Category: most likely fiction

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The Sanctuary – Blue Room

The only light in the hallway comes from under each of the six doors and the Tiffany lamp.  You look at the attendant to see if she might give you a hint.  You glance at the polished stones.  Is there some correlation between the stones and the doors?

She told you that the purple and green rooms are occupied.  You briefly wonder what is happening in those rooms.  You don’t hear any sounds coming from under the doors.  You don’t smell anything that would give you a clue. The glowing colors under the remaining doors are red, yellow, blue and orange.  The doors aren’t labeled.  There isn’t a flyer or a brochure telling you what’s behind each door.  Your lizard brain wants you to reach for your phone and try to search something about “The Sanctuary.”

The attendant stands a couple feet away from you.  She’s giving you quiet and space to make a decision.  You take a breath.  For some reason – probably a feeling – you say, “The Blue Room, please.”  The attendant walks to the table, selects a stone and places it in the pocket of her tunic.  She then walks to the door of the Blue Room and glances in each direction before turning the handle.

 

Immediately your eyes need time to adjust to the light spilling out of the room.  The attendant gently touches your elbow to assist you into the space.  You see some kind of screen.  It’s expansive – so large that you can’t quite tell how tall or wide it is.  Is it curved?  The screen encompasses the ceiling, or at least you think it does.

Starting at the floor and scaling to the ceiling, you see every shade of blue from the darkest, almost black indigo to cornflower blue that wants to fade to white.  Are you swimming?  Are you flying?  You feel light-headed.  You reach out to steady yourself and the attendant puts out her arm.  You grab her arm and she leads you to the center of the space.

For the first time, you notice a chair. Or is it a chair?  It looks like something a serious gamer would use.  It’s ergonomic, sleek, white and encased in a clear bubble-like shield.  The attendant presses a button on the back of the chair and the bubble slides out of the way to allow access to the seat.  She smiles and motions for you to take the seat.

Gingerly, you step into what can only be described as a sterilized cocoon.  You’ve never experienced a more comfortable chair – no pressure points, no need to adjust.  You are completely supported and feel as though you are floating in the center of a quiet blue space.  For a moment, you start to feel claustrophobic, but that is overridden by your excitement and anticipation of what comes next.

Once you are in position, she walks around to stand in front of you.  She speaks quickly and quietly.  “Each arm rest is equipped with hand controls.  Place your hands on them now.  Acquaint yourself.  Push buttons and pull levers.  Nothing can happen until I close the shield.  Feel the knobs and familiarize yourself.  The controls are intuitive.  Push both forward to move faster.  Push either side forward to move at a controlled pace in a certain direction. Pull one back to go back.  Pull both back to stop.  The left control will send you to the left.  The right…  You will see.  Don’t over-think.”

The attendant steps out of view to give you time to adjust.  You notice a slight texture on the grips.  They fit your hands perfectly.  The controls are white.  Everything on the chair is white.  There is not point in looking at the controls to perceive a difference between levers or buttons.  Clearly, you are meant to feel the controls.

The attendant must have pressed the button because suddenly the shield closes to encase you in the bubble.

. . .

 

 

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The Sanctuary

You’ve heard of this place, but you want to see for yourself.

You find the door, but you’re not sure that this unmarked door could lead to what you are expecting.  Is this the service entrance?  More than that, the dust-covered door looks like it hasn’t been used in awhile.  The handle hasn’t been turned recently.  The door is set back in the wall of the building, deep enough for a person to hide from oncoming traffic.  Dried leaves and a McDonald’s wrapper have taken refuge in the corner from the wind.  If they don’t take time to clean the entrance, what’s the interior going to be like?

You’re convinced you are at the wrong building, but then you notice a door bell button.  You look over both shoulders, hesitate, and press the button.  You hear the faintest buzz, not the expected sound of a bell.  A quiet voice emits from a speaker you cannot see.  “Solo or communal, please?”  You look over your shoulder before saying, “Solo?”

