The assistant was devoured by some form of darkness, other than that it was a good job. All I had to do was to sit in a windowless office for 6 hours and answer a phone, if it rang. Then I was to write down whatever the voice said onto a piece of paper, place the message in the container, put it in the suction tube, and it would be jettisoned off somewhere through the ceiling.
“Where does the message go?” I asked.
“That is not important.” they said, they were twins, “What is important is that you write down and send it right off.”
“What if I need a break?” I said.
“Tell the camera that you need a break, it has a microphone, it is always on.”
“How many breaks,” I said, “and how long?”
“Take them when you need them as much time as you need, no more, no less,” they replied.
”OK.”
They closed the door. There was a small framed picture on otherwise barren walls. It looked like a childs drawing of a cat and some babies. I sat down at my new desk. And eyed the camera on the wall opposite of me. No one had told me about that. The office was small maybe 8’x 10’. The desk, a chair, an old rotary style red phone with no dial. It also had a little yellow light on it that I figured lit when it rang, only the phone only ever rang once and I happened to be out on break. The assistant told me when I walked back in.
“The phone rang.” he said.
“What?” I said. I’d been there three weeks and it hadn’t rang yet.
“The phone rang while you where gone,” he repeated.
“Did you answer it? What was the message, was it a mans voice?” The assistant looked perturbed. “It was the man and he said ‘Lion’.” The assistant left and closed the door. “Oh,” I said and sat down behind my desk. I noticed the container was still in its hopper below the chute. There was only one container. Did it come back already? Was I supposed to send the message? I stuck my face in front of the camera and held the container up “Hi, this is Jensen in 64 and I just got back from break and…” “Yes, I know I was just there.” said the assistant. “Oh, Yes, Hello again. Hey did you send the message or am I supposed to send it?”
“Its been taken care of.” said the assistant.
A few minutes later I could have swore I heard gunfire and muffled explosions but my hearing had been playing tricks on me as there was no sound except for a fan. In the white noise I heard all sorts of strange things while I worked there.
It was a week and a half later that I came back from an especially long break and the room was no longer there. Just an empty black void. I opened the door and almost fell in. I quickly slammed the door shut and just stood there for a few seconds. I cracked the door open and saw the blackness. I looked at the floor and it was gone. There was nothing. Infinite blackness. All the hair on my body felt like it was standing on end. I closed the door and took a deep breathe. I looked around and saw no one. I then walked to the front of the office, out the door over to my car, got in and started it. I locked the doors and drove away as fast as I could without getting pulled over. I went home filled a couple of suitcases with the essentials and just drove and drove until I got here. That was twelve years ago tonight.
