MAIN » ARTICLESThe Iain (Rawson) Experience, part 6
Extract from 'The Diary of Dr. Rog': Week 600, Day 4202
The days grow shorter and colder. This is the winter of our discontent. The ashen, haunted eyes of children glazed over with pallid disillusion as their hope dives into the deepest caverns, fading from sight.
I picked up my bucket and spat the remainder of my doughnut at the wall. It slid slowly down but by the time it hit the floor I was out of the corridor and making my way towards one of the many storage cupboards on this level. Two weeks ago Dr. Randy had asked me to wash the underside of his desk in Utility Basement F. He drew me up an action plan which included a list of things I’d need scrawled on the back of a Spar receipt, which was basically a bucket and some water – I had no idea where I was going to get the water. I was on my way back from retrieving this bucket from the second-hand bucket storeroom on Operations Deck 4 when I decided I’d need to store it safely until I could locate the second item on my list.
Utility Basement F wasn’t a real basement, it was a small room that that I’d never seen anybody use, containing nothing but an empty desk and a locked filing cabinet. There are many rooms on every floor of The Institute with rarely get used, but not quite as many that contained locked filing cabinets. Since the Strawberry Jamgate scandal of two Christmases back when Dr. Jameson melted every key in the complex, there has been no feasible explanation as to why certain cabinets had started locking themselves. Since it is against internal safety law to lock anything that could possibly contain a fire extinguisher at any time. Saying that, it was also against safety law to handle said extinguishers without leather gloves, which happen to be banned on all floors except Meeting Floor 4, the second-from-lowest floor which everybody claims doesn't even exist.
As I stood pondering this for a moment, Dr. Randy’s voice kicked in again over the PA:
O what a multitude they seemed, these flowers of London town! Seated in companies they sit, with radiance all their own. The hum of multitudes was there, but multitudes of lambs, thousands of little boys and girls raising their innocent hands.
The recording would play on all floors every ten minutes for the next hour, and had been doing so for 10 days now. Dr. Randy claimed they helped him to memorise the lines of poems for a performance at the Regent Theatre he has coming up, but I was sure he hadn’t been in the building for the last week, let alone visit a theatre in his whole life. Having been paddled for mutiny twice already this month, I decided to keep my mouth shut and get on with routine maintenance and what he calls “special tasks”, mostly involving me making him 14 cups of tea and then hiding them in various toilet cubicles for him to find later on. Life was definately heading downhill.
I stopped pondering my position as it became apparent my head was resting on a cold ceramic surface. I lifted my head and discovered I was kneeling on the floor of the toilets with my head in a urinal. The faint smell of cold cups of tea was intoxicating. I really had to stop walking places when I decide to get stuck in limbo. I stuck my head under the hand-dryer and then left in search of what floor I was on. As soon as I walked out of the restroom I saw a plain sheet of white paper directly opposite me crudely selotaped to the wall, and about to fall off. It was a note from Dr. Randy, presumably written in his own blood:
'Don't worry about the desk Rogery, I decided to sell it and buy some new fountain pens for the Lounges on B-deck. I'll catch you later. Over and out.' I kicked the wall as hard as I could and collapsed with pain, grasping my foot with one hand I managed to screw up the paper with the other whilst fighting back the tears. Quickly contemplating my choices, I took the easiest and most attractive decision I could in the situation.
I made my way back to the toilets, took off my shirt and collapsed into a urinal. It had been a long week.
Written by Jay
The days grow shorter and colder. This is the winter of our discontent. The ashen, haunted eyes of children glazed over with pallid disillusion as their hope dives into the deepest caverns, fading from sight.
I picked up my bucket and spat the remainder of my doughnut at the wall. It slid slowly down but by the time it hit the floor I was out of the corridor and making my way towards one of the many storage cupboards on this level. Two weeks ago Dr. Randy had asked me to wash the underside of his desk in Utility Basement F. He drew me up an action plan which included a list of things I’d need scrawled on the back of a Spar receipt, which was basically a bucket and some water – I had no idea where I was going to get the water. I was on my way back from retrieving this bucket from the second-hand bucket storeroom on Operations Deck 4 when I decided I’d need to store it safely until I could locate the second item on my list.
Utility Basement F wasn’t a real basement, it was a small room that that I’d never seen anybody use, containing nothing but an empty desk and a locked filing cabinet. There are many rooms on every floor of The Institute with rarely get used, but not quite as many that contained locked filing cabinets. Since the Strawberry Jamgate scandal of two Christmases back when Dr. Jameson melted every key in the complex, there has been no feasible explanation as to why certain cabinets had started locking themselves. Since it is against internal safety law to lock anything that could possibly contain a fire extinguisher at any time. Saying that, it was also against safety law to handle said extinguishers without leather gloves, which happen to be banned on all floors except Meeting Floor 4, the second-from-lowest floor which everybody claims doesn't even exist.
As I stood pondering this for a moment, Dr. Randy’s voice kicked in again over the PA:
O what a multitude they seemed, these flowers of London town! Seated in companies they sit, with radiance all their own. The hum of multitudes was there, but multitudes of lambs, thousands of little boys and girls raising their innocent hands.
The recording would play on all floors every ten minutes for the next hour, and had been doing so for 10 days now. Dr. Randy claimed they helped him to memorise the lines of poems for a performance at the Regent Theatre he has coming up, but I was sure he hadn’t been in the building for the last week, let alone visit a theatre in his whole life. Having been paddled for mutiny twice already this month, I decided to keep my mouth shut and get on with routine maintenance and what he calls “special tasks”, mostly involving me making him 14 cups of tea and then hiding them in various toilet cubicles for him to find later on. Life was definately heading downhill.
I stopped pondering my position as it became apparent my head was resting on a cold ceramic surface. I lifted my head and discovered I was kneeling on the floor of the toilets with my head in a urinal. The faint smell of cold cups of tea was intoxicating. I really had to stop walking places when I decide to get stuck in limbo. I stuck my head under the hand-dryer and then left in search of what floor I was on. As soon as I walked out of the restroom I saw a plain sheet of white paper directly opposite me crudely selotaped to the wall, and about to fall off. It was a note from Dr. Randy, presumably written in his own blood:
'Don't worry about the desk Rogery, I decided to sell it and buy some new fountain pens for the Lounges on B-deck. I'll catch you later. Over and out.' I kicked the wall as hard as I could and collapsed with pain, grasping my foot with one hand I managed to screw up the paper with the other whilst fighting back the tears. Quickly contemplating my choices, I took the easiest and most attractive decision I could in the situation.
I made my way back to the toilets, took off my shirt and collapsed into a urinal. It had been a long week.
Written by Jay