The Skitz

I gazed into the white oblivion, eyelashes coated with frost. A million tiny snowflakes tickled my nose as I took a deep breath of the biting air.  My numb cheeks began to sting as I spun around, only to see a truck come blaring towards me. An angry driver gestured at me through foggy glass, rather rudely. I darted to the side as the vehicle skidded on ice.  I put my head down and began the walk to the company doors. 

The smell of coffee and fresh ink filled my nose as I walked through the entryway to my office space.  Moving boxes cluttered the floor, with an assortment of random items packed inside. Quietly, I grumbled as I shoved aside a box that had been placed in front of my office door. I would have to remind the new intern to take it upstairs later.  Weaving my way back to my desk, I nearly bumped into Marlene, the sweet elderly lady that had been a receptionist for longer than anyone can remember. 

“Hey honey, I heard a honk outside. Everything alright?” I blinked, remembering the frightening ordeal, then smiled.

“Yeah, everything’s okay. Just some crazy truck driver.” 

"Oh no!" She clucked disapprovingly, "You be careful Hon, there's some crazy people out there." 

Shaking her head and muttering, she passed a steaming mug into my hands. 

"Have some coffee, dear. You still like it black don’t you?” 

“Uh, yeah, yeah. Black. My favorite.” I smiled at Marlene one last time then took the offending coffee to my office.  

Grimacing, I quickly poured the coffee onto my withered houseplant and placed the mug next to my computer.  Surveying my desk, I noticed another, steaming mug by my planner.  

 A voice startled me, and I jumped, nearly knocking over my chair. 

  "That's how you like it right? Two sugars and no decaf." Arthur, the new intern, stood in the doorway, grinning a little too widely. I sighed

"Oh yeah, thanks, Arthur. You scared me," I chuckled awkwardly "Well, I've got to enter these files." He bobbed his head and backed out of my office, the smile never leaving his face.

As the morning wore on, I began to feel a headache creeping in my skull, making the lights shine a little too bright. A dull whisper throbbed in my head, pounding against my skull. I squeezed my eyes shut, blinking away the ache. It was a bad habit I had, whenever I became stressed or my 'headaches' threatened to overwhelm me. 

I opened my desk drawer and grabbed my pill bottle. After rattling, and tipping it upside down, I finally accepted that it was empty. The headache was getting bad but I should be able to last through the day. 

Earlier this month my doctor had diagnosed me with mild schizophrenia. It didn't affect me really, as long as I remember to take my pills but still, I never thought it’s something I would have to experience. My doctors explained that I might have trouble expressing my thoughts or noticing social withdrawal but I just chuckled. I hardly talk anyway, so it shouldn’t be a problem.

Sighing, I closed my drawer and began to power on my desktop.  Abruptly, the lights began to flicker, and my computer shut off. Now in complete darkness, I jumped from my desk and ran to the window.  All the street lamps were out, casting long shadows in the still falling snow.  

"Attention all employees, please make your way to the conference room while we wait out this brief snowstorm. The backup generators should kick on soon." 

Frowning, I walked out of my office door and promptly tripped over a box. Pushing myself back up, I berated myself for not telling Arthur to bring it upstairs.  I glanced towards the stairwell and decided I might as well take the box upstairs since it was only a flight of stairs out of my way. 

I fumbled my way back to my office, grabbed a flashlight, and ran my hands along the rough wall until I found myself back at the staircase. The weak beam of light illuminated the dusty stairs. Clearly, no one had been up here for a while.  I thought back to my 3 years at the company and realized I had never actually been on the third floor. 

The wooden steps groaned and I jumped, chiding myself for forgetting to refill my mediation. I could almost picture the spiders crawling up out of the darkness and whispering in my ear.  Shaking my head at my own foolishness, I set the heavy box at the top of the stairs. A strange odor filled my nose and I imagined I really could hear the spiders in my head. Their whispy voices rose to a dull roar as I blinked and massaged my temple. The schizophrenia was getting worse. 

After the voices subsided, I raised my head and looked around. Crawling along the thinly carpeted floor, I searched for the flashlight I had dropped but couldn’t find it. Luckily, there was a sliver of light peeking through a door up ahead. 

I slowly shuffled that direction, forgetting the fact that there was no light downstairs, my mind focused on that sliver of light, and the comfort it would bring me from the darkness.  My breathing began to slow, and I reassured myself I was just being silly.  As I neared the doorway, I began to hear snippets of conversation and the chatter of words.  Confused, I eased the door open, and nearly dropped from surprise. 

Arthur was sitting in my office chair! I stormed ahead to tell him off but suddenly stopped, realizing that this wasn’t my office. Just one that resembled it very closely. Slowly, I backed away but there was no longer a door behind me.  

Panicking, I spun around, sprinting toward the front of the office. The front desk looked entirely different, almost like something out of an oldie’s film.  An ancient telephone on the desk was ringing off the hook, and boxy file cabinets lined the wall. Confused, I turned in a circle, surveying what I thought was my office.  It had been entirely transformed.  

Instead of the steady tapping of fingers on a keyboard, my ears were met with the clacking of typewriters. On the wall, a calendar was hung, and I peered at the date.  My jaw dropped.  It was December 12th, 1834. 

“1834! There’s no way.” I couldn’t believe my eyes.

“Uh, yes honey. It’s 1834. Been that way for about a year now.” An elderly woman was beside me sipping her tea. “You must be our new secretary! I’ll show you around so you can get working.” She walked off, expecting me to follow her. I did, of course, not knowing what else to do.   

As we walked around the office I had worked at for over 3 years, I couldn’t stop marveling at how similar everything was. It was like an alternate reality that you read about in books, or maybe a dream.  I wasn't sure at this point.  

