One Three Eight O

With shirt starched and razor like creases down my sleeves I strode into my new office. This is my first day and my face wore the mask of cool confidence. I was still unto sure of what brought me here. I had sent of my CV to an advert in the newspaper one day. The money was good, considering the few duties in the sparse little box of information. I was more interested about what it did not say. In fact, it hardly said anything. There wasn’t even a company name. Just an address, this address.

There had been no interview, just a phone call to say to turn up on this day and begin. I had told the few people interested that my skills were so impressive that my selection was obvious, I warranted no inspection.

The truth, I expected, was that this was like every place I had ever worked. Throw a dart into the open page of a phonebook and you could find a person who would perfectly fill the banality of the position. Perhaps they had used a similar selection process.

My new line manager approached me. She stood and inch or two taller than me. Her pale head topped by tightly tied back black her. Her dark eyes framed by thick framed glasses. My eyes tracked down her open necked white, tight blouse down to her black pencil skirt, further to equally dark stiletto heels. My mouth dried up as I struggled to find the words to introduce myself. She spared me the bother.

“You’re the new start,” she said curtly, a definite statement rather than an enquiry. “You’re over here.”

Ushered over to a desk I sat down.

“You’re one four five six,” she said pointing to the phone. Before I could think of my first question she turned and left. My eyes followed her to a door at the end of the office, I breathed in time with the movement of her hips.

The room itself was very bright. The strips of lighting on the ceiling illuminated a space which would have suited more a surgery than an office. Not a blemish or a visible dusty surface in the surroundings that I surveyed. White walls met white walls in this large windowless box. From my seat, the only door I could see was that which my line manager had exited.

I cast an eye over my new colleagues. They all wore well scrubbed, smiling faces. Hair neatly trimmed. Clothes immaculate and business like. A low hum of conversation lightly peppered the expanse of the office as the diligently looked at their computer screens or went over the papers in front of them.

Looking to my own desk I surveyed the tools of what I pretended was a trade. The generic PC sat on my desk at a right angle to my phone. A neat row of pens were placed next to a plain pad of paper. I looked on my desk for anything that resembled some work for me to do. There was nothing. I turned on my computer, hoping to find some clues but the only program of any worth was a game of solitaire. I loaded it up and turned over some cards. Looking round the room I found myself even more confused than when I first walked in.

There was no sign of my line manager. Even if she had nothing for me to do at least some stolen glances of her would give me a way to pass my day. Sighing I leaned back on my chair.

My second inspection of the room revealed the presence of a coffee machine. Sitting on the desk in front of it was a man who looked different from the other men and women around the room. His red hair seemed if it had not been brushed since he’d woken that morning. In fact, his clothes looked like he had slept in them. He slouched over his desk with a glumness plastered under his dropping brow.

I rose from my seat, and, under the guise of a want of coffee, I approached him. With my prop coffee cup in my hand I said hello. There was no answer from him. Again I tried an introduction, explaining that I was new, but his head hung still silent as if oblivious to my presence.
Irked by his ignorance I turned on my heels. Within one step I heard his low voice emanated from behind me.

“What are you doing?”, came his enquiry.

I explained I wasn’t quite sure, I had turned up and been left stranded at my desk, hoping for the best. I even know what the company did.

“We keep things ticking over,” he said. “They like things to run smoothly. If there is any hint of a complaint the staff here deals with it.”

“How do we deal with it?”

“Just refer it to One Three Eight O,” he snorted. “Remember, we are the ones who deal with the complaints, we are not here to make them. You mark that”.

He hung his head over his desk again. I guess that this ended our small burst of interaction. I returned to my desk.

Just as I was taking the first sip of my coffee the voice of my line manager startled me from behind my seat.

“I do hope you are settling in,” she said in a tone that was more an order than an aspiration of my well being.

Turning I realised a few seconds too late that I was staring at the bulge of that blouse. My eyes rose from her chest to meet her dark eyes. She appeared not to notice my momentary perversion. Her ruby painted lips issued forth her next comment.

“Do try not to associate with those in here who have funny ideas,” her eyes flashed at the red haired man, his forehead now pressed on the desk. “There are those who are never happy. Sadly we cannot deal with some of those people in the way we would like to.”

On her first stride I asked, with a slightly stuttered voice, what it was I was supposed to be doing. Fortunately she never turned, lest she would have caught my gaze at the swell of her hips, idly wondering what lay under that dark fabric wound around them.

“You are here to handle any problems that arise,” she said with a snort.

I interrupted her stride once more with another question, “how do I handle the problems?”
Her back still to me she sighed, as if bored of my stupidity, “just refer it to One Three Eight O.”
My eyes followed those long legs as they left the room. Each of her admonishments had made my heart beat just that bit faster. Each sentence caused my mouth to grow more arid. I swilled the rest of my coffee down my throat.

One of the happy faces across the room me focuses his attention to open newspapers. Flicking through the pages him, he would stop occasionally, cut out a story, the stuff it into an envelope. Once he had been through the papers in their entirety, he sealed the envelope, crossed the room, and put in a tray mounted on the wall to my left.

