The Best Australian Stories 2014 (16 page)

The collage in this office appears to depict a giant black Scottish terrier standing in an empty courtroom contemplating a strung-up Mussolini. It's an artwork that Haline has nicknamed ‘The Scottie Dog of Fascist Depression', which she declares is the work of an obscure dead artist, Sad Hamish, who was probably told as a child that he was good with scissors, when, in fact, he was not and perhaps should have rethought his lifelong commitment to collage as a literal means of cutting-edge artistic and political expression.

Back at your desk, you attempt, unsuccessfully, to angle your computer screen so that it faces away from passing colleagues, and you spend two unbillable units of time reading articles online.

Floods, the Middle East, an Australian exclusive on Michael Caine. There is a picture of the actor from the late 1960s in which he is surrounded by women wearing tight white high-waisted pants with the word ‘ALFIE' emblazoned in bold letters on their left buttocks.

You snap out of your reading spree when you get to a tragically boring opinion piece on modern Benthamite prison architecture.

Overcome with guilt at wasting more time, you close the window on your screen and look out the glass door, watching all the people pretending not to be watching you.

You hope a warning hasn't flashed up on the screen of anyone downstairs in IT, alerting them to your extracurricular reading.

Every hour, on the hour, you go to the toilet, just to take a break.

On your third visit today, a senior partner strides in and unzips his fly at the urinal next to you.

It's Phillips Tom. He's never spoken to you before, even though you are in his practice group.

‘Morning,' he says.

‘Morning.'

‘Lovely day.'

‘Yes it is.'

‘Chin Lin Rao, isn't it?'

‘Ah, it's Rao Lin Chin.'

‘Lin, how are you enjoying your career?'

‘It's going very well, thanks … Phillips.'

‘Good. Good to hear. Bright young fellow like yourself – you could be moving up in this little tower of ours in no time. You know, Lin, I should get you involved on a new matter for Xynorab. We'll be working with their lawyers in Beijing. How are you placed for a conference call at seven on Wednesday morning? Do you have capacity?'

‘I have a few things to—'

‘It'll be a valuable learning experience. You should be on the call.'

‘Ah, then,' you say, ‘I have capacity.'

‘Good. That is very good to hear.'

Two streams drum against the glass urinals and drip to a pause.

By the time two o'clock rolls around, you have finally begun reworking your first billable piece of correspondence for the day.

Dear Mr Laing,
you type.

A profound start.

But you're starting to feel strange. Your chest feels tight.

You take your hand off the mouse and put both palms flat on the table to steady yourself. You feel as if you might start hyperventilating and indeed you would, if you weren't surrounded by colleagues. It's becoming apparent to you that you may be having a mild panic attack.

You don't understand why this is happening. You've spent years at this desk feeling completely fine and this has hardly been a stressful day in comparison to all the others.

You glance at the other lawyers perched on their death chairs behind their glass doors, tapping away at their keyboards. No one else seems panicked.

This is, after all, Civility Place.

You go to the kitchen to make some chamomile tea. Maybe that will calm you down.

Your hands tremble as you take a cup and plate from the shelf and pull a tea bag from its individual paper envelope.

As you fill the cup from the tap, you wonder why the tea isn't turning yellow and then realise that you have your thumb on the button for cold, not hot, water.

Just your luck – the firm's Managing Partner also seems to have had an urge to make a cup of tea, and is approaching the sink where you're standing.

You've never seen him on this floor, nor up so close. Usually you watch him from afar giving an official welcome, or see him in videos that screen on loop in the kitchen, delivering firm-wide news updates for staff.

You turn to the Managing Partner and force a smile, while your hands, cup and plate shake and clatter.

He considers you, clearly unaware of who you are.

‘Nice to run into you again,' he says. ‘How's your career going?'

‘It's going very well, thanks, John.'

‘Great,' he nods. ‘Brilliant.'

Your hands are still fumbling around. You spill the tea, which lands all over John's designer shoes and socks. Panicked, you grab a paper towel and zone in. But John is there before you, of course. He is, after all, a Partner, and a Managing one at that.

‘I'm so sorry,' you say as he cleans himself up.

‘Lucky your tea's cold.'

John looks at the paper towel in your hand and you realise suddenly that you've forgotten to tear the towel from the dispenser and that the entire length of the roll has extended towards his feet.

‘Having one of those days?' he asks as you both straighten up.

‘I've certainly had better.'

You grin through the panic. You're bursting out of your skin. You have a sudden urge to run right out through the automatic doors to the nearest lift. But you stay standing there, trying to sip the cold tea but finding it hard to connect with the teacup.

‘Must be motion sickness,' you explain. ‘From the building? Shaking in the wind …'

‘Yes, a wonderful innovation, isn't it?' says John, taking over at the sink and making himself an Earl Grey. ‘A flexible building. Who knew anyone would be able to design a swaying tower that can withstand even earthquakes. Too bad for you, eh?' John claps a firm hand on your shoulder and guides you over to the window, through which you can see parts of the city.

Your body feels scattered and numb, almost like it's shutting down.

‘This firm has strong roots,' says John. ‘Just like this building. We have unmatched staying power, even in adverse conditions.'

He sticks his hands in his pockets and draws his shoulders back, standing tall. ‘Look out at this city. Look at how we rise so powerfully above the rest. How do we do it? Through an unshakeable commitment to the provision of top-quality services for our clients! Long after we're both gone, this firm will still be expanding of its own accord, its cogs turning, fuelled by the sheer talent and dedication of hardworking, intelligent people just like yourself.' He puts his hand on your shoulder again. ‘Now, why don't you call it a day? You seem like you need a good half-day off.'

‘I don't think I could do that. I have deadlines.'

