Funhouse Surreal Solo Play 2: Office Edition

I come into the office and it’s Monday. I leave and come back and it’s Tuesday. Then I leave and come back again and it’s Wednesday, then Thursday, Friday. I don’t return until Monday again, go in, work, leave. Then

1. It’s Tuesday
2. It’s Wednesday
3. It’s Thursday
4. It’s Friday
5. It’s Saturday
6. It’s Sunday.

d6 => 5

I come in the next day. No one is around but a confused support agent, O_____. He stares at me but doesn’t say anything. 

“Pretty dead for a Tuesday, eh?”

“It’s Saturday.”

I laugh. O_____ does a lot of deadpan humor. He keeps looking at me calmly and I slowly see he’s not kidding. 

“Yeah, but… It’s Tuesday,” I say, still trying to get in on the joke. 

“Listen C_____. It’s Saturday. I saw you Wednesday, remember?”

“No. No, it was Monday. Yesterday was Monday. Let me… I’m going to call my wife.” I say, walking away.

“Get her to tell you it’s fucking Saturday!” He calls out behind me.

I walk out and am suddenly back in and

1. It’s Tuesday
2. It’s Wednesday
3. It’s Thursday
4. It’s Friday
5. It’s Saturday
6. It’s Sunday.

d6 => 3

Some people have shown up. Several people. No one was in the hall. Right? No one came in the back, the back door and the front door are right next to each other in the same hallway. I could see them both. I’m just not sure if I remember being in the hallway.

O_____ is gone from the support room. His manager’s computer is on, unlocked. I look at the time displayed at the top. The day of the week: Thursday.

“What the hell, what the hell. What the fuck.” I murmur. 

“C_____?”

“Hey, hey man,” I say to the support manager, who is directly behind me. “Sorry, I blanked out, was just, ah, you know.”

“Hah, well, week’s almost over, C_____.”

“Yeah.”

I flee to my desk and open my laptop. Pull up a calendar. Time has passed, time has flown by. Almost two weeks I can’t account for. I look at emails… I’ve responded to things during my missing time. Pull up my tickets, work to-do notes.

1. I have no work to do
2. One ticket: ‘get out’
3. Normal workload
4. Strange meeting with CEO
5. Text moving around (lazily? hypnotically? like a predator?)
6. Feed sheep

d6 => 5

The text wavers in front of me, as though I were trying to read it across summer asphalt. The letters twist and dip. I can’t read anything. I pull out my phone, try to call my wife, J_____. Same deal. I numbly thumb the too-bright screen and a YouTube video plays, loud, someone running a tabletop game. People laughing. People - the real ones in the office - look at me over the cubicle walls. Nervous faces.

I apologize and they lower behind the fabric walls. 

I can’t read, I can’t work. I reach for a piece of paper. I know I can get through this, somehow. I can write something and see what happens.

Writing

1. A ransom note that appears to have been made from glue and cut-up magazines
2. A sentient, self-aware poem (which is nevertheless not very good) 
3. I realize I’ve signed something but I can’t tell what
4. I’ve drawn the office building but it’s on fire
5. A sketch of a spiral or vortex
6. The paper is black as a void

d6 => 5

A spiral. It holds my mind in place and I am falling, falling down it. Faster and yet slower, so fast and yet I never get closer to the center. Floating.

The office is full of floating debris, cables, people floating in midair. People hover above their gently drifting monitors and peck at keyboards perched in their laps. 

My boss pushes out of his offices and wafts over to my cube. 

“There’s still chicken biscuits in the break room, C_____.”

“Ah… great!”

“Are you alright? You look a little peaked.”

“Oh you know, just, you know. Thursday for you.”

He nods as if I said something sensible and pushes off my cubicle, which creaks, heading down the hallway. 

OK, ok. OK. I drew something and things changed. I could draw… going home. And get out of the office. 

I begin writing, scrawling, drawing. I can’t tell. 

Writing

1. A drawing of the car ride home
2. My third eye opening
3. The building is on fire
4. Dogs have taken over
5. Printers are spewing out papers like machine guns
6. I am a baby at a daycare

d6 => 3

The drawing of burning cubicles shakes in my hands. I smell smoke. 

People are on the bounce, flinging themselves down the main hallway as smoke fills the air. I flail after them, slamming off carpeted walls. The fire flows in zero g. I see that the fancy lounge part of the office has been converted to escape pods. Looking out the windows I see stars and void. I get in an escape pod and strap myself in. The hatch irises shut and I am slammed into my crash harness and am suddenly back in the office.

1. It’s Tuesday
2. It’s Wednesday
3. It’s Thursday
4. It’s Friday
5. It’s Saturday
6. It’s Sunday.

d6 => 2

It’s the day before, I remember it now, every detail. I walk in backwards and say goodbye backwards to my boss. Other people filter into place in reverse. I unpress buttons and words are rubbed off the screens, which I can read again, as I turn something into nothing. 

I want to try to escape before lunch, before I have to pull food out of my mouth, form it a bite at a time. Hell, I’d like to escape before my last bathroom break of the day.

But my thoughts are empty, useless, without action, and my acts are on rails. I cannot break the past. I pour water out of my mouth into an upturned cup and leave the office to go to the bathroom. When I return

1. It’s Tuesday
2. It’s Wednesday
3. It’s Thursday
4. It’s Friday
5. It’s Saturday
6. It’s Sunday.

d6 => 1

It’s Tuesday. It’s the day after Monday. I work a normal day. I go home and I work from home the rest of the week.