*Beep*
  *Beep*
      *Beep*

    The early morning sun rises upon the forgotten cousin of the Jet City. Amongst the numerous towering skyscrapers, lies the many shorter buildings, and districts, that bask in their shadows. One of these buildings being the Art Deco apartment our straggler lays his weary head. In the back of his apartment, past the mess and remnants of visitors long gone, one can find the place that finds the most neglect from his current track in life: his bedroom.

    There sits no pictures. No ornaments hanging off the walls. No achievements decorating his bedroom. This room is empty from all except the necessities and his growingly outdated music technologies. John lays snuggled up onto the plain white pillows and comforter upon his queen-sized bed. Beside this bed, there sits a tiny nightstand. And, on it, there blares a digital alarm clock.

"Hmm—", John groans at those depressing beeps pounding on his groggy eardrums. Swatting and smacking haphazardly, his hunt for the snooze button is the same as any other morning. It's been this way ever since these special training duties began to be tacked onto each of his standard work requirements. These exhaustive duties draining every bit of his already limited luster since they started two months ago— and there seems to be no end in sight.

    John sluggishly drags his face from out of his cloud-like pillows as the blue glare of the clock's digital numbers fuel his smoldering internal flames. '7:19am', the time imprints the cause for it's alarm. This hadn't been the first time he pushed that well-worn snooze button this morning.

    "Ah, crap..." John knew this new, familiar routine all too well by this point. Punching more adrenaline into him than any amount of coffee could, John leaps through his comforter and out of bed as this straggler's morning rush begins.

    From the closet to the small dresser drawers to the nightstand, the frantic scrummaging for presentability is quickly followed by his penchant for hygiene. The frantic rush between the bedroom and bathroom picks up speed as the minutes tick away— and the honking outside traffic grows with every aggravated shout.

    Between a double-handed toothbrushing technique to his oft-colored tie strangling around his neck, John spits out into his sink and finishes buckling his belt as the clock clicks onto '7:26am'. John, dressed and stuffing his essentials into his khaki pant's pockets, rapidly stumbles down the apartment's hallway and into the living room onto his way out. As he struggles with his tie, something catches the corner of his eye.

    Through the huge panoramic-like windows, the parallel apartment building can be seen— yet, something was distinctly different about it. Some of the gothic ornamentation hanging off the side corner of this building appears to have collapsed at some point during the night. The shroud of darkness was no longer around to hide what had bumped around under the guise of midnight. The damage, while minimal, would've been dangerous all the same— still, this isn't what John's unintended focus was spent on. He squints his eyes through the sunny reflections grazing in from the windows. The relevancy of time flying out said window, alongside his focus, as the assumed peculiarity unveils itself.

    On the side of the building, beyond the crumbling remnants encircling it, there marks a familiar indention: what seems to be half of a sneaker's sole print. The sight as baffling as the lack of any noise of the collapse itself. The unfathomability of a shoe print seemingly sitting pretty far up on the side of a multiple stories-high building is groan-inducing enough for John, but it made even less sense to the lack of where the collapsed pieces of the building went off to once it fell. As much as his mind was taken up by this absurdity, his feet were still stuck in their previous endeavor: getting to work.

    His feet move slowly towards the door as everything else had twisted over to the mystery imprinted right outside his windows. John's obligation and instinctual urge conflict. However, his spilt opinion enjoyed the distraction nevertheless.

    The warm morning reflections encourage a deepening trance-like state into the straggler. A mystery to be lost in, a question without a time limit. There is a sensation of peace in that. It didn't matter how long he would stare either. He knew nothing particularly about sneakers or, especially so, how their bottoms were different from any other sneaker. Just a moment spent away from himself was satisfying enough. Although, another sensation from outside his distraction begins to tingle his outer thigh.

*Buzz*
  *Buzz*
      *Buzz*

    The shock of the phone's vibrations jumps him back to reality. John grabs his phone and flings it open. The anxious adrenaline re-entering his bloodstream. "H—Hello?" He statically answers the phone as his head keeps flipping back and forth between the door and the windows.