As I followed the lady around the building, I noticed a familiar face. Arthur. I stopped in my tracks and stared at him. 

“Oh, hey Jeannette.” He chuckled without looking up. “Fancy seeing you here.” I gaped at him.

“What, what’s going on? How are you here? I don’t understand.”  The elderly lady looked over.

“You two know each other? How nice! It’ll be good to have a familiar face here.” 

“Yeah, I know him but not from this time period! How is he here? He would have to be like a hundred years old!”

The old lady turned and whispered loudly to a passing man. 

“I think we hired a loony.” 

“Aw Peggy, you say that about everybody! At least this one is a pretty face” He winked at me.  I tried hard not to blush.  

Throughout the day, I performed office tasks as any receptionist would do.  It took me a bit to figure out the telephone, which the operator did not find amusing.  As I stumbled through the day, I was both ridiculed and flirted with, sometimes by the same men.  Many of the other women seemed resigned to the fact that they were seen as lesser individuals. I was not.  Towards lunch hour, I was ordered to go retrieve sandwiches and coffee for the men, which I politely refused, mouthing that I was on the phone with an important client. 

After receiving a harsh lecture about the duties of a woman in the workplace, I wiped away an unwelcome tear.  

“Hey sweetheart, you think you can manage to take these files upstairs? Unless you’re too good for that.” He elbowed his desk partner and snickered. They both sneered at me. Not wanting to make things harder on myself, I snatched the papers and stalked up the stairs. I stopped suddenly. Hadn’t I done this before? I had just gone up this same stairwell not 6 hours ago. At least I thought I had. It seemed like every time I walked into a room, I would get deja vu. In fact, why was I even acting up to these men? After all, I was lucky I had even gotten this job when so many girls had applied.   

As I reached the top of the stairs, I pulled the chain for the lightbulb but it didn’t turn on. Someone must have forgotten to replace the lights. I felt my way along the dusty wall to the file cabinets in the back. 

As I was opening the file cabinet, all my memories came flooding back. I dropped the files and spun around but the door was gone. My heart sank, and my head began throbbing.  Wildy, I ran to the wall, searching for a hidden door but there was nothing. Why was this happening to me? I slumped to the floor, sobbing and screaming but no help came. 

The wispy voices came crawling back and this time I could actually see the spiders. My eyes started rapidly blinking and eventually I shut them. Suddenly, the voices disappeared and I opened my eyes to see a light down the hallway. Scrambling up, I shook the webby shadows off me and stumbled to the door. I didn’t know where it would lead me but if it was away from the spiders and the dark, I didn’t care.  

I reached for the knob and yanked the door open.  What I saw nearly caused me to drop to the floor.  Once again I was in an office, or what looked like a lab with comfortable chairs and squishy bean bags. However, nearly everything was a light green, with accents of grey.  Someone ran into me, hard. 

“Hey lady! Get out of the way! You know our motto! Time is energy and we don't waste it!”  

I blinked, scuttling to the side.  Nearly everyone was wearing headsets that spanned their entire head but no one was moving or talking.  They all sat, staring at their machines.  One woman got up from her chair, walked over to a blocky looking device, and gazed intently at it.  Papers sprouted from the top of the strange machine.  I gazed around in confusion. It seemed like no one was working!  So much for the important energy, the guy was talking about.

“Hey, where’s your headset. Aren’t you supposed to be doing your job?” A lady was standing behind me, peering at my head. “Wait, do you have one of the latest models? I heard they can imbed them directly into your neurons! Oh my gosh! That’s so cool! You should tell me what it’s like!” 

I chuckled awkwardly. “Oh um, yeah of course.”  The lady let out a peal of laughter. “Goodness, your accent is so quaint!” 

“Uh, thanks? I like you-” I stopped and stared. Across the room, the same man had been staring at me the entire time I’d been talking.  My jaw dropped. I’d already seen that unnatural smile twice today. The giggly lady looked at me with concern.

“Are you alright?  You look as if you've seen a ghost! I bet it’s the new headset! It must be hard to control.”

“Uh, yeah, yeah, that’s it. I have to go. Bye.” I quickly walked away before she could start talking again. Arthur strolled right up to me and handed me a coffee cup with a weird screen on the side. 

I peered at the screen.  It said that my coffee was a Peruvian blend with no decaf. In a Roman Times font, it recorded that two spoonfuls of sugar had been added.  I looked back up at Arthur who winked at me. 

“That’s how you like it right?” I couldn’t take this anymore. Thrusting the coffee at him, I started to back away. Unfortunately, the coffee didn’t spill. Stupid futuristic gadgets. I kicked the cup at him then ran.  

He snarled at me, lunging toward my arm.  I shook him off and darted away, down the hall. Someone, maybe it was Giggly Lady, yelled for security. Kicking off my heels, I ran faster. Eventually, I ducked into a door hoping no one else was in there. I stopped short, noticing a child huddled in the corner. He was hugging his knees and rocking back and forth.  At my entrance, he stopped and slowly looked up. 

“Are you hiding from them too?” His bloodshot eyes gazed into mine. The doorknob rattled and I ran toward the back of the room. Giving the kid a quizzical glance, I rushed through the door there and smacked into Arthur. We stared at each other with surprised expressions on our faces.

“Uh, bye.” I dashed off. Arthur whistled and I heard guards behind me. For all their technology, they weren’t doing a very good job of catching me. I saw the door to the stairwell, lunged through it, and quickly slammed and locked the door behind me. 

My chest heaving, I scrambled up the smooth stairs. There had been a headache coming on when I was running but it seemed to be going away. The light was on for once and now that I was able to see, everything seemed almost cozy. There were no spiders or wispy voices. 

At the end of the hallway was a single door. Something seemed right about this one. Hopefully, it would bring me back to where I belonged. I opened the door and stepped through...