Everyone Loses a Jacket

Everyone stood at the window looking down at Harvey. He seemed to be flying. Harvey held out his arms and let them ruffle like two empty vacuum cleaner bags in the wind. As he moved closer to the earth, his arms took on weight, the air filling up space with his jacket.

It was not enough.

Everyone would have heard the splat if Harvey had not landed in the bushes and if the sound of the wind had not been so powerful twelve stories up. Everyone held on to the window’s edge, not wanting to fall. Everyone was uncertain what to do. No one had arrived at work yet except everyone. Everyone watched and waited. Harvey did not seem to be moving--only his jacket, unfurling in the wind.

Everyone backed away from the window and took out his or her cell phone. But he or she did not call emergency. Harvey had jumped voluntarily, as if he knew the result would not be death and he was now waiting below for everyone to come to him.

At the bushes, everyone found the jacket just as he or she had seen it from the office above--wanting to take off, like a bird whose boneless wings were too shapeless to effect flight.

“Harvey,” everyone called, but no one called back.

Everyone dialed emergency.

The jacket held on to a twig, pleading for someone to recover it before it was stolen by the wind.

“My coworker,” everyone said into the phone, “he jumped.” Everyone felt as if he or she had stood at the bushes looking at the jacket before. Everyone crawled into the shrubs. Perhaps, Harvey had slipped into them.

Everyone gave his or her location to the emergency operator.

“Is he alive?” the operator asked.

“I don’t know,” everyone said. “I can’t find him.”

The bushes held all the city’s trash of the past two hundred years: Styrofoam cups and Popsi Cola cans, giant chocolate bar wrappers and a program from the local playhouse for its updated production of a medieval play, a copy of Lestie’s Illustrated Newspaper and a rusting horseshoe.

Everyone was confused. So was the emergency operator.

Everyone stood up. He or she was at the center of the bushes, his or her head above them posing like a bowling ball on the top shelf at a bowling alley. The jacket was beside him or her, still gripping the twig. People everyone knew were entering the building--Alice and Sam, a person in a plaid jacket not unlike the one beside everyone in the bushes. Everyone turned to look at the jacket again.

It was gone.

Above everyone, the jacket floated. It appeared to be flying, up, up, up.

Everyone Seeks Clarity

Everyone had forged a habit of washing down the mirror in her or his office building restroom before work. The restroom was on the right as she or he came out of the elevators on the twelfth floor. She or he arrived twenty minutes early each day from the bus.

Everyone had started by using paper towels and water, which left droplets on the mirror and left everyone unsatisfied. Next came towels from home, but those left a layer of fuzz. After that, everyone brought window cleaner and a squeegee from home and some towels from the gas station, but that system left soap residue.

Everyone sometimes did janitorial work on weekends. That work, everyone realized, once she or he began cleaning the bathroom mirror before her or his regular job, was shoddy.

Everyone consulted with Harvey. Harvey worked in a cubicle on the same floor on the other side of the office building. On weekends, Harvey was everyone’s boss. Harvey had a view of a window that was so clean it appeared not to exist.

“How do you do it,” everyone asked, “make it look so transparent and real?”

“I knock it out,” Harvey said. “I open it, take the glass out of the way, and get rid of the reflection.”

Everyone began sitting cross-legged on the bathroom floor before work for ten to twenty minutes. Everyone stared at the mirror, meditated. Still, everyone could not find the clarity for which she or he was looking.

“You’re looking too hard,” Harvey told everyone when she or he asked about it. “You’re focused, but you’re focused on the wrong thing. You have to let clarity--meaning--come to you.”

Everyone sat on the floor and tried to look past the mirror. Everyone saw a person who had aged intolerably in the past year--wrinkles crinkling at the corners of the eyes and along the brow. Everyone was destined for obsolescence. Everyone needed a haircut, a new shirt or blouse--something that would stand out to coworkers, make others take notice of her or him.

Everyone had talked with meaning on the phone. Everyone had seen meaning conveyed to her or him in photographs. And yet, everyone still wasn’t sure what meaning was, was still unable to conjure meaning--get ahold of meaning--in the way that everyone imagined meaning to be.

“You’ve got to introduce me,” everyone told Harvey, finally, in desperation. Harvey knew the meaning of life. Harvey could call on the meaning of life virtually any time he wanted.

“I clean everything,” Harvey said. “Clear it, make the surface shine until I see only me--that is to say, the non-me.”

“I know,” everyone said. “That’s what I’ve been doing.”

“My method doesn’t work for all,” Harvey said. “You have to find your own way.”

Harvey walked to the window that was so clear it appeared to be open.

Everyone stood in his or her spot. Everyone was afraid of heights.

“Come here,” Harvey beckoned.

Everyone didn’t move.

Harvey returned, grabbed everyone just under the arms, his own arm around everyone’s body, and dragged everyone to the window. “Look,” Harvey said. “Look out there.”

Everyone did.

The city teemed beneath them--cars stopping for the light on the corner; people sitting on benches eating lunch, drinking Popsi Cola; others stopping to look in the windows of boutiques; a jacket wafting upward in the wind, then down, then away, to the right, out of view.

