brm50diboll 
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I'm not a writer, but I do get ideas for stories sometimes that I write down. What I write can be described as a rough draft of a rough draft. Anyway, I got one such idea (probably from watching too many Twilight Zone episodes) and I decided to write it down here. I will admit beforehand it doesn't have literary merit, but the premise intrigues me, so I will start with the first Chapter of something I will call, for lack of creativity, "The Special Staircase".
Robert Woodson (Bob, for short) is an executive at a branch of a medium-sized company in the medium-sized town of Dillton, Texas [fictional]. He is 47 years old and divorced working in a rather unusual building in downtown. The building has only three floors, but each floor is unusually large, with two banks of elevators in the building (one about a third of the way from the front to the back of the building and one about two-thirds of the way.) Each bank has two elevators. The building also has several staircases in various places. Bob has worked here for five years, and his office is on the second floor, near the front (north face) of the building. His immediate supervisor also has an office on the second floor near the north face, but down the hall from Bob. The district manager (the senior executive at this branch) has his office on the third floor, but Bob rarely has occasion to visit there. His usual day consists of coming in in the morning, saying hello to the receptionists on the ground floor, then taking one of the forward elevators to the second floor where he spends most òf the day. He goes home using the same elevators. Sometimes there have been fire alarms set off (no actual fires though) and he has had to use the northeast stairwell rather than the elevators. He is usually in his office and in his five years hasn't exactly bothered to explore the full layout of the building.
One day Bob decided he would check out the parts of the building he hadn't bothered to visit before. He went all the way back towards the south face of the second floor and saw a security guard standing in front of a door to a stairwell he hadn't seen before. He decided to talk to the guard, since the other stairwells did not have guards posted in front of them and he was curious why this one did, especially since his supervisor had never mentioned such a stairwell before and he had never before had the occasion to stroll down the hallway in front of this stairwell. He asked the guard why he was there and the guard replied that unlike all the other stairwells in the building, this one had restricted access. Only personnel who had passes approved by the district manager himself could use this particular stairwell. Bob was curious about this, so he took an elevator to the third floor and went to the same south face and saw a different guard posted in front of the stairwell there. It was not close to the district manager's office, and the third floor hallway leading to it had mostly empty unremarkable offices. Bob saw the same thing on the ground floor. He went to his supervisor and asked him about this guarded stairwell, and his supervisor told him he didn't know much about it, he always thought it was superfluous. But he'd have to ask the district manager if he wanted to know any more about it. One day he did ask the district manager, and he replied he wasn't at liberty to talk about the details under corporate policy, but that he could grant an access pass to that stairwell for a one-time fee of $50, or a daily fee of $100 a day to any employee who worked in that building who asked for it. Bob thought that was a steep price, so he dropped the matter. But his curiosity kept getting the better of him. A few months later he asked the district manager for a one-time access pass and paid his $50. The manager told him that first-time activation of the pass card (in this case, the *only* time activation of the card, could *only* be processed by the guard stationed on the floor the employee was assigned to, not the other guards. So since Bob was on the second floor, he had to take an elevator or one of the other stairwells to his second floor, then report to the guard there. Bob thought that was peculiar, but left the district manager's office on the third floor with the newly-issued but inactive pass, took the elevator to the second floor, and went to the second floor guard to activate the pass. The guard there looked at Bob's company ID, took the pass and swiped it on a reader, and Bob heard a click at the door as it unlocked and a light on the door changed color from red to green. The guard told him he could exit the stairwell on any floor without any further charge, and further, that if he chose to reenter a door on any floor, he could do so exactly *one* more time without any further charge, but if he chose to reenter the second floor stairwell access, he would get his $50 refunded to him if he asked no further questions. Bob thought that was very strange, but he entered the door with the pass card the guard handed him back and went into the stairwell.
After Bob entered the stairwell, he observed that it looked exactly like the other stairwells in the building. He ran up to the third floor, then down to the ground floor, and saw nothing special. He exited the ground floor stairwell door, and looked at the guard stationed there with a nod, then walked up and down the back hallway on the ground floor and saw nothing unusual. Everything looked just as it had the other times he had visited that first floor hallway. He thought this must be a prank or a con to get $50 from him, so he decided he would just use the refund option. He used his one extra free entry to reenter the access door on the first floor (without asking the guard any questions, of course), then walked up the stairwell to the second floor, and came through the door there and presented the guard there (again with no questions) his now-used passcard and told him he wanted his $50 back. The guard punched some buttons, printed out a ticket, and told him to go to the district manager's receptionist for his refund. Bob did so, and got his $50 back. How bizarre, he thought! What was the point of all that? He was still curious, but didn't want any more runaround, so he suppressed his curiosity and returned to his usual routine thereafter.
Some weeks later, it was a Wednesday, May 14th, Bob went to work his usual way. But the curiosity was just eating him alive. He went back to. The second floor back hallway and just stood there looking at the security guard for about 10 minutes. There was no traffic in that hallway at all. Suddenly the fire alarm went off. Every one must exit the building immediately, the guard said. The elevators shut down in the alarms, but the guard said in an emergency they could use the back stairwell if they wanted to without any fees or passcards, and he punched some numbers in and the door opened. Bob entered the stairwell and walked down to the ground floor along with the guard, who reminded him he needed to exit the building. The guard joined up with the other two stairwell guards and talked awhile, but Bob left them to go to the front lobby, where everyone was leaving the building. Bob exited the front door of the ground floor and hung around outside for a few minutes with other employees, then the all clear was given and everyone was told there was no fire, the alarm had been triggered accidentally and there was an ongoing investigation as to what exactly caused the issue. By that time, it was past 5 pm, so Bob just decided to go home for the day.
Bob settled in and decided to watch TV that evening. He turned the TV on and began watching the program, which seemed familiar. It was familiar. It was exactly the same program he had watched a day earlier, not the program he expected to be on. He went to his home computer and looked at the date on the screen.
It was Tuesday, May 13th. |
Reply #468. Mar 08 24, 1:32 PM
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