Stranger Things

“Today is your day!” His dad’s voice blasted through the cell phone speaker. “Thanks dad.” Julius squinted and pulled the phone away from his ear and placed it in the car speaker adapter, which filtered his dad’s craggily voice throughout his bruised ’03 Malibu.

“Hey, give me a call when you find out what that surprise is. I bet it’s a giant cake with your name on it—”

“They don’t do birthday parties dad.”

“—and when you go to blow out the candles a beautiful lady will jump out—”

“Why would they put a woman in a cake?”

“—and she’ll be holding sparklers! And she’ll say, ‘Happy birthday Julius!’ And she’ll be yours to keep.”

“Dad, I’m going to go now,” like many of his relatives, Julius’ father had let the Strange family name take control. In his old age, he had gone from acting strange, to being strange, which was ok he guessed. He was retired after all; there were no more patients to scare with his zany personality.

“Ok son, don’t forget to call me! What color do you think her hair will be?”

“I don’t know dad, I have to go.”

“I bet she’s a redhead. Those are rare you know.”

“All right dad. If a redheaded woman holding fireworks jumps out of a giant cake with my name on it, you’ll be the first person I call.”

“Great! Have a super day son!”

“Bye dad,” Julius hit the end button on his phone and steered his car off the highway.

To save money, he parked under the overpass where parking was free and walked the next six blocks to his office building. The morning stroll was something he looked forward to. At this hour, the temperature was mild and the city was slowly waking up. The early morning sounds of trolley bells, slow traffic, and the soft squeak of his ten dollar chocolate brown loafers combined with the opulent aroma of two-dozen coffee shops (all owned by Globitrex of course), brought a Zen-like peace to Julius. It was as if the city counted on him to play his part in its daily rhythm.

Julius rounded the corner and gazed at the monstrosity Globitrex called an office building. When the company announced it was building a new headquarters, no one in Gate City imagined this 107-storey slab of dark concrete and steel. It was a giant black needle protruding from the ground, making Gate City look like an enormous abandoned cross-stitch project. Thanks to a freak typhoon in Asia, the Globitrex building was officially the tallest in the world.

Julius always found it odd that a mega company like Globitrex would set up shop in Gate City, Virginia. Sandwiched between Richmond and Norfolk, Gate City was a medium sized city at best; the next tallest building was a pathetic twenty-storey hotel.

No one knew why Globitrex chose Gate City, but no one really cared. With the economy like it was most people in the city were happy for the jobs. Now that the country had stabilized, or at least looked stabilized, the city’s view of the company seemed to split. Some hated the giant eyesore and the way it brought a starched corporate feel to a happy country town, while others, like the mayor and most city bureaucrats, liked the recognition and tourist revenue the world’s tallest building brought.

Julius’ thoughts on the company fell somewhere in the middle; he was in South Carolina attending college when construction started. He came home the summer before his senior year and was shocked to see the mammoth skyscraper in the middle of the city. It certainly changed the overall tone of the community, but Julius was ok with that, Gate City needed a little push to get it out of the outdated small town mindset—it hadn’t been a small town since the late 70s. He couldn’t deny the menacing look the Globitrex tower bestowed, with it’s sharp edges and black glossy windows, but it gave him a reliable job and a completion bonus, so it couldn’t be that bad.

Julius ended his commune with the morning city sounds and entered the building. He worked on the fourteenth floor, which was really the thirteenth floor, but it wasn’t labeled as such, he supposed it was for morale, or superstitious data processors. Usually, he rode the elevator with his friend Phil, a data processor from the fifteenth floor (there were supposedly twenty identical floors of processors), but he wasn’t there. Which seemed a bit unusual, today being bonus day and all.

Beside his pet guinea pig Bilbo, Phil was the only friend Julius had, though he really wasn’t much more than an acquaintance. Julius was a solitary kind of guy, he really didn’t mind being alone, most of the time. Would he like more friends? Of course, but he wasn’t going to make any in his current position. Fraternizing wasn’t exactly prohibited at Globitrex, but it was definitely frowned on. “Data processors aren’t paid to talk about the game last night,” say the floating heads on the monitors whenever someone gets a bit too talkative. Julius usually got all his chatting done on the elevator ride, but not today. Phil was missing.

Maybe Phil is sick, Julius thought, glancing around the elevator, making sure his round faced friend wasn’t hiding in the back. Maybe I should call him, this is reward day after all. He pulled out his phone, flipped through the contacts and realized he didn’t have Phil’s number. He could have sworn they exchanged numbers during one of their more recent elevator chats. He slid the phone shut, glanced at the frizzy haired woman behind him, and sunk the phone into his pocket. He’ll pull out it. Julius’ mind gave a mental shrug as the elevator chimed and he stepped out.

The Globitrex data processing offices weren’t really offices; they were more like human parking garages. Rows and rows of cubicles were neatly and perfectly aligned, organized like sections of an amusement park parking lot. Julius worked in row 34, cube Q; a designation he committed to memory after accidentally sitting down to work in 32Q his first week.

He quietly walked to his cubicle, a working space just big enough to fit his computer, a small desk, and an uncomfortable wheel-less chair. He slipped his bag under his chair, straightened his tie, and jiggled the mouse to wake his computer. Thanks to the flexible silicone keypads, the noisy clackity-clack of most data processing offices was reduced to a soft thump. With over three hundred number crunchers on each floor, the constant typing sounded like an evening rain shower on a grassy field; it was almost hypnotic.

Normally, everyone would work at a relaxed pace, entering numbers and sorting through files with a slight air of apathy. But today, there was a frenzied tension hovering over each cubicle. It was quieter than normal, there was no time for chitchat. The sooner the work was completed the sooner the bonus would be distributed. Rumors about free cars, huge stock options and cruises to Jamaica were buzzing in the back of each workers mind. The floating heads had promised this day would come, reminded them every three to six months, goaded them on to completion; some of them had been working tirelessly for more than five years. In just a few hours, the treadmill would finally stop, the rope would slacken and the thousands of data processors at Globitrex would get their carrots.