Encounters With People I’ve Never Met: Day 42

[S] A few short stories (42,413 / 1,000,000)

The man stepped up to the door and fished a stack of plastic cards from his pocket. There were three of them - red, green, and yellow – unadorned, brightly colored, and glossy. Unclipping the green card from the others, the man inserted the colored rectangle into a slot beside the door. The slot pulled the card into the wall with a whir and a beep. Green lights shone from around the card slot and the door slid open with a hiss. A hall of grey walls and fluorescent lighting stretched before him. The man stepped through and the door hissed closed behind him. On this side of the door was another slot, which after a few moments spat out his green card. He grabbed it, clipped it back to the others, and started down the hall.

As the man walked, his thoughts of things beyond these grey walls began to peel away. Any distracting thoughts that flitted into his head were quickly batted away. Within these walls he needn’t worry about the turmoil of the outside world; there was only the task he needed to perform, and the layered and methodical procedures which encompassed the task. The logical sterility which permeated this facility was a like soothing aura to the man. The systematic routine for entering the facility every day was akin to a purification ritual for him. He reached a second door, selected the yellow card, and inserted into the slot beside the door. Yellow lights flashed and the door opened. The man took a breath and stepped through.

---

She tapped on the glass in front of her. Well, she assumed it was glass. It looked like glass and felt like glass. The glass plinked with a satisfying sound as she continued to tap it with a fingernail. Yes, it was certainly glass, but it didn’t belong here where the door to her kitchen should be. It was an ordinary Tuesday for her otherwise – she got up at 7am for her normal morning routine. She was just on her way to the kitchen to brew some coffee – her favorite part of her morning routine – when she ran into this wall of glass.

There, where the doorway to her kitchen should be, spanned a piece of semitransparent, milky glass – covering the entrance completely. She thought she might be dreaming at first, but even after the skin on her arm was dotted with bright pink pinch marks, the glass remained. It was the oddest thing, she thought to herself, that she wasn’t more bent out of shape about this sudden occurrence. It was almost as if the absurdity of it prevented her from getting more upset about it.

Studying the glass, she couldn’t make out anything on the other side. It was thick, to be certain, based on her tapping analysis. The surface had fine swirling patterns etched into it, giving it a distinct impression of pale smoke, frozen in time. A faint light emanated from the other side, the intensity of which seemed to wax and wane. She shook her head, as if to snap herself out of a reverie. She needed to get to work.

Tired of tapping, she tried knocking on the glass. Nothing changed other than the sound her hand made on the glass. Should she break it? That was likely dangerous. She knocked harder – banging on the glass with two fists. The light from behind the glass swelled in intensity and she stopped banging. The light continued to swell until she was forced to close her eyes and step back. It filled the whole space with a brilliant white light. Then, it faded, leaving the home without light, without the mysterious glass, and without the woman who previously inhabited it.

---

I was walking through the city the other day. Really, I was. The buildings were old, and it didn’t look like anyone was taking care of them. In fact, it didn’t look like anyone was using them at all, except as a canvas for graffiti. A few of them were entirely caved in, filled with mounds of rubble highlighted by beams of sunlight poking through a collapsed roof. There was no foot traffic here; no shoppers, students, businessmen, or workers. There were animals – birds and cats mostly. There would surely be rats aplenty here, if it weren’t for all the cats.

While I was walking, I noticed that quite a few cats had darted into one particular building – one that had suffered only minor structural decay. I meandered over to see what the feline fuss was about. Through bent metal bars and broken glass, I peered into the building. Inside, sat atop a pile of broken ceramic tiles and trash, was a man. Around the man throughout the debris-riddled room, pranced and played a number of cats and kittens.

The cats paid little attention to the man, but it looked like he preferred it that way. He sat quite still, a tattered coat wrapped around his body for warmth. He had a thick head of hair and a full beard over a stoic face. He was so covered with the dust and dirt of the building that he almost blended into the background of this habitat of his. He sat with a pensive expression, simply watching the cats. A particularly inquisitive kitten approached the man, sniffing and pawing at his coat. The man shifted, and a hand slowly poked out from his coat. He offered the kitten a closed fist, thick knuckles hovering before the kitten’s face. It sniffed and mewled some more, before rubbing its face against his hand. The man smiled; deep wrinkles creased his eyes.