Office Design Hunt

I ducked into a cubicle, panting as I pressed myself against the itchy felt walls, praying that they hadn’t seen me go in here – I needed to escape, and it needed to be now.

         I poked my head out of the stall and into the deserted corridor, quickly checking my surroundings and leapfrogging into the cubicle up and across from me. It was as empty as the first – everyone was at lunch, no doubt.

         I did this again, and once more after that, slowly inching my way towards the bank of elevators that governed our floor.

         ‘Where is he?’ I heard an angry voice call across the office, as sharp as any blade. I winced, as if I had been cut, and pressed myself ever deeper into my current cubicle – for the first time, I found myself grateful for the Melbourne office design.

         ‘We will find you,’ a different voice echoed the first, from somewhere closer, and to my right. ‘You won’t escape us – not this time.’

         I cursed myself and my stupidity. How had I ended up here? What a stupid mistake.

         No, I stopped myself, mid-thought. Not a mistake – a choice.

         A choice I had to face, I realised. With a deep, resigned breath, I stood up, stepping out of the cubicle and into the harsh fluorescent light of the office.

         ‘I’m here,’ I called out into the neatly-arranged grid, surprised that my voice didn’t waver. ‘I’m the one you’re looking for.’

         Three figures, placed at equidistant intervals around the room, turned as one, zeroing in on me. In a flash, I was surrounded by sharply-dressed men and women – people I had once considered friends.

         ‘You admit it then?’ the ringleader, a blonde, hissed at me. I nodded, slowly.

         ‘I do,’ I said, voice hoarse. ‘I… I microwaved the fish in the break room. It was me.’

         An audible gasp rippled through the functional office space design – for Melbourne, it was the closest thing I’d heard to a gun going off.

         ‘It was a mistake,’ I whimpered.

         ‘There are no mistakes,’ the blonde shook her head. ‘Only choices. Take him away.’