Laura Dockrill - Echoes

Nothing but an oily street.

‘Where’s the flood?’ Norman demanded.

‘The monsoon?’ Sue asked, teary-eyed.

‘The tidal wave?’ Mr Hurt quivered. Their pupils swelling from the sunlight. Flowering as though jasmine in hot water.

‘I…’ Albert began. His heart was still drumming, adrenaline soaring through his veins.

‘You mean to say you lied ?’ Mr Hurt sneered. ‘You were bored and so you lied. You lied to me, you lied to your colleagues and you lied to yourself. You are a disgrace to Limps.’ He shuffled his tie, pulled it close to his neck. The cluster of people looked up at him, sourly; never had they felt so let down.

‘I’m sorry,’ Albert said. He wasn’t.

‘Hollow words,’ Mr Hurt muttered. ‘Hollow words.’

In the evening, Albert went out and got drunk by himself. He sketched a monster on a beer mat; he was a better artist than he thought.

‘Fancy a bit of colour?’ the barmaid asked him, suggestively.

‘I’m fine, thanks.’ He spluttered his shandy over the table, wiping it with his sleeve. Albert had never been any good with girls.

‘Whatever suits you.’ The girl strutted off.

He saw the crayons by the till, divided into little plastic beakers, obviously meant for children. Hopelessly aching to ask for them, as a bit of colour was all he wanted.

The electronic sound of paper going in and out of a printer was driving Albert up the fucking wall. He was stuck in this office, in this block, this box, this tiny fucking stone box, with no way out. He had been looking for jobs all morning. He would be sacked sooner or later, wouldn’t he? If he kept up this foul behaviour, they would just fire him. Good. He wanted to be fired. He would rather be happy and poor than get the same sarcastic pay packet, week in week out and be a prisoner to a photocopier. He saw it on television. People could have fun in offices. Ricky Gervais had fun in an office, didn’t he? And everybody in Ugly Betty ? Their office was like a circus. Why couldn’t it be the same here? Why couldn’t they get hot people to work here? Not to go out with, just to look at. He would fancy the funny girl who sat in the corner with the bowl haircut who threw elastic bands at his head and wore kooky dolly shoes. There could be a bitch, a geek, and a prick that everyone hated…

Then, suddenly, Albert found himself doing the same thing as last week, the same thing again. Leaping up, plunging to the sky, he ran, he didn’t know where he was going or why he was doing it, but he did it and this time he let it rip, as though it were meant to happen, so none of the awkward talking happened again. He picked up an ancient fire extinguisher and let it blow, its hose spiralling in whipping motions on its own accord, gushing out its contents onto the drab workers. Then it seemed as though it was the right moment to let tumble out of his mouth that was open as wide as it could possibly go, ‘FIRE!!!’

Now, the office had practised this. They knew the drill, they followed the clear laminated instructions as carefully as they did the ‘In case of emergency…’ sheet on an aeroplane. They knew those little pictures of tiny men hopping out of windows better than they knew themselves. And they ran. Their imaginations, having not imagined something for so long, did the dirty work, their brains gallivanted, stirring up the formidable, imagining the fire tearing at the building, screaming, already chewing up the fire exit, clawing at the window. And then they began to hear it, the crackling noise of burning, the popping of the flames as it teased the workers, drew sweat beads on their foreheads. Panic. Their heartbeats deafening, they ran fast and they ran with reason, a fear so petrifying it caused some of the workers to stumble, tripping on each others’ grey limbs. They had always wanted to go horse riding, buy a scratch card, swim the Channel, they had wanted to make a jelly in the shape of a rabbit for their baby nephew, they had wanted to buy that canary in the pet shop window, they needed to call their mothers, they hadn’t watched all three Godfathers , they hadn’t found out what the most deadly spider was. They ran, pulling back each others’ hair. Survival. There was so much to do, wasn’t there? So much to see and hear and smell and here was Norman lying on the floor, he had slipped, clumsy, getting in the way, so they had to go over him, didn’t they? Squashed or not, not their problem, they had to get out, didn’t they? Crunching his body was just half of the battle, wasn’t it? Part of the adventure, trampling over him as though he were a little drawbridge. And Mr Hurt bouncing up and down telling everybody to remain calm; what did he know? What did he know when there was fire to play with? Linda twisted her ankle, the weight of her meat-and-two-veg body crashed down on it, pinging it to the side and it flopped loose like a runner bean, her howl sirened through the corridor. Hurrying everybody along until they pressed the release bar and out. Fresh air, alive, alive, alive…

‘Fire? What fire?’ Sue blurted.

‘I was trying to tell you…’ Mr Hurt shushed everybody. ‘The building is fireproof anyway and it has smoke signals. It was highly unlikely that there would have been a fire without us knowing about it.’ He twitched, taking his coat off from the imaginary heat his mind had created.

‘So where did this come from?’ Linda sobbed, cowering, her tights bloody from the scrapes. She needed an answer.

Everybody needed an answer.

They all looked to Albert. Like waiting for answers at a quiz.

‘Your silly fabrications have done you no favours, you have disrupted everybody’s mental stability one time too many. Besides, there is photocopying to be done, that is not doing itself, now get you…’ He was getting nervous about speaking out loud now that everybody was listening. ‘Now take your…now take your…Just get inside, will you?’ He slung his jacket over his shoulder, huffing, tutting, shaking his head in anger. The others slumped after him, the noise of the sirens already coming as some bonehead had taken the trouble of calling 999. Just in case. Just in case. Just in case.

Albert walked home that night. The last thing he wanted to do was cram himself on a tube with a bunch of grey nobodies, the odd whacky character trying to stand out with a crazy-coloured tie would depress him. He got himself three cans of Coke and drank them straight, one after the other. He had never done drugs; lifts like this made a world of difference.

‘Albert,’ his father opened a conversation. ‘Son, how’s work going? Sniffed out any news of a promotion yet?’

Albert put his fork down, ready to spill, he had stories to tell, to ignite, to fabricate, to embroider the truth, to spin, to say but a clear ‘Yes, I think they’ll promote me in the next few weeks’ would be easier to digest, especially around the dinner table, especially now. His mother clamped her hands onto her chest, a deep heavy puff of relief gushed out of her, her eyes rolled to the ceiling and then to her husband, who patted her on the knee in pride.

‘We always knew you had it in you, son. Now we can put those silly nonsense stories to bed.’

Yes and maybe they could. Albert was twenty-five and his room read as a child’s, a loner, a weirdo. He would never get the kooky girl with the funny shoes when he lived in a land of make-believe. He would be alone forever, always, wouldn’t he?

The next day at work he kept his head down. Plonked, stared, tapped, mumbled, shuffled, ate a cardboard chicken wrap. Felt sick, took a chalky dusty pill to make everything better.

The day after that, at work, he did the same. Plonked, stared, whistled, remembered whistling was barred so stopped, shuffled, awkward, went to the corner of the room to fart, ate a cardboard sandwich. Tap, tap, tap.