“That’s me,” Harvey said. “That’s you. That’s all of us.”

He relaxed his grip.

Everyone backed away.

Harvey did too. And then he jumped.

Everyone Has a Friend Who Knows Someone Important

“You want the meaning of life?” Harvey asked. “I know the meaning of life. I’m your boss. You should have asked. We’re like that.” Harvey held his index and middle fingers up together. Tiny pieces of plastic fell from Harvey’s hand. “I need a bath,” Harvey said. “Imagine me, a custodial engineer, looking like this.”

Everyone wasn’t listening. Everyone was thinking about what Harvey had said about the meaning of life. Everyone couldn’t believe she or he had spent half a year writing a blog to find the meaning of life when Harvey had known the meaning of life all along.

“Where is the meaning of life?” everyone asked.

Harvey patted down his shirt and pants. Dust rose into the air. “I really need a bath,” Harvey reiterated.

Everyone had no time for baths. “How do you know the meaning of life?” everyone asked. “What does it look like?”

Everyone thought she or he sort of knew the answer to the last question, though at times, everyone questioned whether she or he had found the true meaning of life or simply a poser.

The meaning of life had a blog. On it were hundreds of photographs of trim, smiling people with tans standing on a motorboat with Popsi Colas in their hands. The meaning of life stood next to each of these people, wearing shades and a baseball cap. But everyone could not get a good look at the face--not at the eyes nor at the hair. Still, everyone noted, by the white teeth and the lack of wrinkles, that the meaning of life seemed exceptionally young for being so famous and rich.

Harvey unbuttoned his shirt, shook out a vacuum cleaner’s worth of dirt, laid it on everyone’s dining room table. Harvey’s chest hair was stickered with white droplets shaped like kilobytes--lice eggs, skin, three-week-old linguini sauce, puke. Harvey pulled on the longest with the fingertips of his thumb and index finger, squeegeeing off the mess. “It’s a dirty business,” Harvey said.

“Never mind that,” everyone said.

Everyone grabbed the hose of the vacuum cleaner sitting beside her or his desk, turned it on, began sucking at Harvey’s chest.

Harvey stared at the nozzle on his torso, grabbed it, then ran the hose left to right, up to down, the upper half of his body. “There’s nothing quite like seeing something come clean to give me a sense of accomplishment,” Harvey said.

Dirt continued to cake off Harvey’s skin.

“But,” everyone said, over the din of the vacuum cleaner.

“The meaning of life,” Harvey said, assenting now to everyone’s earlier question, as the hose continued down his body, “is all about cleanliness, accomplishment, doing what you love with your whole heart. That’s why I started this business.”

“So you could meet the meaning of life?” everyone asked.

Harvey nodded, moved the nozzle to his back. “Before,” Harvey said, “I simply existed, cataloging experiences--and really more other people’s experiences than my own. I wasn’t living. I was letting others live for me--I was living their lives.”

Harvey turned off the vacuum, looked at his pants, shook his head. “I really need a bath,” he said.

“But my spouse,” everyone asked now, desperate, “do you think? Do you think that if I found the meaning of life, I could find my spouse?”

Harvey stared at everyone. “Works for some people,” he said. “But like I said, I think you really have to find meaning yourself. No one in the end can help you. I mean, the meaning of life doesn’t hang out with just one person.”

“I’ve seen the photos,” everyone acknowledged.

“Never seen one myself,” Harvey said. “I find the meaning of life every time I polish a desktop or clean off a mirror. I work hard, and there, meaning is, every time, staring right back at me.”

Everyone Fails to Avoid Distractions

Everyone took the Internet’s advice and began thinking about SEO words and phrases everyone could use on his or her blog. Everyone was looking for the meaning of life, so everyone needed words and phrases that would interest the meaning of life.

The meaning of life liked Popsi Cola, so something involving refreshment was in order. “The taste that refreshes,” everyone wrote in his or her blog. “The taste that refreshes,” everyone wrote again, “Popsi.”

“Leisure, success, and happiness,” everyone wrote. The meaning of life liked leisure, success, and happiness. “Fit and tan people smiling,” everyone wrote, thinking of the photographs on the meaning of life’s blog, “holding Popsi Cola, the taste the refreshes.”

“While on motorboats,” everyone added, for it was obvious from the photographs that the meaning of life liked those too.

And so that the Internet could properly file the information, everyone added, “Plaid jackets,” and linked the phrase to a photo of the meaning of life, poolside, with a plaid jacket draping off the lounge chair on which the meaning of life lay.

The meaning of life also liked business and sales, so everyone thought about what business and sales words might appeal to the meaning of life. There was a patio deck beside and beneath the meaning of life in the pool photo. It consisted of pinkish pea-graveled cement. Perhaps, something about patio sales was in order.

Everyone should have ignored the thumping. Everyone was writing a blog entry.

