No. No, I didn't.

Unless you're one of those charmed bastards, you've had one of these days. You can take five out of seven buses from that bus-stop to where you're going and the other two come twice each before them. A usually innocuous slip dumps that hot coffee on your lap. Just before the huge, fuck-off important meeting.

Nothing goes quite the way it's supposed to. Doing your damnedest, everything that's expected from you is still late.

Hectic, hectic week and a half. Crazed, WTF DID THE TIME GO sort of thing. Still, it was bearable. Almost against my will, an unanticipated...tinkle, flavoured things nicely, much like the sweet-after-medicine deal for little sick kids.

It's distressing to discover, however, that I now seem to be a Responsible Adult. Mr Ancob - the boss - is out of the country. And instead of HURHUR GO LATE LEAVE EARLY, I instead work ever longer hours than the usual crazed ones to keep up. I'm almost disappointed with myself.

Stuff had to get done. And as said, all of me to do it with. I get to the office at three-thirty in the morning after a jug and two bottles, dazed but determined.

Bad combination.

The ingrained routine takes over. Switch everything on, empty pockets onto table. I decide to wash my face before tackling anything. Stifling the 34th yawn, I lurch out of the office.

Something occurred to me just before the door shut behind me. The instant lay between the softer click the metal in-outie bit by the side of the door makes as it contacts the edge before the hole and the louder sound of it springing back into place, extended into the hole.

I freeze. My eyes go from "half-closed with sleep and beer" to "walk in on parents having sex".

Silence.

No. No, I didn't. Did I?

Mouthing the words airlessly, I turn. The fluorescent light glinted maliciously off the doorknob. Rapidly, I replay the past five seconds in my mind.

With doorknobs these days, a push of a tiny button locks the door from the inside with a springy clack. So easy. There's no excuse for forgetting. Must make sure everything is secure. But I tend to be casual about it. Even when alone at the office, how much disaster can happen in a pee-span?

No use. The usually welcome haze of a beer or five left me yet in doubt. I reach with trepidation for the doorknob.

Grip.

Breathe.

Turn.

chikachika.

...

chikachikachika

...

Bloody 'ell.


There I was, outside the office three-forty in the morning, inebriated and nothing else on me besides the clothes on my back. For the first ten minutes, I reminded myself to be calm and rational. Ah, the picture hanging off the door. I take it down and undo the wire it hung by. Follow twenty minutes of poke-prodding, inspired by too many movies that while entertaining, tend to lie about things like how easily locks are picked.

Then I proceed to lose it.

Another twenty minutes later, victory was...the door's. Bruised and battered, I learned new respect for the flimsy-looking shit that is cubicle panelling.

I can't remember ever feeling quite as low as when I flipped the door off in unwilling admission of defeat.

Cue walk to friend's place. A fair distance in normal circumstances became interminable, with a bruised foot. Reach. Scare seven types of it out of said friend. Sleep.


You evil wooden bastard. For now, you are needed. But one day...one day. Ten minutes with an axe, and a night of toasting marshmallows.