RWC #45

LIFE FORM

She read the headline again, and almost spilled the cup of joe she had in her left hand, she was laughing so hard.

"UFO Over NYC"  

She chuckled as she put the paper down.  Oh geez!  All the people freaking out over a light in the sky!  Shaking her head, she finished the coffee and rinsed the mug before drying it and putting it back in the cupboard.  As she got ready for work, she wondered how many of those people who saw the lights actually thought they were seeing an unidentified flying object, Brushing back her very short red curls, she smeared some lip balm over her chronically chapped lips and grabbed her backpack.

No doubt all the talk at work would be about the UFOs.  Well, she knew she could avoid it if she stayed in the mail room.  No one bothered her there, and she was glad of that.  After the last two years, she reveled in the peace and quiet, and most of all, the anonymity, of the mail room.

Hopping off the train at the last stop, she walked briskly through the cold morning air to the laboratory, and passing through the employees entrance, she swiped her ID card and smiled at the security officer stationed there.  He was a pudgy little man, with blotchy skin and a bald head, and the most beatific smile, complete with dimples.  Everybody loved Charlie, and he returned their affection with great good humor and warm acceptance.

"Morning, May!" he said in his surprisingly virile man's voice.  The depth and timbre of it always struck a place inside her like a whip.

Morning, December!" she answered with another broad grin, and waved as she walked away.

Their morning ritual was special to her.  Without Charlie, she was just another face in the crowd.  He made he feel like part of something important - a friendship.  Turning down the long corridor to the capacious mail room, she passed the small secondary morgue, where Joe the Skeleton presided at the door in gruesome splendor.  Suppressing the shiver she invariably felt at this part of the way, she hurried to her place in the mail room just past it down the hall.

As she had become accustomed to it, the absence of anyone else at this hour did not bother her.  As long as the door remained closed, she could live with the knowledge of the dead almost next door. Putting her coat and backpack away in the locker assigned to her, she got to work on checking the sorted mail for the day.  She was scheduled to do the deliveries this week, which meant if anyone had left any sorting undone, she would be late delivering the mail.

A sound at the door made her look up, but it didn't open so she went back to checking that the mail had been sorted by floors, and where required, by offices.  Bulky mail had been placed on the motorized cart for ease of distribution, and she nodded, half an hour later, satisfied that she would make the "morning run" on time.  Checking the watch hanging from the chain around her neck, she saw she had time for another cup of joe before her day began in earnest.

The money for the cup of coffee was already in the snug side pocket of her uniform, and she walked out the door to the coffee machine across the hall from the mail room.  The hairs on the back of her neck stiffened, and she turned, alarmed, but saw nothing.  She stopped in front of the machine and listened, but no reason for her increasing heartbeat was apparent. 

She called out.  "Hello?  Is anyone there?"

That there was no answer did not surprise her.  No one was likely to arrive for another half hour.  She was always the first to get there, so she could do her checks and be ready to roll before the others came, or the press of people who frequented these chilling halls became more than she could stand.  And yet...the feeling that there was a presence there did not leave her.

Shaking her head, and breathing deeply to calm her quaking nerves, she got her coffee and returned to the mail room.  Everything was in order...except for what looked like an aquarium, glowing faintly in the back corner, the darkest part of the room, where neither daylight nor lamp light quite reached.  Gripping her cup for dear life, she walked toward the glow, hesitating a moment to wonder whether or not she should call for backup.

The melodramatic phrase made her giggle nervously, and she chided herself to stop being a ninny and just check out the corner.  Stepping resolutely around the last stack of mail, she felt herself prepared to scream for help if need be.  What she saw stole her breath...and her voice.

No one in the mail room attended to the aquarium till each had gone to investigate its faint glow. And no one else got any mail...

Copyright © 2010 by Teri K D Bannerman

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