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Novelo Rectangle

The alarm wasn't supposed to go of yet! My top half jolted up off the mattress but my legs didn't move a muscle. "It can't be time, I just fell asleep?" I tried to rationalise to my sleep deprived mind in the orangey gloom of a streetlight that stood proudly bedroom outside my window. The shadow of the tree projected through the thin curtain, looked like a giant hand clawing on the window in the breeze. I swiped the alarm song on my phone, but it just kept playing, swipe again... Again and again. Again, this time it slide off the bedside table landing on the floor with a low thump but the alarm stopped. I had the same issues with the kettle and the shower, having taken a long time to do quick, physically menial tasks there is not time to finish the coffee. My foot slips on the wet tiled kitchen floor. There must be a crack in my old breakfast mug I ponder as small wisps of steam gasp from the floor. “38 minutes until work and buy a mop on the way home!” My mind demanded. I did have a mop, but it snapped at the weekend trolley jousting after hours with the lads in a supermarket car park. Yes I know, we should have used someone else’s mop. 5 strides out of the front door to the bus stop. That's great about living in these flats, you must really try to miss a bus as it takes 2 seconds to get to the stop. The drivers usually stop they’re nice, unless it's the one with the constant angry, purple face, who drives away from everyone after stopping a little way from people. Maybe it's a natural colour from too many blackcurrants but it just sounds like his tie is on too tight. He reminds me of those paperwork aliens, is it Vorgons? You know from Hitchhiker’s Guide. I bet he'd drive away from his own mother if he could. Slowly the number 17 appeared in pale blue from behind the church on the end of the road in the early morning misty gloom. I hadn't missed it, but it wasn't slowing down either. I take half a step on to the road, standing on a storm drain cover and put my arm out. The bus shoots by like it can’t even see me. In a moment a pure terror I thought I saw my left arm disappear but the passing draft from the bus must have pushed it up. I hope back on the footpath holding my left arm even though the only thing I can feel is my right hand squeezing my left forearm. After a few minutes sat at the bus stop I gather myself. The next bus isn’t for another half hour and I really don’t want an even closer call, so walking it is. I don't even have my lunch to eat on the 2 mile cross town power-walk as It's Wednesday so the office supplies a breakfast roll and lunch once a week, which is a nice treat but my stomach is growling and after the dash my feet will be barking. Out of the mirk orange flashes start to blink and a quiet hum turns in to a solid form that cuts me off crossing Howarth Road. The door clicks open ajar, "morning mate, want a lift?" It’s my trolley jousting partner and best friend Karl. His chubby, bearded grin beams from on top of a pale pin stripe shirt as the smell of mixed berry car perfume billows out from the car door like smoke from a BBQ. His dad sells electric vehicles, so he’s always got a new one every three to four years. "Yes please..." I gasp as I slowly get in and catch my breath. "I missed the bus, or should I say it missed me. I stood in the road and stuck my arm out it pretty much took it off!". He looks at me seriously, slowly the deadpan face gives way to the chuckle he was hiding. "Only our Ali can miss a bus by standing right in front of it" he seems to examine my face. “Are you ok? You look awful and quite pale.” I put my hands to my face, I do seem a little cold.I eventually reply “Maybe I’m coming down with something? How are you doing Karl?” &nbsp;He nods with a reassuring look and points to what I assume is a new shirt. We eventually pull into the landscaped car park at work, which looks like it was built by the Teletubbies. Where small flat parking areas are broken with rolling green hills of grass, the same grass, no trees just grass that is supposed to offset the carbon emissions caused by building this place for us and the 2 other companies of the floors above. There’s still a morning chill in the air even at ten to 8 so if they planted any trees, they would probably have leaves that would be changing colours. At the main entrance where all 3 companies enter the building to access their ‘hubs’, which is just expensive, corporate talk for floor, we glide past security who is been spoken to far too closely for this time in the morning by our boss. "What've you done to Nasty Nicola, Ali?" Karl hisses at me on the staircase. My mind races to think of what it could be as I search for an answer. "She completely ignored you... Back there. What've you done? " My eyes now feeling fully widened I search for an answer "I really don't know." Someone new catches my eye and I wave. I remember been the new guy, everyone ignores you in fear of getting your name wrong rather than just asking so I don’t want to be like that. "Who were you waving at mate?" Karl’s eyebrows furrow slightly as if I might return fire for the ‘she’s ignoring you’ quip