No, I guess not.” Alexia muttered. 

And with that, she left and went to find the right building. Behind her Eldridge Hall continued boringly on. Later, it would become a research center for applications of Gaelic folk songs in multimodal, pediatric musical therapy. The chairs would have researchers in them and the researchers would be sure of the enduring importance of their mission.