Mary Robb - Down the Rabbit Hole

“I’m sorry,” he said louder, unnerved by the guy’s absorption. “Can I ask you something?” Ordinarily he wouldn’t bother someone so deep in concentration, but panic was building inside him. What was this place?

Still no response. Jeremy moved to the next cubicle. Another guy, this one heavyset and impeccably dressed in a medium-gray suit with white shirt and blue tie. He wore fashionable glasses, and he too stared at his wall full of screens.

Jeremy cleared his throat. “Hi,” he said. “I’m sorry to bother you, but can I ask you something?”

Same thing. No response. Could he be invisible? Was this some kind of Ghost of Workplace Future–type experience? He touched the man’s shoulder. It felt real. But the suited man did little more than blink and reach up to brush the spot that Jeremy had touched as if ridding himself of a spider.

Jeremy moved on. A woman inhabited the next one, brown hair, business attire, good posture, deaf as a post. Two more men, equally oblivious. He halted then, listening more closely. There seemed to be people in every cube, but there was not a sound to be heard. He walked the outer hallway created by cubicles on one side and a wall of the room on the other, passing one cubicle after another, all of them occupied by someone—man or woman, young or old, black or white, fat or thin, neat or messy—none of whom paid him one iota of attention. It freaked him out.

After walking the length of the hall—which took no small amount of time—he stood on tiptoe, only to see a static sea of zigzagging cubicle walls. Above them lay an endless expanse of rectangular fluorescent lights; in front of him, an endless gray hallway. It was dizzying.

His heart raced, and sweat broke out along his hairline. He turned to go back to where he started, hoping to find the way out, but all he discovered when he arrived back at the empty cube was a name tag attached to the outer wall.

Jeremy Abbott

The sight of his own name caught him in the solar plexus like a punch.

He gasped, then forced an exhale.

He was in hell. He had to be. Or some really, really weird dream. But he hadn’t fallen asleep and he felt more lucid than he had in years. Also more terrified.

His hand reached again for the cell phone case on his belt, but the moment he touched it he remembered it was empty. He’d only wanted to know the time. He looked around the room again, this time for a clock, and realized with a sinking feeling that there was none. In hell, he thought, time probably didn’t exist.

His heart climbed into his throat, deciding to pound furiously there and block his windpipe. Fearing he might faint, he grabbed for the chair in “his” cubicle and plopped into it. It rolled and struck the desk with its back. Jeremy planted his feet and put his head between his knees, breathing deeply. A sound like a computer booting up had him rising nearly as swiftly.

Suddenly, on what had been the plain gray fabric walls of his cube, appeared the same collection of screens he’d seen on the other people’s walls.

His eyes took in the sight, flicking from one to the other, and only a moment passed before he recognized what he was looking at. Apps! More specifically, smartphone apps. There were the calendar, settings, maps, messages, email, phone, web browser. The stock market. And then there were Redfin, Facebook, Twitter, TV Guide, NFL, Soccer, Tennis Channel—all the personal apps he had on his phone—and as he looked at them, they opened. He was controlling his iPhone with his mind! He looked around, wanting to tell someone, because this was freaking awesome . A mind-controlled smartphone!

But of course all those other people already knew it. No wonder they’d been too absorbed to hear him. Either that or they had literally been absorbed.

Was that what had happened? Had he been transported into the future, where—where what? He was his cell phone?

Novelty turned into nausea.

Then he remembered the words Macy had said just before standing up and dumping him: Someday you’re going to get sucked right into that thing and nobody will ever see you again.

* * *

Macy strode down the street, swallowing over the lump in her throat and blinking to stop tears from overflowing her eyelids. She paused and looked up at the sky, willing them back into her tear ducts even as another wave of regret washed over her.

She was crying, on the street, over a guy. What had become of her?

She remembered the first time she’d noticed the problem—or rather, noticed how big of a problem it was. She and Jeremy had taken a hike to the top of Sugarloaf Mountain. The air had been soft with summer’s last breath and the leaves were falling, crunching under their feet as they walked. They made it to the top, bursting out of the woods onto a rocky outcropping that showed nothing but rolling hills and a carpet of trees transitioning from green to orange, yellow and red. The breeze had kicked up, gently moving her hair from her forehead, and she’d gasped at the beauty before her, feeling as if the whole world was a magical place. It was a moment of such sublime happiness that she couldn’t think of another place on the planet she’d rather be.

This is it, she’d thought. This is the guy . This is what I’ve been searching for my whole life.

She’d turned to Jeremy, buoyant to be sharing it with him, convinced he had to be feeling it too, the profound connection, the certainty that this was something special, only to find him looking at his phone, thumb pushing screens aside, eyes riveted.

It struck her so hard, she couldn’t help it; she’d wanted to cry. She felt crushed. Had she fallen into the classic trap of believing that because she felt something, he did too? Was he here just to placate her? Was this the kind of moment, the kind of shared activity, that would disappear completely as the relationship aged? Would they end up at the same kitchen table inhabiting completely different worlds?

After a minute, perhaps sensing her silence, he looked up with an oblivious grin and said, “Can you believe it? I’ve got a signal up here!”

She’d turned away quickly, blinking back tears of disillusionment, and said something about the view, at which point he had joined her on the rock. But she could tell he wasn’t where she was, that he had no conception of the magic he had squelched.

By the time they’d gone to their respective homes, changed clothes and gotten back together for dinner that night she’d shaken most of it off, and the next morning he’d been charming at breakfast. Though he’d been checking work emails when she came downstairs, he’d put the phone down the moment he became aware of her.

“She’s alive!” he’d joked, and those sleepy gray eyes of his smiled. He wore a faded sweatshirt and well-worn jeans, his wavy hair tumbled wildly on his head like he hadn’t even glanced in a mirror, and she felt her heart lurch at the beauty of him.

She, on the other hand, had scrubbed her face, applied emergency makeup from her purse, and tried to casual-ize the outfit she’d worn the night before by going barefoot in her black skinny jeans and leaving her white shirt untucked.

“We’ve got to get you a pair of sweats to keep here,” he said, rising to wrap her in a good-morning hug.

She put her arms around him and breathed in the laundry-fresh scent of his T-shirt. The feeling of rightness returned, and she pictured them sitting around in their pj’s on Sunday mornings, reading the paper and sharing the interesting bits. She didn’t need to hike; they’d find other things to do together, things that he found special.

“How did you sleep?” His voice was intimately low, vibrating against her cheek where her face pressed against his chest.