but I’m not in a jokey mood after the bus scenario. “Honestly Karl, I have no idea I've never seen her before, maybe she’s new or works above us. She must've walked right into you. Didn’t see her in the vintage dark green dress?". Karl just looks at me stone faced, his rolled-up pin striped shirt reveals forearm full goosebumps like he’d been locked in a freezer for an hour. "What?" I query and he glances open mouthed back down the L shaped staircase then back to me. As he opens his mouth to say something the first-floor lift bell pings followed by the noise of the door scraping open and the high pitch clatter and rattle of the food trolley. Sara Singh strides out in a green and white saree with red shoes and a colour matching, chunky necklace that shook like the trolley as she marched. I like Sara, she’s always lots of fun to have in the office and makes the day go quicker. “Pastries, breakfast baps and coffee on the taps!” Her loud West-midlands voice booms through the thin first floor office panels and probable the entire building. I always thought she would be a great stadium announcer or bingo caller. “Morning Karl, coming for breakfast?” We both waved, with her shouts it always seemed more like an order than a question. “See!” His hand tight on my wrist. “First Nicola now Sara, what the hell did you do?”“I didn’t do anything. I…”“Then why is everyone ignoring you? And you saw Sara in her saree not a vintage dress!” Karl cut my off he seemed genuinely concerned. “Erm.. No mate.. the woman was much shorter and paler.” His eyes widen, the lift pinged again, the door scraping and Nicola Nubble thumps out carrying stapled booklets stacked from waist to neck. Her heels bending under the force of her tremendous thumping feet like they were creaking or screaming. “You!” she scoffed. Her mouth still chewing a pastry, dumping the papers in to Karl’s arms. “Grab your breakfast and get that office in meeting room 2 now” Karl’s face started to crumble. “So what did you do to ‘Nasty Nicola’?” I remark. The meeting room still smelt from the people who used it at the end of the previous day. The windows were all locked by security as there was a jumper on the third floor two weeks ago. Despite not working for us, or the other companies in our building, the joint management had decided we were now all a risk. So the stale aroma of people running around all day would stay a while longer. I pressed the light switches, which seemed stiffer than usual, the greenish -yellow, fluorescent tile lights started to flicker like they always did before settling to a constant ‘on’ state. “Leave the door ajar, won’t you?”. I looked behind me to talk, there was no one there. As I take my first step into the room a flickering light catches a pale face in the far corner of the room. Scared out of my skin I jumped back in to ‘Nasty’ Nicola. “uh… so… sorry Nicola” I fumbled an apology as I found my feet. The person sat down was the woman that passed us earlier. “You know you can switch the light on rather than terrify people.” Thinking of something to say but failing “I saw on the stairs! Are you new here?” The pale women with long hair and dark eyes was looking down at a notebook. Slowly her head titled upwards until she was looking me in the eye and paused… “you can see me?”“Yes John Cena we can see you. You can swit…”“Where is everyone?” Demanded Nicola“Well I…”“Oh she’s not speaking to you.” The woman in the back stood up as she now interrupted. Her dark hair matched her mascara. A vintage style dress, possibly from the 1950s flowed from her slim figure. She flicked her head towards my Boss, “they can’t hear us you know”.Slapping footsteps on wood effect lino signalled the arrival of team as they started pouring in through the door. People filled the meeting room from the seats nearest the door, forcing others to squeeze past holding their breakfast over seated people’s heads. The theory was if you got a ‘door seat’ you could escape after the meeting before Nicola Nubble gave you extra jobs. We were in this mess since she started 2 years ago. Karl’s girlfriend worked at her former workplace in the next county, where they called her ‘Ricola Rubble’ because she just wrecked everything she touched. Since she was ignoring me, I sat at the other head of the rectangular table at the back of the room. Karl silently slipped in to the chair next to me “what you doing back here?” he whispered whilst shrugging, “stuck in the ‘and one more thing’ end?”“Apparently she can’t see me.”“Says who? What are..." Nicola drowned out all noise, she commanded the room like her shoes. “Right morning everyone” she loudly cleared her throat to close the tiny conversations. “Thank you for being here so early, take one and pass them around” she &nbsp;dumped the copies on Sara at the front then started to bob her finger around the room counting heads. “Where’s Clara?”“She’s still on holiday until next Monday” Sara replied with her head in a tablet, fingernail tapping as she scrolled, “Jags rang in sick, half an hour ago”.“That’s not helpful. Where’s Albert?”