Authors: Samantha Forest
‘Oh morning Rob, god I’m so rude just launching into complaints straight away!’
‘Hey its cool, we’ve all been there’
Katie fumbled with her coat and untangled her auburn hair from her collar. Her features were small and refined, with wide set hazel eyes and round lips which were stained a deep red. Always slightly late and flustered, Katie’s somewhat disorganized ways obscured her incredibly sharp wit and competitive spirit. At first impression she was diminutive and sweet, but routinely ran rings around men who had worked in the company longer than she had with her consistently excellent business strategies and impeccable presentation. Rob was always slightly intimidated by Katie but in the best way, they matched each other in intellect and their conversations always strayed into intense political or philosophical debate. Rob revelled in meeting a girl who was so ready to challenge him, who had so few reservations about ‘appropriate’ behaviour for a girl. Her sometimes explosive temper spoke to a kind of passion and energy which Rob found immensely attractive.
Rob returned to his desk and started working his way through the morning’s emails. Nothing particularly thrilling – a few ongoing small cases about stolen cars, one potentially very expensive arson situation and then a series of notes from the higher ups about various training programs and an upcoming retirement party. Rob quickly moved through them, largely responding in rote form to the boring concerns and complaints in each one. Rob in recent months had found himself in this quiet exhaustion where everything around him seemed to move slightly slower than it was meant to. Almost imperceptibly, it was as if someone had turned down the colour saturation on his life. While he had never been exactly thrilled with his career path, it hadn’t felt quite as endless as it now did. His apartment hadn’t felt so empty. The city, clogged with roadworks and traffic and drunks as it always was, hadn’t felt as claustrophobic. Rob felt as if something large and shadowy was moving towards him. As if some kind of smog had begun to shift over his day to day life and it was so faint it was impossible to point out to anyone else. He felt selfish and even somewhat extravagant complaining. Obviously things couldn’t be intense and exciting all the time. Who was he to demand that life suddenly shift into high gear for him when there were so many around him who could only dream of the kind of quiet, stable life he now enjoyed? In short, these sorts of lacklustre days which were slowly growing into lacklustre weeks made Rob feel like a self-indulgent teenager. Depression to Robs mind wasn’t deep or interesting, it was just boring. It was that sleepy apathy that had lead him to his current job and to the string of failed relationships that stretched out behind him. Each girl, at her own pace, gradually arrived at the conclusion that he just wasn’t enough for them. Maybe enough for a few drinks every now and again or a one night stand, but for some reason Rob didn’t seem to ever elicit the kind of intrigue and excitement in women that he needed for them to decide to stay in his life. His hope was that his and Katie’s overlapping interests and complementary personalities would finally be enough to set things straight, but there was a little nagging voice in the back of his mind that still said he was too much and also too little to hold any girls attention for long.
As the sun set and gradually his colleagues started packing up for the evening, Rob closed up his computer and gathered his messenger bag and gym kit. Loosening his tie and putting in his headphones, he waved goodbye to Katie and the rest and headed for the elevator, the low orange halo of the city rising up behind them from the large windows. After two floors the elevator pinged and the door stuttered open, Patrick stepping inside. Patrick was with the legal department and was permanently laden down with boxes of files. Always the life and soul of the party, Patrick was the kind of person Rob always aimed to be. Confident and collected, girls fell over themselves to land at Patricks feet. Rob and Patrick had been friends for years, but it was always tinged with a degree of jealously and suspicion on Robs part.
‘Hey Rick, you’re looking snowed under as usual’, Rob laughed.
‘Some massive litigation around a divorce – husbands accusing the wife of deliberately having hidden or stolen half their stuff. All fairly bitter stuff. Women huh?’
‘Christ don’t I know it. Guess who I got an iMessage from last night’
‘Not Maria’ Patrick said, already sounding exasperated.
‘Who else?’
