Intrico

         “Section 19, row 15, seat 19, please report to the director’s office. Section 19, row 15, seat 19 please report to the director’s office.”
         The announcer stills for a moment, giving one, were there one, the impression that he is listening intently, most probably to whomever speaks through the black speaker seemingly permanently attached to his left ear. Then he calls out:
         “Section 1, row 91, seat 519, please report to the infirmary. Section 1, row 91, seat 519, please report to the infirmary.” Once again he stills.
         Over and again this scene takes place, every few seconds for hours at a time. The announcer is a man with gray-speckled dark blonde hair. His hairline has just begun to recede. He wears a once perfectly pressed now slightly rumpled gray flannel suit and a gray bow-tie uniting the collar of a black cotton dress shirt. The shape of his face is round but his cheeks are gaunt, creating a strange compliment. He wears half-moon spectacles on the top of his head, circling around the back of his neck with a black nylon string, comfortable. His nose is flat, his lips are thin and his eyes are empty black. A more ideal citizen could not have been found for unimaginable distances in any direction and this man knows this, if only this.
         He has a lovely voice: clear, gentle, strong. The way a channel might sound in that area right before it joins an ocean. Right before it stops being alone. The way one could easily imagine such a river but can no longer so simply find one. His lips are less than an inch away from a large metallic microphone, one with an obtrusive button to depress when speaking. It’s connected to an endlessly long cord that disappears somewhere behind the man’s desk.
         Man is just finishing a momentary pause and presses his finger down on the button once more and speaks into the receiver. This time his words are halting. They are too jumbled to make out. When the man realizes this new inability he visibly becomes shaken, panicky as he tries to push the right words out to no avail. He jumps up knocking his chair down and away in the process. This seems to send him into yet another quivering bout. Upon his face rages an interior all-out war between only the infamous ‘they’ might know.
         Momentarily the apparent “rational” part of him has either regained or finally gained control. He straightens himself and faultlessly walks to the exquisite view of the sun’s setting from his window three stories up. If this trek could have been witnessed by numerous individuals than numerous arguments would have arose regarding the state Man is in. For the truth of it is that it is impossible to tell whether the imperceptible spring in his step occurs due to joy or hesitation. Whether the expression he wears is serene or barely concealed terror. Or whether his dignified stance is in actuality rigid with defeat. Only one could have put to ease these latent speculations but that one is at this moment leaping over the edge of a window in a nameless building three stories up.
         His descent is soundless for with further inspection the glass proves to have long been shattered. With this realization a more thorough sweep of the room becomes necessary and with this payment of attention comes answers to questions not yet asked. The first point begging to be noticed is that there is a surprising lack of illumination. The sun has now gone and with its depart the absence of light fixtures becomes apparent. In even the waning sunlight it is evident that this room, this whole building, has not been otherwise occupied for quite a while. The only exit from this room is a doorjamb and the remnants of a door that appears to have been plowed through with an axe. Only the hinges remain functional. Indeed the whole of the place holds same such hints toward an all-encompassing blaze. The walls are peeling and stained black with soot as well as ageless water spots and streaks. The floor is merely dark gray cement but traces of carpet continue to cling here and there, the color now either indiscernible or smoky black.
         The only furniture present is that large wooden desk. Its drawers are inexistent and while the body of it is visibly worn and battered the surface on top is sanded and polished to a ridiculous gleam. Its reflection of the suns red rays bound onto the ceiling and walls creating indescribable beauty were there a one there to attempt to do so. Where there is a ceiling it appears marble in its waltz of white and black.
         In the corner farthest from the window is a makeshift nest of filthy blankets and what one can only assume had been a pillow for now it is a lump pulsating with various insects indistinguishable from one another. Their procession though is fleeing as if an unspoken, or maybe even vocalized, agreement existed between the fallen man and them concerning the hours of occupancy for each. As a last grasp for understanding one may focus now on that menacing microphone. That one would walk around to the rear of the desk Man sat in such a short time ago (or has it been ages?) to follow the endless cord to an abrupt end: its severed stump.
         And no one yet knows whether upon his lips as he tumbled quietly toward a rushing yet forgiving pavement played a horrified grimace or a slight smile.