Boxed In
Kathy did not quite remember how she got here. But she remembered that this was a room she used to come to quite often. To place the redundant office supplies, to put low priority files when there was nowhere else, and sometimes, admittedly ashamedly, to cry, when there was no one around. But at some point, for some reason, she just stopped coming here. And the reason for this change was another thing that escaped her memory.
Could this be a dream? Maybe, quite possibly. Kathy could feel a similar sense of detachment, general numbness and weariness she felt when she was in her dreams. And it seemed like just like many of her other unpleasant dreams, she could not move a muscle other than those on her forehead and in her tongue - she could not even feel her arms or legs, it seemed her dream of paralysis an inaction had gotten way worse than before. Was it the stress of work? Or was it the self doubt she constantly felt? She didn’t know, though she could vaguely recall she was about to do something exciting with a handsome and kind of wild guy she met earlier. Maybe she would remember when she woke up.
“Hello? Anyone?” Kathy tried to call out, but no sound came from her mouth or throat, and it only resounded in her head. For some reason, she seemed to have lost her ability to speak in this dream or even make a sound.
The supply closets in this room looked strangely tall from her angle, especially the one standing right in front of her, where all the boxes of old folders, tapes and staplers were stored.
“Anyone?” She tried again, but could only hear her voice in her head and not out loud, nothing came out of her mouth or throat, not even a breath of air. She’s beginning to wonder how she could wake up at this point - usually if she did something drastic and terrifying like jumping off a building, or hurt herself, she would wake right up and find herself sweaty on her bed, but those don’t seem like options right now.
There was a light breeze blowing on her face - the airflow into the room seemed unimpeded, an indication that the door of the storage room was open. It was strange, because per Kathy’s experience, due to the layout of the floor, this door could rarely stay open without something wedged in the gap due to the airflow in the office.
Dust rose from the shelves inside the closet right in front of her with the wind - had nobody cleaned this place up?
Faint footsteps came from outside and approached the storage room, and within a few minutes, she heard a concerned voice asking: “Hey, Sam, what happened? Did you fall? Are you drunk again?”
“Who the fuck is Sam? Did no one know my name in this corporate office of dread and bore?” Kathy scoffed.
“Look at all this mess - you’ll get canned if they find out.” The same voice complained, and Kathy heard the sound of someone picking up pieces of paper, plastic wrappings and some other soft and slightly crunchy things from the ground.
“How long would it even take you to clean up - what the hell is this - ” The voice came closer to Kathy, and for a brief moment, she saw the face of a tired middle-aged man wearing a old and dirty cap staring down at her - his facial muscles froze in shock, his eyes opened almost as wide as his mouth with brown and crooked teeth inside, his tongue curled up but unmoving.
“Fuck!” The man cursed and backed off, and seemed to have tripped on something and fallen onto the ground while he was screaming. His body banged into something wooden with quite a force, and the vibration and shock even seemed to have bounced Kathy up a little and changed the direction in which she was facing, and the supply closet moved to the side in her vision, and something new came in, something white, fluffy and kind of crunchy.
Yellow cardboard paper half folded and extending into the air with an angle, and pieces of white, fluffy cylindrical things.
Packing peanuts, how could she not tell - she used to deal with them almost on a daily basis.