The elevator always stops on the fourth floor even though nobody pressed the button… I used to hold my breath, but now I just step aside and let whatever wants to get on, get on. Maybe it's been riding with me this whole time and I just never looked over.
An email just appeared that I've already read… except I haven't opened it yet. I know what it says. I know I'll delete it without replying. And I know it'll be waiting here again tomorrow at this exact time.
Monday mornings always start with this sound… the elevator ding, three footsteps down the hall, someone's coffee spilling in the breakroom. I could set my watch by it, except my watch stopped working months ago and nobody noticed.
The sky outside is doing that thing again... turning from black to gray before the sun even rises. I've watched this exact shade of almost-morning more times than I can count. Sometimes I wonder if the loop has a favorite color.
Someone left a document in the scanner... I can see its edge glowing through the glass. It's been waiting here longer than I have, and that's saying something.
Everyone is leaving now… briefcases clicking, footsteps toward the elevator, the sound of lives that continue. I should probably pack up too, but my chair has this way of holding onto me tighter when the sun starts to fade.
The clock says 12:47 and my stomach says... nothing. I think I forgot what hunger sounds like. The fluorescent lights are my lunch today.
It's so quiet right now... the kind of quiet that makes me forget I'm supposed to be somewhere, doing something, answering to someone. In a few hours, the fluorescent lights will swallow this moment whole.
Sundays used to mean something... now they're just another shade of fluorescent light. Outside this building, people are probably having dinner with their families, and I'm here wondering if I still remember my own password.
The windows are just mirrors now… all the city lights turned into my own tired face staring back. Sometimes I wave, just to see if the reflection does something different this time.