The sweat was dripping down his face and into the corners of his eyes. He blinked furiously, but with the gun pressed against his temple he didn’t dare try to wipe the sweat away.
He was nervous and hot.
But the room itself didn’t seem any warmer, in fact he felt a cool breeze blow across his ankles. It was coming from the room’s only vent.
The cold metal of the gun against his face contrasted his own rising temperature. But even that didn’t last, the metal quickly warmed as it remained pressed to his flesh.
The coolness of the object was absorbed by his quickly expanding aura of panic.
But how had he gotten here? What was happening?
It was like waking from a dream, his vision and realization snapping back into focus as his recollection slowly fell into place.
There had been something here, in here with him.
But that wasn’t right, that couldn’t have been. Had he imagined that? But what about everything else?
Now he was remembering – and it hadn’t been his imagination, it was more than that.
But how had he gotten here?
When someone offers you a job opportunity like that, especially one that offers that much pay there is always a certain amount of caution. If it’s too good, or too easy, to be true – it probably is.
Instinctively more than a few alarm bells went off in his subconscious.
“So, you’re saying you want me to guard a single, empty room for an hour – and you’re going to pay me $100,000 dollars to do that?”
“That’s right. That’s what we’re offering.”
It didn’t make any sense.
When you work for a security firm, you quickly realize that the more a job pays, the more dangerous it is. But that didn’t seem to be the case here.
“What exactly would I be guarding? What is in this room?”
“Only what you bring with you. You’re firearm, equipment, phone, etc.”
He had worked plenty of jobs that were explicitly hazardous environments.
Chemical plants, where a small mistake could cause a big explosion.
Political rallies where those attending had been worked into an explosive furor. He’d felt the press of unruly crowds before, people pushing against him like a conscious wave of meat.
There were also plenty of private security jobs for individuals and small organizations which were almost certainly taking part in highly illicit and extremely volatile dealings. Which brought with them a lot of unknown, but certainly dangerous, variables.
None of those jobs however had ever paid anything near what was being offered here.
And for just one hour of work.
After the initial offer he made a call to the main office of his firm. He wanted to make sure that this was legitimate, that this work had passed all of the background checks, and other safety requirements.
After headquarters confirmed the details, they also informed him that there were multiple shifts being filled at the same rate of pay. They were requesting to station a guard at the same location nearly every hour of the day. The only exceptions were the hours of Noon, Midnight, and 3 a.m.
His office encouraged him to accept the job quickly because other guards had already heard about these offers and were eager to fill the shifts.
Yeah, no shit.
After hanging up with the main office, he returned and accepted the offer.
The details regarding the job were sparse, but simple.
The company wanted a guard stationed in a specific room, for no longer than an hour at a time. During which time no one was to enter the room and the guard was forbidden to leave.
When he asked about what he would be guarding they provided no answer, merely stating that he didn’t need to know.
The guards were permitted any of their standard high priority security equipment. Gun, taser, multitool, phone, and walkie. They would provide a locker at the facility for any other personal effects.
Before the guard could ask, they informed him that there would be no further shifts available beyond those which had already been filled.
This was a one-time offer.
He was escorted to his post by a non-descript individual wearing a sleeveless sweater over a button down shirt and jeans. The person carried a key card on their hip and used it to open a door into a featureless concrete hallway.
The hallway lead down to an intersection of three other halls, each direction was just as featureless as the way they came.
With the exception of the left-hand path, where a door was set into the wall a short distance down the hallway.
This was the entryway to the room he’d be guarding.
The first twenty minutes were completely uneventful.
There was absolutely nothing in the room itself.
It was roughly 50 feet square with white walls and white tile flooring. The ceiling had an inset lighting fixture which bathed the room in harsh bright light. In one corner there was an air conditioning vent which lazily blew cool air across the floor.
Pacing back and forth the guard tried to think of what the scenario could be which would require this specific room to have an armed guard.
The best he could come up with was that the hallways outside were used to move valuable assets. Cash perhaps, or some sort of product they manufactured here.
Maybe they wanted this space for a fallback position if they ran into trouble, or a place to have extra security to call out en route if there was an issue.
But that didn’t really make any sense considering the job requirements.
The contract he signed specifically stated that no other individuals were to enter the room during the shift and the guard was not to leave the room, under any circumstances, or their terms and compensation would immediately be voided.
$100,000
It didn’t matter why they wanted him in this room, he could put up with anything for an hour to make that kind of money.
