Tentative Steps

Tentative Steps

The building lies before her. Her watch tells that she is twelve minutes early. People crowd in and out of the entryway. She whispers apologies as she bumps into a few, making her way through the threshold. 

She had imagined this place many times: a life deified by dream. She expected a grand lobby and the decorous workers, all revealed upon her path.

As she enters, her gaze traces the walls and people. The paint is an irritating yellow. No one pays attention to her. She exchanges sparse words with the person at the desk, him directing her to the eighth floor. Within the elevator plays a jaunty melody from ten years ago. She is alone in hearing it.

Her feet wander through many rooms amongst the floor. Imagination had brought visions of elaborate offices and toiling employees, each with desks the size of the moon. The offices seem small as she passes them. The employees look laboured in their steps and tired in their eyes. As for the desks, there is a sea of them. 

From searching the floor, she at last finds it. She sits in wait whilst her watch ticks away. Memories flow of internships in editors’ positions. A lifetime of education coalescing into melodious patterns, an imagined building and followed steps forth. Those around were adherents of other paths. This is her own endeavor.

She opens her sketchbook, pages fraught with travailed hours. Halls of ersatz gods and sculptures of mortals’ past fill cover to cover. Uncertainty had lined this walk. Art was a painful interest, for it is made from heart yet purposed for bills. 

Nights of sleep were lost from devotion to her craft. She draws what dwells in mind or memory: a child alone in the schoolyard, courtyards of floral design, a cloud in solemn skies. She depicts only the known.

She had imagined this building many times. Aspirations of arduous days have been known for years, this its nascency. Her head had drawn it as Rome. It is just an office building.

Errant voices stir from the background. Calls ring through stagnant air. Conversations from those on break span from mundanity to drywall. The dread returns as she grips close her life’s work.

There is still time to leave. None have an eye turnt her way. One could abscond in minutes. Possibility is abandoned, life is made true. Cloistered design of fantasy could remain her own marvelous creation. Years of service to her own craft could remain a substantiated effort, ever-flowing and ever-evolving. The moment of offer, the moment of acceptance, is the moment of forfeit. 

Unshared exertion within familiarity serves more than a company. The unknown exists to take and never give. It imposes hurt and alteration, strangers and darkness. She looked once more upon the workplace, rife with what she is yet to know. 

This life is the challenged path. All steps forth take many back. Ideals are bestrewn amongst others, choices are smothered by those around, loneliness is a lost wish.

The receptionist motions for her to enter the employer’s office.

With tentative steps, she braves inward.

The dream lies before her. Its windows are the same hue—the concrete is an immutable gray, the entrance is a domineering doorway. It seems to gouge the very clouds. She blinks, expecting some change, yet the building still looms ahead.

Strangers in familiar raiments stream in and out of the entry, the noontide sun reflecting against the glass. She takes a steadying breath before joining the masses. 

The throngs lead to a spanning interior, where intricate stonework lions glaring down at her and decorating the high walls. The room’s susurrus echoes with voices, scouring to the ceiling above and the doors aside. It is as if the world waits for her choice.

She treads her typical path.

Her feet find a room of pools and swimmers, strangers joyous in their day. She avoids the water’s splash. No one offers attention. The laughs bring a shudder to her spine and envy to her heart as she sits in silence, then proceeds to the next room. She has dreamt this before.

The next is one of mirrors. Infinite images stride with her through the hall. There are no strangers here. Everything is known, each of her perpetual reflections staring back. They dissipate as she enters the next room. 

The third has no light. The shrouding gloom hides the path, others’ voices resounding in the darkness. She slips between crowds of people.

Each night holds the same unchanging interior, same twisting halls, same dark corners. The dream never falters. The strangers pay her no heed despite her pestering. They, too, are unchanging.

Yet, this is no dream, for her hand is scratched as she runs it against the concrete. Her shoulder feels sore from brushing against others in passing. It all hurts. The mind is its own reality.

Even amid the known, she becomes lost. Her path tricks and winds. The people surround but never speak. The halls writhe but never guide. It all exists but never rewards. She meanders wayless, unable to get past what never changes.

She is alone amongst the masses.

There is only one room that is unknown to her—one through which fate could unravel or flourish. She happens upon its door sometimes, this capricious dream offering it. The entrance is a harsh shadow on the wall, the passage beyond unseen.

It is never in the same place twice—the one fragment that changes. It could be at the end of a darksome hall, the ceiling of an unfindable room, and even the shirt of a distant stranger. She has never pulled its handle—never ventured what lies beyond. It could be a vast darkness, shriveling and odious. It could be a vexing labyrinth, unending and trackless.

It could be something new.

She grips its handle and unease grips her hand. It feels cold. Unfamiliar.

Her head turns back to the known. There is no one behind her—no voices nor strangers.

She takes a steadying breath and opens the door.