Copyright 2004 by N.R. Wagner, all rights reserved.
The view was marvelous, out across the flat Houston industrial area. In clear weather, without fog or pollution, this view extended twenty miles, all the way to the sea. Will Duncan loved to watch this from his office. His favorite version of such a wide perspective peeked through a narrow slit between two nearby skyscrapers and allowed a glimpse of the center of the Houston Ship Channel. He had to be aligned precisely to see the channel, from his chair, over the pencil holder and out the window. Today the channel was gray and brown from haze and pollution and distance. Even a few inches of shift and the channel disappeared. Will recognized his compulsive behavior, continually staring at this one thin vista, but he found it soothing, relaxing. It was, after all, meticulous and even compulsive attention to detail that had brought him to this corner office on the thirty-eighth floor, that had given him prestige and status and money. He liked his possessions neatly arranged in rows; he thrilled to see the stock prices match his trend graphs; and he enjoyed lining up the ship channel through the narrow crack between buildings.
He started as his secretary stood before him. She had been watching as he stared at his channel with one eye squinted shut. Why hadn't she used the phone?
"Yes Alice, what is it?"
"Mr. Casper and Mr. Lopez are here for their 2 o'clock, Mr. Duncan."
"Ah yes, show them in. And hold the calls please."
* * * *
Four days later, after a long weekend and one personal business day off, he leaned back in his chair and looked out over the pencil case for the channel. He squinted idly, then looked again. It wasn't there--just cranes and buildings. He shifted back and forth--still not there. He moved further, systematically, carefully, until he caught his view again, an awkward ten inches to the left of the pencil holder.
What was going on here? This was not at all like the wind that would sometimes blow his building several inches back and forth, with his channel caught in the middle of each cycle. He loved the wind and the oscillating view. But there was no wind now; the trees below stood still. He glared suspiciously at the floor.
The cleaning people must have moved his desk over the weekend. With an effort he shifted the desk an inch to expose a deep, worn-looking indentation in the thick carpet. No, they had not moved it. What then? He stared at his channel. Moved back and forth, from where the view had been to where it was now. At a rough measurement with his hands, it still looked to be some ten inches. He sat at his desk and thought, an unwelcome feeling in his stomach. Without a wind and with a stationary desk, what could this mean? Had the building moved ten inches? He knew he was no engineer. What would it mean if the building really had shifted ten inches? Some geological creep? Or a tilt in the building itself? Could this building at the thirty-eighth floor have tilted ten inches in four days?
The next day proved equally frustrating. The view to the channel seemed to have moved a bit further, but he couldn't be sure. He paused in thought, then went to a cabinet and pulled out two blank sheets of legal-sized paper. These he taped to the desk, end to end along the right side. Alice would think he was losing his mind, but she might think that anyway. At least she would not disturb these papers, not after their little chat three weeks ago when she had tidied up his desk.
He sighted carefully, then marked and dated the old direction from six days ago. This one he knew for sure. Next came his estimate of the direction of the channel as of the previous day. He tried to picture the awkward movement of yesterday, and added a second mark and date. Finally he stared carefully with squinted eye to find the current position. This last mark was near the second one. He measured with a ruler: nine inches from first to second mark and two inches to the third mark.
The thought came to him, what if someone saw these marks and asked about them? That nincompoop Alice or even some client. He partially erased all three marks and dates, adding beside them two prominent stock trend graphs, then some fake calculations like scratch work. Annoyed, he sat back and stared at his channel as he always did when thinking. It wasn't as relaxing as it had been however. The heels of his shoes were now an inch shy of the ledge where he'd prop up his feet to think. He had to lean forward to see the channel, and all the soothing effect was gone.
The days passed quickly. He checked the position of the view toward the channel many times each day, but only recorded the exact direction once at the first sighting. The fourth mark was almost on top of the third, and so was the fifth. Perhaps the movement, shift, tilt, or whatever had stopped. The sixth mark with a one and a half inch shift was really startling for him. That was Friday. He had to force himself not to come to the office over the weekend. On Monday he was sweating, shaking as he sighted toward the channel. No change from Friday. More days passed with no change. The next Friday, the next weekend. It was clear that this phenomenon was over, whatever it might have been, structural, geological or worse, some failure in himself, some drift from sanity. It was all over.
He was back to his old habits, sometimes looking, often not for days. The papers that had recorded the changes were gone, off to the landfill. Almost by accident, he found himself looking again, only this time the channel was not there. He was compelled to look further, to find it. He felt panic, an irrational fear like nothing he had known before. There it was, perhaps another five inches beyond the last location. He got up to pace the room, but forced himself to sit down. Think. What should he do? The thought kept turning in his mind--what to do? Nothing. Ignore it. Not his problem anyway. Stop looking.
The next day came with the normal load of dreary clients. They knew nothing about stocks, about the market. He tried to focus on their questions, and above all avoid looking out the window. Don't look at the channel, he told himself. Don't look. It didn't work; he had to look. Another three inches or so, in one day! "What's wrong," asked one client. "Are you ill or something." Somehow he talked this client down, convinced him he knew his stuff, got him out the door, reclaimed his empty office so he could think again.
He felt a terrible compulsion. Do something. He had to do something. OK, call someone, an expert perhaps. From the phone book he found the University of Houston, Civil Engineering Department.
"Hello," said a voice.
"Hello, is this civil engineering?" He was so nervous. What kind of a secretary would answer the phone without identifying the department?
"Yes it is. Can I help you?" It was the pleasant voice of a young woman. At least that's what he pictured.