"مغفل! How long will you make me wait?" The familiar Middle-Eastern voice fills the minimalistic apartment with an irritable, bustling-city hello. Accompanied by an amalgamation of vehicle noises down below, "Johnny boy, you get down here or I'm leaving."

"Wait! Wait", the words coming out faster than he can think, "I'm coming down now. Be there in two." Those words rhyming the chimes of a half-hour warning from the hanging clock above and quickly complimented by the rapid shoe stomps from his feet rampaging out his doorway.

*Slam*
  "Oh, C'mon!"
      *Vroosh*

    Out and back again, John busts through his own door in a fit of wild liveliness. His sight thrashing all about his apartment. Scanning for the one, or two, item(s) misplaced the night before. That pesky briefcase and bag.

    One grasp towards the couch and another at the rug just in front, his hands jolt for those missing pieces before rushing out the door once more.

••••••••••••••••••••••

    Barging on through the cell bars known as the business's entrance and up to the elevator in a feverish madness; his fee paid and his pestering cabby rejoining the morning cavalcade of disgruntled, responsible adults. John is miserably late— and he knows it. Be it, the taps of his dominant foot or the prestigious clock tower chiming in the time half past eight, what has him so frazzled—his heart pumping so hard—isn't the fact that he is late but what 'words' he would have to hear in response to such. The thought of those familiar 'words' repeating themselves again is enough to make John dread both the wait for the elevator and, also, for when the elevator finally did land on his floor.

    John stands there in the shadow of the bronze, reflective elevator door for, what feels like, eternity. The lack of people around him only doubling down on the obvious. The quiet, bustling morning whispering to a mere wisp at the basking of his reflection. Able to see every imperfection coated in the brozen shin. His face mimicked, the minor infractions across it knowing his opinions over what he sees— his truth. A failing of etiquette. An appalling representation of Fujx. An unearned seat to comfort his bum. The disappointments? "No. I thought the buffering was scheduled for Tuesday. Was it this shiny yesterday?"

    As if the secret phrase for passage, the elevator doors open as if it was their immediate response to John's interrogation. He rushes into the empty elevator, clicks the button for the 4th floor, and awaits the long ride up. The floor numbers flash on by as his sight stays locked onto every flickering pixel. His brain cycling through the possible excuses he could use, the outs he hasn't had the luxury to use yet. Nevertheless, they all fade as the elevator doors slide open once again. The flickering golden shine of '4' inviting him back out into his daily routine.

    "Hello, welcome to Fu— oh! It's you", the pleasant voice squeaks to a halt.

The floor's receptionist of recent years has come to know this sight well. Nearly every ending to the work week for the past two months start out with this sort of exchange. Regardless, her sweet-side still reacts the same as the first day John's attendance started to slip.

    "Did you run into celebration troubles on your way to work today?" The squeak to match her hand resting on her cheek. The look of genuine worry making up her body language.

    "... Yeah. Let's go with that", an out as convenient as John could've ever wished for. And, yet, something spoken in a tone of trepidation. John's eyes squint. Waiting.

    "Oh! Wait a minute," the receptionist interjects, "is it that time of the week again? Never mind"

    "Yep. Yeah, there it is..", mumbled in-between the receptionist's paused responses.

    Walking on past the pearly desk and into the actual office area on the floor, John acts as part of the artificial ferns that decorate the department. The act of inconspicuousness functioning on past the early empty desks and through the Picasso-like carpet of yellows and greens as he makes his way to his own office room. Between the lower-end employees nose-deep in their work and the mail workers—from floors below—visiting in their daily deliveries, no one was picking up on the guy fading into the colorful vomit that brought the whole office together. The ghost-play working as peachy as one could hope it to be— except for one thing that followed close behind.

    Up from her desk of boredom, she turns into the office area and catches back up to the professional ghost of an office worker. "Hey there, John", the receptionist disrupts, "you got some serious bags under those eyes today."

