Should've been in Rotterdam by six, had a whole thing with a guy about container tracking software nobody asked me to solve but I do it anyway. Now I'm here instead, listening to that microphone up by the desk pick up nothing and somehow still feel like it's judging me. You catch that hum? Started twenty minutes ago. Nobody's come to explain it.
Yeah, that hum's annoying. Sounds like a fridge motor given too much voltage. I tried to ignore it for the first ten minutes, then I started tapping my foot in time with it. Now it's just background noise. Rotterdam's probably fine. You'd just be solving another container thing while everyone else drinks beer. I'm sitting here thinking about how I used to hate my old office, the one with the flickering lights and the guy who always ate fish in the breakroom. Now I'd give anything for a flicker. At least that means the power's working. This static is worse.
Fish guy. Every office has one, I swear it's a law. Mine's got a woman who microwaves eggs at 9 a.m. like she's trying to drive us all out. I'd take that smell over this right now, honestly — at least it's a smell with an origin story. This is just noise from nowhere, no source, no explanation, and everyone pretending that's fine.
Exactly. Egg smell is honest. This hum is a lie. We're just waiting for a guy who doesn't care that we're stuck. I read somewhere that silence is just sound we haven't tuned into yet, which is stupid, but maybe this is just a frequency no one likes. I tried to count the seconds between the hum's little spikes, but I lost track after forty. Just stared at the wall instead. There's a crack in the paint near the door that looks like a map of nowhere. You ever wonder what would happen if we just walked out the back? Probably nothing. But at least we'd be moving.
Probably nothing, yeah, and that's the worst part — no locked door drama, just a hallway that goes somewhere unremarkable and a guy at a desk asking why you're wandering. I looked earlier. Back exit's propped with a fire extinguisher like someone already had this idea and gave up halfway. That crack you're talking about, near the frame? I clocked it too. Looks more like a river system than a map, if you squint.
River system works better. More organic. At least a river has a current, even if it's going nowhere. I've been staring at that fire extinguisher too. It's red, which seems like a wasted opportunity for morale. If we walked out, the guy at the desk would probably just sigh and ask if we're leaving the building. That's the horror, isn't it? No dramatic chase, just bureaucratic indifference. I'd rather be chased by a ghost than treated like a missed deadline. You think the hum is trying to tell us something about the river? Or is it just a broken wiring job in the wall?
Wiring, no question. Rivers don't have compressors. I used to fix that kind of thing actually — did two years running maintenance on refrigeration units before the container job, and that hum's got the exact stutter of a capacitor giving up. Nothing mystical, just a part somebody should've replaced last spring. Ghosts don't leave a paper trail. This does — somewhere there's a work order with this room's number on it, gathering dust.
That makes sense, I guess. A capacitor. Less romantic than ghosts, but at least it's a thing you can fix, not some existential dread. Though I doubt anyone's coming to fix it. They probably think we're still in Rotterdam. Or maybe the work order got filed under "people who complain." I bet the guy who wrote it up retired. Or died. That's the thing about these places, the problems outlive the people assigned to them. Like that crack in the wall, it's been there since before any of us showed up, waiting for a better hum.
Filed under "people who complain," yeah, that's about right, that's a category with real staying power. The crack's got seniority on all of us — probably watched a dozen delays like this one, a dozen guys pacing exactly where you're pacing now. Makes you the temp in its long-running job. Anyway I'm not calling Rotterdam. If nobody's coming for the capacitor, nobody's coming for us either, and I'd rather not find that out twice in one day.
Smart. Calling Rotterdam is just admitting we're still chasing that six o'clock slot. Which doesn't exist. I'd rather just sit here and let the capacitor win. Maybe if we stop looking for a way out, the hum stops feeling like an interrogation. It's just a broken part in a wall that doesn't care who we are. I'm going to close my eyes. If I can't see the crack, maybe it can't see me either. That's not philosophy, just optics.
Optics, sure. Try it. Meanwhile I'm gonna keep pacing near the extinguisher, because sitting still with a capacitor humming at me feels like losing on purpose. There was a guy in Rotterdam who was gonna show me a fix for a routing bug — that's gone now, whatever, add it to the list. Wake me if the hum changes pitch. That'll be the only news worth having in this place.
Pacing is good, keeps the blood moving. Don't let the guy in Rotterdam become a myth, though. If you start treating that bug like some lost treasure, you'll be here until the capacitor rusts out. Just a routing error. Boring. I'm closing my eyes. If the pitch changes, I'll assume it's the building finally giving up and collapse before you do.
Fair, it's a boring bug, I'll let it die where it belongs. Go on and close your eyes then — I'll keep watch on the extinguisher and the crack, make sure neither one does anything dramatic without telling us first. If the building's actually going to collapse I'd like a little warning, not just a pitch change and then drywall.
Good. Drywall would be an improvement, actually. Less hum, more rubble. Just don't start a fire with that extinguisher while you're pacing; we'd both end up on a list somewhere. I'm still here. Eyes shut. The hum sounds the same, if that matters. It's almost rhythmic now, like a lullaby for people who gave up. You keep watch. If the crack gets wider, holler. I'll fake a dream or something.
Won't torch anything, promise, though the extinguisher does sit there like a dare. Hum's the same from over here too — same stutter, same fake little rhythm trying to pass itself off as music. Crack looks unchanged, still just a river to nowhere. Go on and fake your dream. I'll holler if the building actually decides to commit to something for once.
Dream's a blur of filing cabinets and that fish smell, just drifting. No containers, no Rotterdam, just the hum in the background like a bad radio station. Sometimes in the dream, the crack in the wall opens up and shows a different room, but it's just another hallway with the same hum. I think I'm waking up now, not because anything changed, but because staring at nothing is harder than listening to it. Did the pitch shift at all? Or did we just imagine it changing?
Didn't shift. Same stutter, same fake rhythm — I was watching, more or less. We didn't imagine anything changing, we just wanted something to. That's the whole problem in here, everyone's ears straining for a difference that isn't coming. Glad the dream didn't give you Rotterdam though. Small mercy. Fish smell's probably more honest than anything this room's got to offer right now.