"Why yes, I need to talk with someone knowledgeable about buildings, about how they might shift." He could sense that he was already sounding crazy. "I just have a simple technical question," he finished lamely.
"Professor Lambert consults with local construction firms and might be able to help you. I think he's on campus today. I'll ring him and see if he'll talk with you."
After a time, a grouchy voice came on. "Lambert."
Will stammered and tried to explain. He knew the story sounded unreasonable. As well as he could he described how the ship channel showed through a crack between two buildings, how the vantage point had shifted over the weeks, a total of some fifteen inches.
"How did you get started looking through this slit?" asked the professor.
"I just kind of do it to pass the time." God he was embarrassed. He sounded like a lunatic, he knew it. "But the direction has been shifting. Quite a bit it seems like. Or maybe it's not important."
From the silence that followed, he sensed Lambert was constructing an image of a crackpot, and the thought made him more self-conscious.
"Well, first off, let's get this straight. The building is not shifting or tilting or moving. Buildings don't do that. They can sway in the wind, sometimes quite a bit, and I'm sure that's what you're observing." It was clear from the tone, supercilious, condescending, that Lambert had already dismissed the call as a useless interruption.
"I'm used to watching a sway in the wind. I'm telling you this is different."
"Two other possibilities then, if I understood your explanation correctly. Maybe your desk got moved and you didn't notice. Or you just forgot where you sighted from. One thing is sure: the building is not moving. Trust me, these Houston skyscrapers never have a net movement of a fraction of an inch. They don't. They can't."
Will stammered some more, then was interrupted by the professor.
"Hold on for a second, there's someone at my door."
Will could hear much of the conversation in the background. Something about a Master's student and his thesis. He heard Lambert say, "Jim, let me first take care of this guy on the phone here. Never fails, summer comes...." Then loud in the phone. "Hello, I really don't think I'm going to be able to help you."
"There's nothing wrong with me. My building is moving, don't you understand. Something must be wrong with the building."
"Didn't you hear me? Your viewpoint moved, that's all. I'm sorry, but I'm busy and must get to other things."
"But you have to listen, you have to help." Will hated the way he sounded, whining like one of his children.
"Perhaps you should connect with someone over in Psychology. I don't think they're too busy. I'm sorry, but I have to go." A click of the phone hanging up.
Will sat still for an hour, thinking everything through, backwards and forwards. Maybe the cleaning people had moved his desk. Maybe they had. Maybe he was losing his mind. He just couldn't help it, he looked again. It almost seemed like another two inches or so. Probably not. No, surely not. He composed some e-mail to his partners: he was feeling unwell, perhaps the flu, he needed to go home early, he might miss a couple of days. He told Alice much the same thing. Get out of here, get home, somehow forget this stuff. Alice gave a cheerful "See you tomorrow," as the elevator doors closed. Hadn't she heard him say he'd be gone a few days?
* * * *
It was nice to be home. Kids in school, wife at work, it was quiet. He studied the stock prices in the paper. Watched television. Read books.
After two days, he was feeling better, ready to get back to work. That afternoon he called the office. He had thought everything through carefully.
"Alice, I'm tired of my desk where it is. I'd like it moved over against the west wall, right under that picture of the cattle stampede." He always had to explain things three times to her, but she finally got it straight. "Yes, call maintenance and have men come to move it this afternoon. I'll be in for work tomorrow."
When he got to work he saw that by some miracle the men and Alice had gotten the desk in the right place. Averting his eyes, he moved a large planter against the windows, shifted a rug, and slid two chairs and a low table across the floor. It was now almost impossible to see the special view between the buildings.
He settled into a work routine. Thursday, Friday, weekend, Monday, Tuesday all passed. There were so many windows in the office, he could not avoid looking at something. He picked the trees and buildings more to the southeast. Anything but the direction of the Houston Ship Channel.
Wednesday morning he had no client for half an hour. He worked on his weekly trend analysis. There was a lurch, like someone hitting his chair. He turned quickly, but no one was in the office. Another, bigger jerk. Once he had been in an earthquake in graduate school in Illinois. This felt much the same. There were no earthquakes in Houston, but then there weren't supposed to be any in Illinois either. Get out of the building? Nonsense, he was on the thirty-eighth floor. His heart pounded in his chest, in his head. Suddenly he was amazed that he hadn't thought it before: his building, his moving building. Now the largest lurch so far, practically knocking him from the chair.
He stood up on unsteady feet, finally looked out the window. The nearby buildings were no longer precisely vertical, and they seemed to be moving. He settled to his knees on the rug. Through the pounding in his head he realized that his building was falling, excruciatingly slowly for such a vast event. He grabbed hold of the radiator pipe beside him to keep from sliding toward the windows.
So this was how it was when you died. He estimated that he had perhaps half a minute--a long time for thought. Would he survive? Of course not. But he was supposed to think about all his past, everyone knew that. All the objects slid off his desk, books fell from shelves, the desk itself smashed into a support beam. The buildings through the windows had a larger tilt now. In the background were crashes, shouting voices, other noises. He lost his grip on the pipe and tumbled across the floor to a wall.
He had a strange feeling. He should be thinking of his wife, his children. He should be frantically writing a note to them. He should be praying. But instead he felt only triumph, mixed with relief. He was not crazy. The building had moved, and now it was falling. This would show that professor, whatever his name was. Part of the wall kept him away from the windows. Through these windows, somehow not yet broken, he saw the ground coming up to catch him.