Regularized
by Bernice Roldan

On the day that I was regularized, I logged in, went to the pantry to make some peppermint tea, and saw the checkered door.

Actually, it was a panel that swung open to reveal the electrical levers and wiring inside. Before that day, the panel was as white as the wall surrounding it. You were sure to miss it if it weren’t for the depressed metal switch that said “Push” in concise print.

There wasn’t supposed to be any checkered door in the pantry on the day I was regularized. Not yesterday, not on the day I was hired, not ever. That day, the metal switch said, “Push to see.”

Huh, I thought. Just like Alice and her bottle that said, “Drink me.”

I stood there and considered the door. At this early hour, the office was silent. No computer chairs skidding on the floor, no electronic keys clacking on carbon-copied forms, no laser printers whirring into life. I was always an hour early to beat the rush-hour traffic.

There was only one person in the world that I knew owned such a door. But for the life of me, I couldn’t see why his door was in my office.

Six months ago, on the day I was hired, I made my way to his studio flat after work. I had landed my first job, he had just finished decorating his own place. It was something to celebrate.

“How do I know which flat is yours?” I had asked.

“You’ll know,” was all he said.

I saw the checkered door the moment I stepped on the fourth floor landing of his building. He waved me in, went over to a pile of beanbags in the corner, and flopped down. Janis Joplin’s cover of “Summertime” by George Gershwin was playing.

“What happened to your door?” I asked him, tossing my bag down. The strap fell in a twisted loop, the leather collapsed and doubled its creases. The bag looked about as worn-down as I felt.

“I call the shots now. This place can be anything I want it to be.” He shrugged. “I figured I might as well use my skills.”

He was staring at the ceiling, on which, I realized as I looked up, he had painted the sky. I lay down and put my head next to his. Watching the rise and fall of his chest for a moment, I took a deep breath and lifted my eyes to the sky.

Silvery blue and white clouds spilled from one corner of the ceiling and rippled out in waves, the stratosphere suspended in motion over the entire room. If it weren’t for the golden sunburst that swirled among the other hues, I’d have thought the clouds were the ocean at a time of unrest.

“So,” I said. “If I felt the need to hit the beach, or if the summer passed me by because I was stuck in the office, I could always come here?”

Without taking his eyes off the ceiling, he reached down and linked his fingers with mine. Janis Joplin’s vocals singed the stillness in the air, her guitar melodies building up toward a gentle combustion until any boundaries he might have set, or I might have set, caught fire, flickered, went up in smoke.

“Of course,” he replied.

I took my coffee mug from the pantry rack and poured myself some hot water. Six months had just shot by. I haven’t seen him since. I had been swallowed into a world of escalating demands and deadlines that left me working in a daze. If anyone asked me to, I could mimic the CEO’s high-pitched American twang, the HR manager’s sashaying walk, or the paralegal assistant’s facial tic. But it now took me a minute, sometimes longer, to conjure up the image of his face.

I stood there to see how long the door would remain checkered. I blinked a few times, gave it ten seconds to return to white, but the uniform black and white squares stayed in place. If I had turned on my heel at that instant, walked back to my cubicle, and came back later in the day to find the door in its original white, I knew I’d always wonder what I’d missed.

I lifted my hand before the tiny embossed print that said “Push to see.” It was surprising how easily the metal switch gave under my index finger. As soon as I pressed down, a bang as loud as a gunshot ricocheted in the pantry. I looked around in alarm, but it was still quite early. There was no sound of stampeding feet, no sight of employees bursting into the pantry to see what the noise was all about.

And then the world started tilting forward. The myriad of black and white squares slowly loomed in my eyes, zooming in until my head was sure to hit the door. Was I teetering forward or were the checkered squares rising to meet me? My eyesight was spiraling out of focus at the same rate that the squares were losing shape. There was only a monotonous panel now, devoid of any color, and it wasn’t breaking my fall. In fact, gravity didn’t seem to be working.

I was falling headlong into space. (continue)