“A few there for One Three Eight O,” I heard him say to a close by colleague when he returned to his seat.

Occasionally I lifted my eyes from watching time tick by on my watch. Something occurred to me. Apart from the man who had tidily chopped offending stories from the newspapers, no one was doing any work. Of course, they gave the appearance of working, except for the red haired man, whose head remained flat on the desk, but on my closer inspection I noticed that men and women were shuffling blank pieces of paper or typing long imaginary works whilst looking at blank computer screens.

I looked from face to face and not one of them looked perturbed. In fact, the only face which would probably register any dissatisfaction was connected flush to the desk, with just a mop of red hair for me to view.

Following the example of my contented co-workers, I began to perform the mime of a busy administrator. Keys were tapped, pens were rearranged, pages thoroughly examined as if holding the secrets of the cosmos.

Time seemed to come to a near halt as I conducted this grand performance. The second hand on my watch lazy crept around the face; the minute hand appeared to be on holiday. This was purgatory.

I stood up and stretched the seizing muscles on make back. I massaged a dull throb in my temples. I tip-toed across to the coffee machine. The others in the room did not seem to notice me, so I spoke to the messy crop of red hair that was on the desk. A grown emerged from underneath it, as if I had awoken a small mammal from hibernation.

I half garbled an apology and asked what the company did. He lifted his head slightly form the desk.

“We handle a contract,” he said.

“What for?”

“Complaints come in from different places. It’s all quite hush-hush. When people are happy you do nothing. When they are you happy you refer them to One Three Eight O.”
“But what does One Three Eight O do?”

“That is not your department,” his head shot up from the desk, he shot me a wild stare, “concentrate on your own work.” He settled back into his slumber.

Slightly shaken I return to my seat. Suddenly, interrupting my sips of coffee my phone rang. I picked it up and listened to a distorted voice said, “just to let you know everything is great.” The line then went dead.

Hanging up the phone I noticed a young man walk in with a mail cart. Without speaking he placed an envelope on my desk and one on each desk of the happy looking faces. The young man then walked to the shelf mounted on the left wall, pick up the envelope which had been placed in it, the put it on the desk of the sleeping red haired man.

I opened my envelope and inspected what was inside. It was a yellowing piece of paper with three words printed on it: Everything is great.

The contented faces inspected their own mail and their smiles grew. Two stood up and gave each other a high five. Happily and quietly chatting to his other colleagues, I watched the last of them open his envelope. The expression on his face drop. He seized his phone and punch in four numbers. The red haired man picked up the receiver of his phone and I watched the two of them engage in a hushed conversation down the line, yards away from each other. The red haired man stood and hurried out of the room.

I sat looking around the room trying to gage what was happening. Except for the absence of one man, the room seemed as it had been before the brief moments of worried activity. My phone rang again, this time the message was: “Don’t worry, things aren’t great but they are fine.” As the line died so did my will to make sense of the day.

Leaning right back on the chair I watch the performance of the others in here. I counted each blank page they shuffled, listened to each individual tap of the keyboard. I let out a long sigh.
The door at the other end of the room opened and I watched that red mop of hair bounce across the room and the bored looking body it lay on top of sit down. The head that it covered hit the desk with a thump.

With nothing else to do I stood and made to make some coffee. Standing by the coffee machine and seeing the groining head on the desk I decide to try making some conversation again. I ask what the fuss had been about.

“One Three Eight O business,” came the monotonal reply.

Slowly, I began to shuffle off. Without even think the following words exited my mouth after a yawn; “it’s bloody boring in here, isn’t it?”

His fists banged on the desk, as he shot to his feet. The whole room seemed to close in and darken for a moment. I quietly beat my retreat, each step watched by his scowling face. Only when I sat did he also.

“I heard there is a problem!” My line mangers voice caused me to jump out my seat. Again she was behind me. I watched her hand lean forward and seize my phone. A red painted fingernail reach out and dialled four numbers; one three eight zero. Within the first ring he picked up the phone. Neither said a word. The red haired man hung up and left the room.

“Follow me,” she barked and I followed her across the room, through the white door. We walked on and on down an ever brighter and whiter corridor, her clicking heels the only sound echoing down the narrowing expanse.

“I’m sorry you feel too good for the company,” she sarcastically spat as she halted. She moved behind me to reveal a white handless door.

As I leant closer to inspect the door a shove smashed into my spine. I skidded through the door into darkness, feet slipping on the grime on that unseen floor.

She bundled me into what I took to be a chair. Metal clasp quickly round my wrists as I found myself restrained in the darkness. A dull light suddenly shone from above, barely illuminating her now free flowing hair, her face now shorn of her glasses. She straddled me and clasped my head close to her, my nose catching on the buttons on her chest. I could her panting, could smell her sweat. One moment I had felt like crying to be set free, but now I worshipped my captor, I felt whole as the bars of her fingers crossed over my eyes. Just as my I was beginning to welcome this sweet Hades she gently rose and stepped into the darkness.

“One Four Five Six,” it was his now booming voice, “you were asked not to complain. He stepped into the narrow shaft of light, hair like flames, a smile scarred his face. He had a hammer in his hand.