The Workaholic Purgatory

Falling was the first thing that he felt. A sense of weightlessness mixed with open air. He could wave his arms and legs but touch nothing. There was no wind racing past his ears, just silence. This culminated in a sense of doom.

Waking up with a start, he felt no aches, no pains of impact. He took a moment to lie there, to get his bearings with his muddled mind.

Hard and solid, that's what was underneath him, and it grounded him with something real.

Opening his eyes, he was met with a floor view of what appeared to be a generic office building. Gingerly sitting up only righted this view. Then turning to see if there was anything else, anyone threatening anywhere around, he was only met with a further view of the same thing; empty offices and cubicle cubbies in all directions.

Slowly climbing to his feet, he thought he'd be unsteady, but found that he was able to make the moves with ease. There didn't appear to be anything wrong with him.

Perhaps that falling sensation had only been in his mind? It wasn't like he could fall from the ceiling for no reason.

Beginning to investigate, he randomly chose a direction and started walking. Offices and cubicles, the landscape didn't change and there was no imagination in the design.

After a few minutes, he decided that he must be in the middle of the building because the maze just seemed to keep going. There were no windows in sight, no change from the monotony of offices and cubicles. Not even hallways, bathrooms, or emergency exits.

Something was starting to niggle at the back of his mind that things weren't right.

However, it took another while before he realized what wasn't right, before he could put what was wrong into words.

This wasn't a natural space.

No building was this big. No building permit would allow so much space between necessities like bathrooms and emergency exits, and windows were almost an inevitability somewhere.

Unless… was he underground?

That would explain the lack of windows, but not everything else.

There was no time in this place. His wonderings could have been going on for hours or even days.

He doubted it had been that long though.

Despite all of his walking, he wasn't tired, thirsty, or hungry. It was like his body had ceased in any function other than movement and thought, and even those seemed to be running on autopilot more than anything.

His experience had taken on a dream-like quality since he was still walking, meandering through a venerable maze of offices and cubicles. If he tried to think about it, he just got confused and didn't find any answers so he'd chosen to just accept it.

Eventually, he put his right hand on the wall to ground himself. Maybe if he continued to follow a certain track he'd get out… or just find himself wondering in a circular trajectory. At the very least, it was trying something different which sparked a glimmer of hope that perhaps he'd finally find an exit.

Days later… he couldn't help the feeling that so much time had passed, he found himself in a hallway with an exit sign at the end above a door. Keeping his hand on the wall, he walked down the hallway, opened the door, and was relieved to see a stairwell.

Looking down, it felt like the maze all over again, like a never-ending series of steps going down, down, down, down, down, down, down… down farther than his eyes could see. At least it was different from the prior maze so he welcomed the change and hoped to find his way out.

Starting down the stairs, a part of him wanted to run, but he knew that he'd wear out long before he got to the bottom so he might as well take a steady pace… one step at a time… step, step, step, step, step, step… turn and repeat.

It was as monotonous as his trip through the offices and cubicles… only perhaps more so because this was a different, smaller kind of repeat with only the walls and stairs to look at.

After a while, it was starting to get almost dizzying. He was just going around and around spiraling ever lower and yet never reaching the bottom.

Each time he leaned over and looked down to see if the ground had gotten any closer… it never did.

Eventually, he started to feel a little crazy so he decided to check the door on a landing to see if the floor had something different.

When he opened the door, a chill ran down his spine because it was like he was looking at the other floor again, the never-ending maze. No, he decided. At least the stairs felt like he was going somewhere; like he might reach the ground floor at some point.

With a sigh, he turned back to the stairs and started again. Step, step, step, step, step, step… and turn.

The echoes of his movement reverberated up and down the well had become little more than white noise, the soundscape of this urban hell that he had found himself in.

How long had he been here? Hours, days, weeks, months… years? It felt like eternity had stretched out before him… that was when his mind began to wonder if he was dead. Maybe whatever had happened before he came here, whatever his mind thought was a falling sensation when he woke up, was him dying.

It was a new thought, not a pleasant one, but at least it explained something of why there was no one else anywhere around, the seemingly unending office building, and how his body had no impact from the constant activity over an indeterminable amount of time.

Slowing his steps, he felt the weight of his emotions settling on his shoulders as he realized that if he really was dead, then there was no going back from this. No waking up cuddled with El, no morning walk with Satchmo as the sun rises and the birds sing their songs, no going to the office and working with the team, no bantering or bickering with Neal, no baseball, no puzzles… except for this blasted maze!

Sitting down on the steps, he couldn't help the tears as they began to flow or the grief he felt for himself, for his own life.

The longer they flowed, the faster the tears came until he was curled into a sobbing mess.

But, much like everything else in this miserable hole, his tears dried up and he was back in the same place with nothing changed.

Once his emotional outburst had passed, he found himself getting up and continuing onwards.

Was this his purgatory? He'd been a workaholic in life, so he was trapped in an office building alone? He'd managed to get from that floor to the stairwell, would he eventually find his way somewhere else? Had he chosen the wrong direction, should he have been trying to go up through the levels… of wherever this was? His logic and reason bounced back and forth.

He'd been raised a Catholic so he considered the possibility of purgatory, of working off your sins before you would be allowed into heaven. If that were the case, then he considered that he ought to be walking up the stairs, trying to work his way out to a better level.

But, when he'd checked the doors, nothing changed. Each floor seemed to be a mirror of the prior one that he'd originated on. So, if things didn't appear to be getting better or worse, either it took far longer than a few hundred flights of stairs to make a difference, or they literally weren't getting any better or worse.

So, that left his mind wandering back to the mystery. If this wasn't purgatory, if there wasn't an improvement, then he was back to not knowing where he was or what was going on. Which led to his other instinct. When in any office building, the best way out or to leave in general, was to go down. Reaching the ground floor and walking out the lobby into the rest of the world.

Which was why he continued to wind his way down in the hopes that he'd reach the ground.

If it weren't for the fear of what would happen if he wasn't dead, a part of him almost considered climbing over the railing to see if he could fall any faster. Maybe he'd find himself stuck falling like that sensation…

What if that's what happened? He'd been meandering this maze, got tired of never getting anywhere, had tried to jump, and then woke up back at some kind of starting point.

If that were the case, then why try it again? He'd only fall, wake up back on the floor, and then have to do all of this all over again.

At this rate, he'd lose his mind before he figured out what was going on.

He was long passed numb to it. Walking step, step, step, step, step… turn… and repeat. Echoing footsteps going tap, tap, tap, tap, tap… scuff as he turned and then repeat.

Closing his eyes, he could at least have a better view as his imagination supplied images of his wife, dog, and friends.

Step, step, step… stumble.

Opening his eyes, he realized that he was at the bottom of the well!

Checking the door, he found that there was another maze, similar to the one he'd woken up in, but with subtle differences… he thought. It had been a while since he'd been all the way up… wherever.

With nothing else to do but walk back up, he decided to risk going through the maze and see where he could go.

Putting his right hand on the wall, he hoped to find an exit out the other side sooner rather than later.

As he walked, he found that there were offices, cubicles, and hallways. However, he also found that there were strange narrow gaps at points. As if there should be a hallway, but instead the walls were put too close together to allow any passage.

Maybe it was just him, or maybe he'd gotten used to the place, but it felt like he found something different faster on this level than he had on the one so far above or in the stairs winding his way down.

A lobby, with a view of the world outside!

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