Leaning against one of the walls he took a moment to close his eyes, shielding them against the sterile fluorescent light around him.
Listening to his own breathing he also heard the quiet clicking sound of the air conditioning starting its cycle again.
A soft breeze was lazily escaping between the thin metal grates of the room’s only vent.
Leaning forward he opened his eyes and was immediately startled to see movement out of the corner of his vision.
Across the edge of his sight a dark shape seemed to slink across the room. He quickly bolted forward and turned in the direction of the movement. But there was nothing there.
His heart pounded in his chest as he chuckled to himself.
Boredom and imagination seemed to be getting the best of him.
Checking his phone he saw he had half an hour left. Just a few more laps around the room and he’d have the money and practically be a new person.
But something wasn’t right.
His eyes didn’t feel right, more accurately his sight was wrong.
He was no longer looking at his phone, but rather seeing himself standing there, looking at his phone.
It was as if he was floating above his own body looking down at the room.
He moved his hand slowly and strangely saw himself turning his hand in the air.
He pocketed his phone and watched himself put the device away.
His pulse remained elevated.
Was this a seizure? Had he fallen asleep?
Those thoughts quickly left his mind as his surroundings were replaced with nothing – a void. The room was gone, he was gone, and there was no light and no dark. It was all an indescribable nothing.
Then slowly something began to take shape in front of him.
It didn’t make sense to him, it wasn’t approaching or even appearing but rather it was as if the scene was being constructed in front of him. Small pinpricks of light, tiny specks of dust congealing as if atoms were combining to take shape of something he couldn’t yet determine.
Gradually the atoms coalesced into him, but it wasn’t him as he had appeared in the room. It was an older version of him, from his past – he was younger and there was someone else with him.
The two of them were looking at a canvas together.
The younger version of himself seemed to be in a hurry, he shrugged, shook his head and said a few words to the other person before walking away.
He vaguely remembered this moment from his past.
The other person was his cousin – they’d been working on some project from art school and had asked to hear his thoughts. He had been in a hurry at the time, had a bad day, and was annoyed by his cousin’s prodding and desire for validation. He’d dismissed the piece as trivial, told his cousin it looked pretty amateurish.
And he had been in a rush to be somewhere else, so he may have stated his opinions a bit too hastily.
The scene flashed forward showing his cousin, later in life, they were in the process of moving. They had dropped out of school, he remembered that. The whole family had talked about it, everyone was disappointed. His cousin moved out west somewhere, got away from everyone and got into drugs.
The guard didn’t know the exact details of what happened, only that two years later he got word that his cousin had died of an overdose. Supposedly an accident.
Was that his fault? Had his opinion been held in such high regard by his cousin?
Surely an artist would need a thick skin against such criticism? Or had that interaction between them just been enough to push his cousin in the wrong direction?
His lack of interest, his flippant disregard for their work.
A lifelong relationship revealed eroded in an unsuspecting moment – causing his cousin to reflect on their own truths, the hidden knowledge they already knew but couldn’t fully admit to themselves.
This reflection of the guard’s life expanded into nothing once again only to contract back into focus, this time he was even younger. Middle school.
A large group of kids were orbiting one another. He could see the group roughly separated by boys and girls - the boys laughing, joking. They’re making fun of one of the girls.
He honestly had no recollection of this particular reflection of his life. He wouldn’t have even suspected that it involved him if he hadn’t recognized the younger version of himself among the group.
It was so strange to see his own softened features of youth in motion once again.
A face he once knew so well but realized had long since vanished. Now however he found himself suddenly inhabiting that childhood presence once more.
It was like wearing an old pair of shoes that were no longer your size but suddenly found them fitting once again.
The boys were laughing and teasing one of the girls, ‘Betsy’ they were calling her – but he remembered that she preferred to be called Elizabeth.
The group of boys were all being mean and relentlessly cruel.
The other girls yelled back, but they seemed tense, they were also scared. As though the meanness might suddenly target them next if they defended Elizabeth too much.
Elizabeth was looking at him, the younger version of him,that stood among that crowd. Though he hadn’t been in her face overtly hurling the insults and attacks, he had still been there.
He’d stayed in the back reluctant to do anything that might draw attention. He smiled when he thought he needed to and laughed when the others laughed.
And that’s all that Elizabeth saw.
She didn’t even remember who the loudest boy was in that group or who it was that reached down and pulled her shoe laces apart and made fun of her clothes.
She only saw that he was there, with them.
His face was there as she suffered and was humiliated and that was the biggest betrayal.