Patrick rolled his eyes at Rob. Always the romantic, he knew Rob would never say no to Maria. They had dated for about a year before Maria left him for a German guy and moved to Europe. Rob had been inconsolable for weeks and Patrick, secretly a bit of a softie under the severe lawyer exterior had been the one to pick up the pieces. Maria had been another redhead (not that Rob would ever admit to having a type) and generally always acted as if she was slightly out of Robs league, hence Patrick and Robs other friends had never taken too kindly to her
‘And what does she want now? Is she already bored with Sven?
‘Jesus Patrick don’t take any prisoners now. No she was just saying that she’s back in town, wanted to know if I wanted to get a drink’
‘What did you say?’
‘I said I was actually busy this week’, Rob smirked, satisfied with having surprised his friend.
‘Good, glad to see you’ve somewhat come to your senses’, Patrick said, half doubting Rob was telling the truth.
‘I have to head off, Patrick’ Rob said as they reached the ground floor ‘I’ll talk to you tomorrow’. Patrick waved goodbye and Rob lifted up his bags and headed for the exit. Coming out of the massive glass reception of the building, Rob was taken aback by the wave of heat and noise from the city traffic. He turned up his music and pulled his hood up, trying to block out the urban chaos. It was raining a little bit but was still warm, making for the uncomfortable combination of dust, humidity and sweat. After walking through the crowds for ten minutes Rob got to the gym. He undressed quickly, shoving his suit and shoes into his locker, changing into shorts and a t-shirt and half slamming the door behind him. Rob was tall and slim. From a distance his body was almost feminine, but up close you could see that he was the product of an intense gym regimen. All through college and school he had been a long distance runner, spending much of his teenage years running alone through the fields around his house. Hours and hours could go by before he was finished, and it was just him and whatever the environment threw at him be that driving rain or scorching sun. Rob stood in front of the mirrors in the gym and began to stretch, feeling the muscles in his calves and shoulders begin to unclench after a long day hunched over a computer. In these sorts of environments Rob was in his element. His long, confident strides were elegant and well measured and despite the fact that he looked completely calm and relaxed, anyone close enough to read the display on his treadmill could see he was clocking up some serious speed. There was a reason Rob went to college on an athletics scholarship – he was built for this. It was effortless.
The gym was almost empty, save for a few late stragglers doing laps of the pool which the gym overlooked. Rob enjoyed the quiet underpinned by the humming of machines. At this stage of the day the obnoxious weight lifters (who generally made plenty of noise despite lifting fairly unimpressive weights) were gone so the gym was almost peaceful. Rob ran for about two hours before calling it a day. Collecting up his towel and phone he made for the changing rooms. Unlocking his locker he pulled out his red gym bag and threw it on the bench, his skin rising up in goose bumps at the frigid cold of the white tiled room. Stripping off he threw a blue towel over his shoulder and headed for the showers. Quickly he was engulfed in a cloud of steam. He felt the warm water course down his back and paused for a moment to enjoy the heat and not think about the cold waiting outside. There was no space to think about Katie or Maria or Patrick or work. There was just the warmth and the water and the quiet.
***
The next morning Rob found himself back at his desk working through a relatively involved report on his recent cases. There had been a surge of suspicious fires in small hotels and restaurants which had found themselves struggling since the crash, and Rob was the one responsible for interrogating these (usually families) as to what had happened. It was difficult to separate understandable upset as a result of your business burning down and nervousness resulting from being the one who set it alight, and either way Rob wasn’t exactly a fan of it. He looked across the office at Katie who was as per usual engrossed in what looked like a rather tense phone call. Her jaw took on a certain strained squareness in these situations which made her look slightly vicious as she tried to be authoritative but also not lose her temper. Rob was excited for their drinks the next evening, but was trying not to get overexcited. It hadn’t been that long since breaking up with Maria and being a fairly quiet and retiring sort of guy, he found it difficult to be seen as a real contender with women. He was determined to try to emulate an idealized version of himself on Friday. One who was able to crack jokes and seem interested in Katie but not overly so. There was a quality of self-assuredness he always admired in other men, as if nothing they said was ever awkward or boring because they in and of themselves were never awkward or boring. Rob had always felt as if there was some class these men had attended in school that he had somehow been sick the day of and he was going to spend the rest of his life playing catch-up.