“He’s here we came in together” Karl muffled through his second breakfast roll. Both Nicola and Sara looked at him quizzically. I waved at the end of the table. “Ok, so he’ll hopefully hurry up” Nicola snapped impatiently. As I looked at my best friend he just mouthed the word “see?”. “They can’t see or hear us dear!” The voice startled me, it was the woman in the vintage dress, that I had forgotten about. She had swapped corners at the back. “I’m surprised your friend can. Is it just you or all of us he can see?”“What do you mean?”She chuckled walked over and put her hand on my arm. “Spirits silly.” Sensing the look I was giving her she crouched down, her hand still on my arm. “Oh my, you didn’t know. You poor thing.”“How.. how…” I couldn’t form the words in the preposterous notion that she thought I’d died and the first thing I would want to do is go to work. &nbsp;Composing myself “…lets just get this straight. You think we’re dead?”“Yes” came the answer bluntly.Pointing around the room “so is anyone else here dead?”“No”, sharply. I was waiting for some kind of surprise or hidden camera. “Did you hear this?” I start tapping Karl’s arm, whilst sarcastically laughing. He lowers his head below the top of the handout and turns to me. “What, you talking to yourself? Yes, I think we all can. I’m trying to write this down maybe you should too.” Karl looked rather worried.Falling back in to my chair I’m not quite sure what to do. Her blunt voice turned more comforting. “At some time, dear you passed away and you haven’t realised. I would like to say going to work is the most tedious thing after you pass over, but I did it too in 1958. What year is it now ’60, 62?” Sensing it might be my turn to deliver some news to this prank actress, I put my free hand on her arm “I’m not sure how to tell you this. Sorry what’s your name?” “Veronica Jones” came the answer quite quick and perky like she had been waiting to tell someone for a good while as it burst out. “Hello Veronica, I’m Ali by the way, short for Albert.” She smiles, still crouching next to me and straightens up slightly. “The year is two thousand” she gasped and leaned back down again “and twenty-four. I didn’t expect to see anyone else here as this is a new building.” Veronica puts a hand over her mouth and sits down on the floor, which would be convincing if I had just been born. “Oh no, this is the bread factory” she said very matter of fact. “I’m Mr Jansen’s typist.” Next to me Karl was looking very uncomfortable. “Oh, I know this one! Tell your friend that angry woman at the front has it in her desk.” she shouted pointing at Nicola. “It’s in her desk Karl”. He looks at me like I’m adding fuel to the fire. Veronica sat on the floor next to me, nodding. “trust me”. “I… I thought you had it Nicola” came his sheepish response as Karl retracted in to the chair even further. Nicola looked very uncomfortable and moved on quickly. Faces around the long rectangular table darted in Karl’s directed with small nods of recognition as her face turned a shade of maroon. I’m not sure how much time had passed but Nicola was gathering the remaining handout booklets and slipped out the door after the embarrassment Veronica gave her. “How did you know it was in her desk?” Karl demanded. She knelt back up from a seated position next to me. “Tell your friend I just do, I am magic” and chuckled to herself. “The angry woman has a desk next to mine. Mind you, I don’t like what she’s done with the space. All these strange partitions, you just see people’s heads moving past like they’re not connected to a body.” She stopped to adjust herself, “anyway, her desk is full of junk, as they call it now. She hoards objects like a magpie, heavens know why. There’s all sorted in there from overdue reports to other people’s property!” Karl was still looking at me waiting for an answer, the rest of the room had vacated. “Oh, she said she just does and she’s magic.” Veronica giggled with her hand over her mouth, Karl just looked bemused, slowly stood up and walked out taking one look back at me as he exited the door. Still waiting for a surprise camera or Karl to walk back into the room to reveal a prank, I relax back in to the think sponge of the chair to save me getting up and coming back in the room again. “Well you’re taking this in your stride!” breaking the silence as she stood. “Not really” I sighed “We’ve not met before Veronica so it’s easier to be more convincing than someone I see every day. So when did you start Monday?” “I’ve seen you here for years Albert. And if anyone is carry out a rouse it’s you with your two thousand and twenty something space man year.” I point to a team planning calendar that reads ‘2024’ “well that’s clearly a rather silly misprint of 1964.”Searching around the room I wave her over to last week’s newspaper I find. As my hand approaches the paper it partially disappears in the table. “Oh my goodness!” “I know!” stumbling back in shock. “Thursday, October 24th 2024!”. She gasps and I realise we are both stunned by different facts. Veronica turns her head as we gaze at each other wide eyed in disbelief about our separate insights.

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Apparitional Albert

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Rude Awakening

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