STUDIO APARTMENT

My apartment is nice. It is comfortable. It is a 590 square foot studio with high ceilings and a sleeping area, separated by a partial wall and two steps. It has a nice view through bay windows. I have painted it in warm, pleasing colors, and furnished it with taste and class. On a Monday morning, after a long weekend of staying home watching movies by myself, I wake up to find that I can not get out of my apartment.

The door is locked, and the lock seems to be broken. The bolt will not turn. I get out my cell phone to call the apartment manager, but she does not answer. I call my brother and several close friends, but I get only voicemails. I try everyone in my address book except those who I haven't talked to in a long time and should really probably delete. Any help they could give me will not be worth the awkward re-introduction conversation. I decide to just wait it out.

I pour a bowl of cereal and cook some bacon. I read a magazine. I browse the internet. I call the apartment manager every ten minutes or so, but still no answer. After a couple hours, I am starting to get restless. I go to the window thinking maybe I can call down to someone on the street, but when I pull up the shades, I am shocked to see that the glass of the window has been replaced by a sheet of brightly polished steel. I bang on it with my fist, and it feels heavy, as if inches thick. This is a disturbing development, as my window used to provide me with a stunning view of the bay. The past Friday and Saturday evenings both offered glorious sunsets, which I stood and watched in the company of myself, while soothing music played on my stereo.

I flop down on the couch and begin calling people again. I call everyone on my list a second time. I even venture into the areas of awkward acquaintances. They also fail to pick up. I begin to the think that the whole cellular network has collapsed, but I call several land-lines, and they too go unanswered. I read another magazine. I check my email. I stare at the opaque steel windows. Hours pass. Thinking it must be mid-afternoon by now (I'm supposed to be at work!) I check the clock, and find it blinking 12:00. My watch also reads 12:00, and both my cell phone and computer clocks simply read "Error". I am starting to grow concerned.

I cook a frozen entrée I have been saving, and eat it for either lunch or dinner. I pace around the living area. I play loudly on my small upright piano, hoping to disturb some neighbors, but nothing happens, even when I pound so hard that a low D string snaps. I am losing some of my composure.

Today is either Friday or Saturday, and now that I have missed work entirely, I should be out on the town, doing weekend things. I bang on the wall and yell, Hey! Hey! but no one answers. I put my ear to the wall to see if I can hear anyone moving in the neighboring unit, but hear only an odd, wavery humming sound.

I go back to my computer to attempt to email someone for help. My wireless signal is full strength, but when I enter the address for my email service, it leads to a blank white screen. Frowning, I enter it again. Blank white screen. I hit the "home" button to go to my search engine of choice. This takes me to another white screen, in the center of which is a small line of text, in the smallest font possible:

this is gone

I click on my various bookmarks. They all lead to the same screen.

this is gone

I run to my window. I bang on it with my fist again. The steel appears to have grown thicker. It is now completely solid and unyielding--there is no sound when I strike it, no resonance, just the feeble slap of my palm, as if it's no longer a sheet of metal but an endless wall of it. I glance back at my computer and see that it has turned off. The room's lights have started to dim slightly. I look at my cell phone. There is no signal. The screen is all white and instead of showing the name of my carrier or the time of day, there is a tiny line of text:

thr gone

As soon as I have read this the phone goes dark. The room lights dim a little more. It's getting hard to see. I open the fridge, the microwave, and the oven, letting their feeble light spill out. I begin to kick the door. It feels extremely heavy, but there are faint crunching sounds. The arches of my feet jolt with pain, I worry about breaking my ankles. Finally the lock splinters free of the wood, and the door opens.

An odd thing has happened here.

Outside my apartment door there should be a hallway leading to the elevator. Instead there is a three-foot gap, and then another door. Like a hotel room ante-chamber. I attack this door with equal ferocity, but when its lock shatters it does not swing open, it bounces back at me. There is another door immediately behind it. I put my eye up to the peephole. I see nothing but black, but in my head I see another door, and then another, and more doors stacked behind that, an endless corridor of locked doors, stretching out into some deep unknown emptiness. I feel a scream building in my chest.

The apartment is now completely dark except for the light from the appliances, and those are dimming now as well. I run to the opposite wall and kick a hole in the sheet rock. That wavery hum increases. Another hum, lower in pitch, suddenly answers from the darkness of the door hallway. They seem to be calling back and forth, slow and deep, like creatures in the bottom depths of the ocean, gigantic and uncategorized.

I widen the hole and start kicking at the inner layer of drywall. On the other side of this should be the neighboring apartment, but I am apprehensive. The drywall breaks, but only flexes in slightly and rebounds. Something behind it is resisting, rubbery and elastic. With each kick the hum pulsates, rising in pitch slightly and then falling back in a way that's almost sexual.

I reach into the hole and claw at the shattered drywall, crumbling it away in big chunks. Pale light oozes through the holes. My fingers scrape against something that feels like glass. The hum rises to a briefly painful pitch, climaxing. The deeper tone from the door hallway stutters, drops lower, then quits. There is silence.

Through the hole I have torn in the wall, I am looking at a window. It is dark tinted glass, like the exterior of a highrise. Through the shade I can see people working. There are computers and cubicles, printers and copiers. Over the tops of partitions, I can see the heads and massive shoulders of very tall things, walking through the cubicles, back and forth. They wear white shirts and ties like everyone else in the office, but their heads are featureless black masses. Indefinite shapes like Rorschach blots.

There is a two-inch gap between the drywall of my apartment and the glass of the office. A freezing cold draft howls up through this gap. It carries a salty tang. Fluorescent light pours into the dark of my apartment, painting my face green-white.

A few of the workers notice me staring. They look up from their paperwork and smile at me. They grin and wave, enthusiastic like people in a commercial. Weakly, I wave back.