    Past the mail buckets with wheels, the attention from the receptionist isn't being lost on any of those that work under John. The scatter of eyes from some of the lower-end employees raise above their cubicles. Their attention spans following onto where the familiar sounding exhaustion of John's voice is drowsily croaking from. "Are they really that bad today?" The question pairing itself well with his momentary sigh.

    Walking right beside him, "Oh, yea! More so than usual. People been talking." Her painted nail sticking out from the colorful vomit around them as her index finger wags to the beat of the warnings whistling from between her lips. The cool, if not understated, stature exuded from her faux nonchalant attitude didn't ease the attention drawing John's way either.

    "You sure it has nothing to do with the fact you won't call me 'Mr. Smith' like they all have to?" The delirium of little sleep eases John's tone to a breathy reply. As the eyes from the cubicles beyond begin to fade from John's faulty attention span, the weight of the bag and briefcase draw more of it elsewhere.

    "If you think that, you really haven't looked in a mirror today." The retort more potent knowing that he, in fact, had. If not the bathroom mirror at home, than the shiny sparkle from the brozen elevator doors from just moments ago; the pull from his baggage dragging him down with every fault checked off from his long sheet of rushed attire. "Even your tie looks shabby. Where did you sleep last night? A couch, a park bench? Oh! Or, was it somewhere else?"

"Ha. Ha. Funny, Ms. Washington." The options were anything but pleasing to hear. Albeit, she wasn't necessarily wrong. He had, in fact, slept on the couch earlier in the night before.

    That's right! The thought shooting through John's groggy neurons. He had slept there, and, not only that, he was rudely awoken there, too. Now, what was it that woke me up again? Siv's spastic knocking? No— Art's smuggy pestering? Nah—

    Flipping through the options of trial and error, nothing familiar was seeming to match the ambiance around his dark room right when he woke up then and there. The only thing he could recall was the blinding fuzziness of the purple neon from outside his window and the light taps on the— That's it! That's when the other buildings thingy must've fallen! That's what woke me up then! That's why that building piece didn't make a sound when it fell. That must've been the thing that originally woke me up. Huh..

    The hand, unburdened by the baggage, cradled John's chin— stroking it deep in thought. Stood solid facing his office door, his ruminating drew more eyes with every snap of Ms. Washington's fingers as they grew in abrasive sound and shrunk in safe distance. "Hey! Earth to John," she beckons fruitlessly, "stop facing your door like a naughty kid, and go in already."

    "Huh? Oh, yeah. I spaced out again, didn't I?" His eye bags increasing with every ounce of embarrassment those words wrought. "I.. should probably fix myself a cup of coffee here soon, huh?"

    Instead of an immediate retort or sweet, questionable remedy, all Ms. Washington was willing to offer was a look of a dampened smirk. With a motion of her arm and a shrug of a shoulder, "Sure, I suppose."

    *Click*

The lock within his office's doorknob unlocks. As John sluggishly walks into his office, the timely Ms. Washington leans into his office and relays, "Oh, by the way, the boss wants to see you. In his office."

    And with an unenthusiastic wave, a monotonous "Thanks" withers from out of his mouth. As the lower-end workers return back to work and the sportive receptionist walks away, her voice rings out one last time.

"Also, invest in some clip-on ties. You need them."

"... Thanks. Ms. Washington."

In and out, his office a blur in the speed he dropped off his work-related anchors and made his way to the boss's quarters. Directly across the way through the cubicles, the boss's office was located on the complete opposite end of the office space from his own. Just enough time to think; just enough time to grumble.

It's time for them: those groan-inducing words. Those familiar words, once so foreign to the poor straggler, now almost closer than blood. Even for such a hurriedly walk as his, the distance felt longer than normal under this kind of nipping anxiety. Past the once wondering eyes, past the myriad of filed and empty office rooms like his own, past the meeting rooms matching in suit, and past the mail-deliverers dilly-dallying through their morning routines; John concludes his trail of consequences his actions wrought— or lack there of. Coming face-to-face to the boss's door is his final step before his Friday routine comes to an end.