The 21st Floor

5. Jason

“See,” I told him triumphantly, “Great sense of humour.”

“You realise that stereotyping is wrong,” he said, and I groaned. I hated when this happened. You know, when you think the conversation is going so well, and then you realise that they were just humouring you. So that they could find out just how big of an i***t you can make out of yourself if they just let you keep talking, and how long it will take you to realise. At this point, honesty was clearly my only real shot at dignity.

“I am unreasonably terrified right now,” I admitted, very begrudgingly and scrunching up my nose while I did. There was a noise behind me, and I very pointedly reminded myself not to open my eyes, and look to see what it was. Would I just flip out, with nowhere to run, or would I literally bowl him over in an attempt to get out? It was a coin toss between these options, and a mystery third one. No, better to not test it.

“I’m not sure what that has to do with the conversation?” he replied in confusion, and it didn’t sound angry. I felt a lot better about the curious note to his tone than I would have if he was angry. I liked to think that there was a difference between optimistic and reckless, and I liked to dance on that line.

“I’m babbling,” I said blankly, wondering how he didn’t come to that conclusion himself. Oh well, explaining it isn’t the worst thing in the world. “I’m a little bit scared that if I stop and think, even if it’s just about what’s coming out of my mouth next, I’m going to run screaming again. I don’t… I don’t want to do that, or feel like that. So, I’m babbling. You’d think I’d have more practice using appropriate topics from work, but it’s like I haven’t talked to anyone in years,” I said, rambling all the way as if to accentuate my point.

“Well, have you?” they said, and they sounded unusually serious. The whole air it lent to our conversation suddenly changed, and the room felt colder for it. I shivered. It was an easy question, and I answered it like it was, but it didn’t feel like it.

“Yeah, I talked to my brother this week. I work. Actually, work is tomorrow, so I’m on a timeframe. I sit at a front desk all day, and manage to talk to people just fine. I’m assuming this is all just a part of the unnatural freaking out thing that we’re avoiding,” I explained, absently chewing on my bottom lip, “Now, am I still facing away from you? I’m going to clean this place up. It needs to be not like this. Now. I’m trying very hard not to think about all the bugs that are potentially crawling over me right now. Seriously, have you ever cleaned?” I’d said all of this way too loud, I thought nervously to myself. I assumed I did anyway. It echoed around the room like I was the only person in it, and came across somewhat frantic.

“Rude, much?” he joked, “I’m going to blame the babbling, and unnatural freak out. You should be good to open your eyes, by the way.” Hesitantly I did and at the sheer level of, let be honest, feral being displayed around me, decided to correct his assumptions.

“Oh no,” I said, shaking my head, “That isn’t babbling, nor is it rude. What you have done to this apartment, that. That is rude… it was you who did this to your apartment right?”

“I’m tempted to say no, but you did have the decency to check… so, yeah. Just a little,” he said, and he sounded sheepish. As if he’d done something silly. Understandable, but dumb. The cracks in the walls, and fully dismantled furniture took on a daunting light. Like it was only just occurring to me how everything got so messed up, and what a person would have to be capable of to create this kind of damage in the first place. Needless to say I clamped down on that thought immediately. Which left a gap for me to question if keeping him out of eyeline was really the smartest choice I could make, like a negative-Nancy. I have to admit, that I wasn’t liking this whole lack of being able to see him thing. I hadn’t realised exactly how much I got from body language until it was gone. “Hey, can I ask you something?” he said, when I didn’t reply and the quiet stretched on into the territory of uncomfortable. I decided to skip the cheesy, ‘but-you-just-did’ routine.

“Sure,” I said, shaking out a garbage bag, and starting to put things in it. I sort of forced my brain to stop processing my environment around me, barring what I was handling directly to correct that. The repetitive motion of picking things up and tossing them out was soothing. It gave me a chance to breathe. A chance I didn’t know I needed.

“Why are you really so intent on staying here, if you’re really so scared?” he asked steadily, and I wasn’t sure what to say at first. Words fleeing as I tried to answer. It wasn’t what I was going to say initially, but that slipped right on out of my head.

“You realise it’s not your fault that you're dead,” I told him quietly, “It’s not like it’s contagious, or you suddenly deserve to be stuck here for, how long did you say again? Twenty years?”

“Yeah, about that,” he murmured hollowly, punctuated by a rustling sound that made me think that he’d started fidgeting.

“See, now that’s a long time, and you didn’t deserve to be trapped here all alone,” I say surely, “You certainly don’t deserve to be treated like an extra in a horror movie by the first person to see or talk to you in years. It wouldn’t be right, especially now that I’ve talked to you. I would have felt way less guilty about bailing on you that first time if you’d been an asshole.”

“My name is Jason,” he said almost detachedly, and he sort of sounded like someone who’d been standing near enough to an explosion that he was in shock, but not close enough that he was hurt. Just sort of blank with surprise, and on auto-pilot. “Has anybody told you that you are… very strange?” he decided to follow that up with, and I decided to let him get away with it. On account of the shock, and all. Weeeell, mostly let him get away with it.

“No, you’d be surprised to know that I’d never heard that before,” I said sarcastically, and it rang around the room for a second while he tried to work out if I was being a b***h, or trying to be funny. The moment broke, and we laughed. Well I did, and that seemed to be the cue for amusement to sink in as he joined me.

“Your hair is purple,” Jason teased accusingly, at least I think he did, laughter was still evident in his voice. I wasn’t sure if it was just carry over though. Purely and simply because I wasn’t looking at his face, and this whole communication thing was really hard without visual cues. I had to be one of the few people in the world that hated texting.

“No, my hair is awesome. It just happens to be purple right now,” I explained, rolling my eyes, and pointedly looking at the mess on the other side of the room from him. Those are a lot of splinters that are supposed to be furniture… and okay, so maybe focusing on anything here is a bad idea.

“What’s the difference?” he asked brightly, and I thought I’d take that as a compliment.

“I get bored and cycle through all the bright colours, so my hair isn’t always purple. It is, however, always awesome,” I said with more confidence than I felt, “It’s a big difference.”

“Sure it is,” he snorted, and I smiled as I tied up the first bag of garbage. “So what do I call you?” Jason pressed. I started.

“Oh,” I said in embarrassment, only just realising that I haven't introduced myself, “I’m Maggie. Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise,” Jason chimed back, “Now, stand up. I can’t have my first guest in twenty year cleaning my apartment.” I stood, frowning as I did so.

“We are not leaving it like this,” I said flatly, in refusal. Nope. No way, this place was a hazardous tip, and now that I stayed this long I could safely say that there were definitely at least eight different kinds of mould on the ceiling. One of them, the one taking up the most space, was black mould. Black mould probably wasn’t one of the dangerous one’s, right? It’s just super gross.

“No, I’ve got it,” he assures me, and then there’s a snapping sound. Like someone clicking their fingers, things started to fly through the air and… and… and then something else went snap.