The door opens almost immediately and your senses are engaged.  First, a waft that is equal parts orange, sage, and eucalyptus, followed by a note of bergamot and, lastly, the distinct, memory-inducing scent of damp soil.  The smells are pleasing and inviting without overpowering.  Your eyes adjust to the darkness and then spot low-lit, amber-colored sconces near the high ceiling, lining a hallway.  Your skin notices warmth, not a dry heat from forced air, but a moist warmth that instantly makes your shoulders relax.  You think you hear the gentle tinkling of bells, or is that some kind of new age music in the background.

You pause to take it all in and your mind briefly wonders if this is going to be too “out there” for you, but your body pulls you over the threshold.

The assistant, who patiently allowed you time to adjust,  hands you a key and points to a wall of mailboxes.  You haven’t seen this kind of mailbox since your mom held your hand to cross the street on the way to the post office.

“Please silence your phone, place it in number 17 and lock it.  Keep the key with you, please.  Don’t worry about remembering which box is yours.  I’ll take care of that.”  After you’ve secured your phone in its own locked box, the attendant says, “This way please.”  She leads you down the panel-lined hallway toward a set of stairs.  It is dark, but not menacingly so.

On your left is a set of double mahogany doors.  You see natural light coming from under the doors, and you hear sounds – music, laughter, conversation.  The sounds are inviting, but that’s not where you want to be today.

The wide staircase is lit with the same sconces.  The stairs lead to a landing.  You turn to the right and climb a second set of stairs.  The carpeted stairs muffle the sound of your footsteps as you follow the attendant.

At the top of the stairs you reach another hallway.  Three closed doors line each side of the hallway.  At the end of the hallway, a demi-moon table holds a lit Tiffany lamp and a wide, shallow wooden bowl filled with polished stones.

You notice the ambient light coming from under each of the six doors.  The light is colored.  A different colored light glows from under each door.

The attendant tells you that the Purple and Green rooms are occupied.  She says, “You may select from the other four doors.”

. . .

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Where’d She Go?

As he turned the key in the lock he said, “Anyone want to go across the street for a drink?”

One said, “What a day!  I’m game.”

Another said, “I’ve got time for one.”

Two more said, “I’ll meet you,” and “I’ve gotta text my husband first.”

She said, “Sure.  Why not?”

 

After the drinks were sorted between them, they started in about the clients they had, and any progress they were making with those clients.

He took a sip of his beer, looked across the table at a male coworker, laughed and said, “If she didn’t have such great legs, I’d have passed this client off to you.”

She saw the two women at the table look down, cringe, and sip their drinks.

She thought of saying something snarky about clients and legs, but she wasn’t quick enough.

The male coworker said, “I’ll be happy to trade.  The gal I’m working with isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer.  I’m having to explain everything to her.”

She exchanged glances with the women at the table and considered introducing the concept of mansplaining, but she didn’t get the chance.

 

One of the female coworkers was able to get a word in and said, “I got a call from a potential client who asked me to refer him to one of the guys in the office.  When I told him I’d be happy to help him, he said, ‘I appreciate your gumption, honey, but I need to talk to someone with experience.'”

She said, “So what did you do?”

“I passed him off.  I’m too busy to scale that mountain.  Who needs that kind of crap?”

One of the guys said, “So who did you pass him off to?” because he clearly didn’t get the point.

 

She threaded her hand through the glasses to grab a handful of peanuts and noticed one of the male coworkers staring at the waitress’s ass.  She kept her eyes on him long enough for him to realize he’d been caught staring.  She said, “So how does that compare to what you have at home?”  He threw up his hands in that way guys do when they’ve been caught in the act, “What?  I’m a guy.”  He grinned, “I can’t help it.”  Then he looked at the other guys at the table, “Right, guys?  We’re wired to look.  It’s what we do.”  Then the three males laughed the kind of laugh that comes with confidence, security and place – a laugh that the three females at the table had only rarely expressed.  A laugh had with your best girlfriend, while driving away from a party you didn’t want to go to, to begin with.

 

She said she had to use the restroom, excusing herself from the table, and leaving a full beer and a pile of peanuts in her wake.

She laughed in the privacy of her car, as she pulled out of the parking lot, saying to no one and everyone, “I don’t have time to scale that mountain.”