‘You know we're serious about mental health, don't you? We're big on that work–life balance thing. We take pride in caring for each other at this firm.'

‘Yes.'

‘So I think you should go home.'

‘I can't leave my work to other people.'

‘You can log on remotely, can't you? That way you can meet your deadlines
and
get some rest.'

‘I suppose so. I suppose I should go home.'

‘Good idea,' he smiles. ‘Go get a life, then. Go on, you.'

You return to your office.

You pick up your keys and drop them into your back pocket. You do the same with your mobile. Then a blue pen. Then a black pen.

You start grabbing every item within reach and filling your pockets with them. Highlighters, Post-it notes, even a red self-inking ‘DRAFT' stamp. Anything and everything goes.

Why are you panicking? You still don't know.

The glass around you hums – your panic is vibrating through the building. It stretches all the way down into the roots of the tower and further.

Your panic is bottomless and so, it seems, are your pockets.

The more items you drop into them, the more room it seems your pockets have. Postage stamps, paperclips, pencils, free two-packs of Anzac biscuits from the kitchen, the banana from the fruit box, your landline phone, a heavy-duty hole puncher, your intray, manila folders, binders from your shelves, an old, annotated
Corporations Act.
Your chair even fits into the right outer pocket of your jacket without touching the edges. You slide your computer screen into one of the inner pockets with no problems at all.

The more you panic, the less people notice you. Not even the secretaries sitting right outside your door turn their heads.
Clickety, clickety, click
go their computer keys. Lawyers are returning to the floor through the automatic doors, holding their coffees out in front of them and failing to see you pick up your desk, turn it on its side, and lower it, legs first, into your pants. You are sweating. The air conditioning is raising goosebumps on your skin.

You keep at it until you've cleared everything.

The entire office is now in your pockets but your pockets look like they're completely empty.

You still haven't calmed down. You gulp down the rest of the cold tea – it dribbles down your chin – and you slide open your office door. You walk neatly and urgently out of the office, through the automatic doors, to the lifts, through the egg beaters and all the way down the hill to the station.

On the train, the carriage is almost empty.

You rest your head against the window.

A man has followed you in. He's wearing a brown parachute tracksuit with fluoro green stripes. The pants have been cut off above the knee, probably with an axe.

He sits right next to you, despite the spare seats. He breathes down your neck. He smells like cigarettes and beer and last week's fried chicken. He stares at you and rubs his crotch.

You are suffocating. You pull open a carriage window and the air that blows in is warm and also smells of nicotine and alcohol and oil.

You hold your hands in front of you. They're still trembling.

You burst out of the train three stops early and walk, dizzy, through the afternoon all the way to your front door, tracing the railway line to keep your sense of direction.

For some time, you sit on the couch in your living room, staring at the curtain.

Eventually, your deadlines come to mind. You reach into your back pocket for your remote access token. You need it to access the firm's intranet from your home computer.

Instead, your pocket produces a set of pencils, Post-it notes, the red ‘DRAFT' stamp, and an ergonomic keyboard made in the shape of a wave.

‘Fuck.'

Next the computer screen comes out, followed by a glass filing cabinet.

It takes the whole night to empty your pockets. Your remote access token is nowhere to be found.

The complete contents of your office are now in your living room.

‘My God,' you say, when you check your pockets one last time and pull out the heel of a shoe, followed by the secretary attached to it.

Mona straightens up, pulls down her skirt and smooths her hair. ‘Here's that conflict check. I only just got around to it. Oh, and your remote access thingy.' She hands you the token and some crumpled printouts, then walks off to the kitchen.

‘How did …' you say. ‘What are …'

You touch the back of your hand to your forehead. It feels both hot and cold. If you were to average this out, you think, you might have a temperature of no medical concern.

You change into your usual striped pyjamas, wrap a blanket around your shoulders and pull the death chair up to your computer. You begin the email to the purple cow juice company once again.

Dear Mr Laing,
you type.
We refer to your email of 31 July.

A purple cow is chewing on grass and begins nibbling on your fingers but its bite isn't clean, it's crooked, and you are so appalled by the jagged mess those teeth are making that you wake yourself up to find that you've been drooling on your keyboard.

You wipe your cheek with your forearm and hold your hands up to eye level against the morning light. You try to will them steady but they continue to tremble. At least your fingers are still there, and the nightmare cow isn't.

Phillips Tom walks by, zipping up his fly and wrinkling his nose at your striped attire.

‘Settled in for the night, did we?' he says, and exits via the bathroom door. ‘I have a new matter for you, by the way,' he calls out from the toilet. ‘Tell me you have capacity.'

Hot on his trail is a highly strung Scottish terrier barking out Italian numerals from one to six, its tail wagging from side to side in time with each bark.

You feel weak but you can't afford to take any more sick leave.

You don't bother with breakfast. You change, comb your hair, straighten your tie, pick up your bag and leave the house.

Halfway down the street, you have a strange urge to look back at your apartment block.

It shimmers, mirror-like, and seems to be expanding upwards.

You turn and hurry to the station, telling yourself that it's just a hallucination, that it will be better when you return, that some screw – probably made of glass – has come irretrievably loose inside your head.

The lift in Civility Place declares that it is a good morning and makes a favourable comment about the weather.

‘Morning,' you reply.

‘Your target for today,' says the lift, ‘is 26.4 billable hours, taking into account yesterday's unmet target.'

To your surprise, your office is just as it usually is.

Everything you put in your pockets yesterday is back where it used to be. Your computer is plugged in. The stationery spread out on your desk quivers, itching to be used.

As you contemplate the scene, you try to slide your hands into your jacket pockets but your fingertips can't seem to find the openings.

In fact, all of your pockets have suddenly closed up – sewn shut like those belonging to a new suit.

You sit at your desk thinking about Windy.