Secrets of gravity, a short story

“Alright Patrick, here are the keys and I’ll see you in the morning.”

Sitting alone in the office in the dead of night and with my feet up on the desk, I dozely stared at the array of video screens. A solitary figure drifted through a corridor.

“Twelve hours and two patrols,” I thought to myself and let out a sigh of boredom.

Preparations included clipping the large ring of keys to my belt and throwing the leather watchclock strap over my right shoulder before setting out into the quiet, dim maze.

I quickly checked the adjacent conference room before descending into the eerie, meandering bowels of the building. I was hunting for keys chained to concrete walls. The turning of a key in the watchclock gave off a satisfying punching noise but anxiety hurried me to exit the dismal lower floors. Only a short excursion through the outdoor pool area and around the building offered any respite.

Locking the door to the buzzing transformer room, I began the zig-zagging climb through the twelve residential floors while noting down the lights that were either flickering or burnt out. On the last floor, I sometimes stood in the large maintenance room and watched some news on a dusty old TV that looked like it was from the 80s.

Ascending a few more – rather steep – steps brought my face inches from a heavy, latched metal door that lead to the roof. I trekked across the starry night to get to the lonely elevator machine room where the final key awaited me.

Perched on the roof, I lit up a healthy smoke and started my daily dose of wonderment.

The cosmos turned ever so gently and quiet cricket noises filled the warm summer air.

Releases a puff of smoke

“My dear friends, we have only begun to scratch the surface.”