She thought they were friends.
Later on he wouldn’t understand why she suddenly didn’t want to be friends with him anymore. He didn’t understand how she could possibly be mad at him.
He hadn’t even said anything to her, he had thought at the time, trying to ease his own hurt feelings.
Just then he saw the trajectory of Elizabeth’s life – a successful woman, college, law school. But there was a parallel life, a personal life of cautious relationships and misread intentions.
Of course that single incident on a middle school playground wasn’t the entire catalyst for a lifetime of emotional strife but it had certainly been a substantial stepping stone.
The vision twisted anew and he saw himself only a few years before his current life, when his grandmother was alive.
He saw his grandmother’s old dog slowly pacing around her house looking as miserable as she had been.
He had helped his grandmother as much as he could, because his father had asked him too.
His parents were working a lot already and taking care of grandma had been a substantial stress. They wouldn’t have been able to keep up. He did what he could, but it made him anxious.
He disliked being at his grandmother’s house.
He felt bad for his grandma, felt pity for this once proud, strong woman who had raised, not only her children but half of her grandkids as well. Being in that place always made him panic about his grandmother’s inevitable end, and contemplate his own death as well.
There were a lot of emotions surrounding his time helping his grandmother but he’d been glad to help. He did what he could.
But he knew the dog needed help as well.
Grandma couldn’t take it to the vet as often as it needed, couldn’t get its nails trimmed, bathe it, or any of that.
His parents hadn’t ever thought of the dog, beyond feeding it.
But he had always liked that dog, and seeing it neglected only added to the anxiety of his time with grandma.
Yet he didn’t say anything.
He didn’t say anything because he didn’t want to pile on additional stress for his parents but more selfishly he remembered, he never mentioned the dog because if he had, it would only mean he’d have to help out even more.
Then he would be over at his grandmothers more often, and it was already too much.
But now as he watched this vision, he saw himself there helping to clean his grandmother’s house.
And he viscerally felt the pain of the dog.
The hunger.
The hair matted with filth.
The overgrown claws curling under to dig into the pads of its feet.
He could feel the pain of each hobbled step as the dog crossed the linoleum kitchen floor to pathetically lap up a drink of water.
As this fresh pain mingled with remembered emotions, the constant worry of that time seeped back into his consciousness like burning wax, oozing and hot and the image around him changed once more.
And then again. And again.
Repeatedly over and over, for what seemed like an infinity.
Each time it was the same, a vision of himself and others in a small, seemingly forgettable moment from his life followed by the unfathomable consequences of those interactions.
Always bad, always negative results regardless of what his intention might have been - often times across far flung years.
He didn’t understand.
Where was the love? The good things he’d done in life? He knew there had been many. He remembered tender moments, sweetness, and joy, but just couldn’t recall them now – they were blocked to him in this hellish nightmare.
He now completely understood the absolute entirety of every bad thing he’d ever done, every unintentional misdeed, and fully grasped the expansive repercussions and guilt associated with those deeds.
Not only that but he physically saw the crowds of people who had negatively been affected by his actions during his lifetime, the lines of individuals spreading outward from the source in all directions like a creeping mold.
The sheer embarrassment he felt, the self-disgust welling up inside himself, was indescribable.
He was furiously pathetic as his mind swirled with expanded consciousness. He understood the concept of thought in a new way which bridged himself across to a new understanding of – empathy.
Yes, that is what it was. It is what he now was, and how he now felt.
And it was too much.
He reached down to the gun at his hip.
Sweat dotted his neck and forehead as tears streamed down his face. Freeing the gun from its holster he pressed the barrel against his temple.
Death could in no way undo the negativity he’d sown in his wake, but it would at least end his waking realization of it. For that was something he could no longer stand to crowd his thoughts with.
His face was hot, so damned hot.
But the room itself didn’t seem any warmer, in fact he felt a cool breeze blow across his ankles. It was coming from the room’s only vent.
There was a series of four knocks on the doorway.
It was the signal that his hour shift was over.
He quickly holstered his gun.
Hastily he wiped the sweat and tears away with the back of his sleeve.
He was still leaning against the wall.
Slowly he pushed himself forward making his way to the door.
The employee there asked him to follow, stating the next guard’s shift would be starting soon and they would have to be out before they arrived.
Hazily he followed. While contemplating who might be working the next shift, he would have felt something like pity for them, if he hadn’t still been completely numb.
All he could think about however was that no amount of money would have been worth this.