Rob noticed his manager crossing the office and he quickly snapped his head back to his screen. Lee Nichols was tall and broad, a rugby player in his day, and maintained the sort of slightly intimidating but impressive masculinity that most former sports stars tend to. Lee was surprisingly reserved for a manager, he wasn’t the type to hold painfully awkward Christmas parties or drag the team on laser tag outings, which Rob was forever grateful for. However, he wasn’t exactly friendly either. He spent most of his time dealing with the big financial fraud cases, chairing meetings and working through endlessly complicated mathematical formula. Originally Rob had been a little shocked to find out that this guy who would otherwise have seemed to be a bit of a jock was actually a bit of a maths nerd at heart.
‘How’s that going Rob?’
Rob was caught off guard by Lee’s hand on the back of his chair. He felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up as if he’d just been caught passing notes to a friend by a teacher.
‘It’s OK – just working through these fire cases. I think we need to send someone out to do a technical report on that Korean barbeque place’
‘I was thinking the same thing. Shame really I used to eat there all the time’
‘Never knew you were one for international cuisine?’
‘I’m full of surprises! When do you think the report will be ready to go?’
‘Probably tomorrow morning. I’m mostly done its just clearing up the last few details’
‘Great, looking forward to reading it. Or as much as anyone ever looks forward to reading these kinds of things’ Lee laughed.
Rob was a little surprised. They were joking like friends, this wasn’t like Lee at all. Or Rob for that matter. While he and Rick were able to make fun of each other and hang out fairly easily, that sort of camaraderie wasn’t exactly second nature for Rob, so he was always half surprised and half worried when he struck up these sorts of easy going conversations. Lee walked off and Rob found himself smiling. He tapped out a couple more points on his computer and then had to get up. He felt like moving, not for any particular purpose but there was an undercurrent of excitement in him that he couldn’t quite place.
He decided it was time for coffee, but balked at the idea of any more of the sad watery instant coffee offered by the office kitchenette. He grabbed his jacket and made for the door.
‘If anyone needs me I’m back in five’ he called out, to no one in particular, but there was a vague wave of nods which may have been an answer from the office or may have just been people shifting at their desk. Either way, Rob shoved his hands in his pockets and hit the button on the elevator. It lit up yellow and Rob watched the floor numbers tick up. It was an enormous building, around 50 floors, when it was really windy he swore he could feel the building swaying. It was a fairly standard boom era glass monstrosity, chrome and strengthened glass as far as the eye could see. On a day like today though, crisp and bright, you could appreciate the sharp lines and cavernous angles. It wasn’t going to win any architecture awards but it was still pretty cool.
When the elevator finally arrived, the silver doors slid open and Rob stepped inside. Seeing that the next stop was several floors down, he took the chance to press up from the bars of elevator and feel the acceleration raise him up off the ground. He remembers a school physics teacher telling him gravity and acceleration were the same thing though the specific equations escaped him, and that these sorts of things were about as close to antigravity as the average person gets. As his floor arrived he jumped down and stepped out. This floor didn’t belong to any particular firm but it was home to a few small coffee docks and sandwich bars, plus a few balconies for those who grew weary of the sensation of living in some sort of space station when they’d been cooped up here too long. He bought a small latte and leaned his head over the railing, appreciating the breeze and watching the tiny traffic spin around underneath. He could feel the beginnings of rain overhead but he didn’t mind. It was nice getting to be aware of the outside world in this way, hovering above the city. The paper cups warmed his hand and a little plume of steam rose through the lid. It dawned on him he’d been standing around for nearly 15 minutes at this stage and realized he should probably make a move back for the office. As he turned round he saw Katie coming through the door