Everyone had specifically opted to write not during lunch but at home, at night, after the kids were in bed and the dog done barking outside, so that he or she could focus. Everyone needed to find the right links and tags to add to his or her key words and phrases. Everyone needed to optimize the blog so that the meaning of life would find it and be motivated to comment, because the meaning of life so much enjoyed, for example, Popsi Cola, the taste that refreshes, and would want to know more. “What do you think of Popsi Cola, the taste that refreshes?” everyone would have asked, had he or she continued to write. “Is there any soda that compares?”

Instead, everyone turned.

The vacuum cleaner was behind everyone.

The vacuum cleaner should have been in the laundry room, not in the dining room where everyone’s desk was. Then everyone remembered: everyone had left the vacuum in the hall, where everyone had had to vacuum up dog puke. The dog had not gone to bark outside. It had puked and gone to everyone’s room to pretend death.

Everyone stood and went to the vacuum.

“In here, lunkhead,” the vacuum called.

Everyone looked around the room--at the small dining room table of mammoth thickness and six equally pompous charts, the bowl of oranges atop the table, the cheap chandelier from which what looked like clear plastic knives dangled. There were no closets in which to hide, and the room, expunged of the usual hobgoblin of papers and dirty dishes, offered no decent crevices.

“In here, lunkhead,” the vacuum called again. And then it shook, almost jumped.

Everyone looked down. A hand was protruding from the vacuum’s mouth.

Everyone tipped the vacuum over, shook the hand, pulled on it.

“Ow,” the vacuum said. “I’m not going to get out like this.”

Everyone danced a bit, uncertain what to do.

“Don’t just stand there,” the vacuum said.

Everyone ran to the garage, sorted through his or her tools--wrenches, screwdrivers, hammers, lug nuts--grabbed the whole box, returned to the dining room, and began dismantling the vacuum.

The vacuum sighed impatiently.

“You know how many weeks I’ve been in here?” the vacuum asked.

Everyone strained to pull the bag loose. It was jammed. Opening it was like opening a window on a glass skyscraper. Everyone had to use the full force of his or her arms, and still opening it took an inordinate amount of time, as if everyone were playing a game of hide-and-go-seek with an abstraction.

Harvey pushed the bag up with his hands, unveiling himself. Harvey was everyone’s boss at the janitorial job everyone had had cleaning random office buildings.

Everyone stared. Harvey was covered in dust--and he smelled. Dog puke caked the shins of his pants.

Harvey sucked in the warm air of the room.

“Finally,” Harvey said. “You finally listen.”

“How’d you get in there?” everyone asked.

“How do you think?” Harvey grumbled.

Harvey sat down at the computer, let out a breath. “I got to write some e-mails,” he said, “let people know where I am.”

“Of course,” everyone said. Everyone still wasn’t sure how Harvey had managed to get in the vacuum, but he or she didn’t want to risk angering Harvey by asking again. “You want something to drink?” everyone asked. “You must be thirsty.”

Harvey read what was on the screen. “What is this crap?” he asked.

Everyone Faces a Dilemma

The body was face-down atop the bushes. Everyone walked toward it with certainty, as if he or she were recovering a vacuum cleaner hose needed to complete a custodial job. Everyone was amazed no one else had come for the body. Others had seen it fall--coworkers everyone knew and probably some passersby. The building from which the body had fallen was downtown. Hours had passed. There had been restaurant eaters and bar hoppers and moviegoers and bookstore fiends to contend with. A body shouldn’t have been able to lay atop the bushes so blithely without someone becoming upset.

The body had on a plaid jacket. Everyone had seen the jacket only a few times before. The jacket had been in everyone’s closet soon after everyone had gotten married. Everyone was uncertain whether the jacket belonged to his or her spouse or whether it was intended as a gift to him- or herself or whether it was in fact reserved for one of their eventual children. The jacket did not seem to fit within the parameters of everyone’s spouse’s usual tastes, and it certainly didn’t fit within the parameters of everyone’s.

And then the jacket disappeared.

That had been so long ago now that everyone was uncertain whether the jacket was real.

When everyone asked his or her spouse about the jacket, as everyone had a few times before the spouse had left everyone, the spouse denied its existence. “Why would I have such a thing?” the spouse had asked. “I hate plaid, and so do you.”

Everyone grabbed the jacket from atop the bushes, and the body slipped down into them. The jacket tore. Everyone had only a handful of it, as if everyone had pulled a handkerchief from the bushes’ pocket.

The bushes were thorny and full of poison. Everyone pondered whether to go in and, if so, how far. Everyone wondered if the body belonged to the person everyone thought it did. Everyone had concerns. Everyone pondered calling the authorities. Everyone wondered whether the authorities would have concerns and whether those concerns would involve everyone.

No one seemed to have noticed the body, and now it had disappeared into the bushes. The authorities might wonder how everyone had known it was there. The authorities might not believe everyone if everyone stated that he or she had seen it fall. So many others had seen it fall. So many others had been around and had passed it by, but no one had mentioned it. No one had called.

Everyone considered the act of calling an ethical dilemma. Everyone hated ethical dilemmas.

Everyone wished that he or she was at a computer so that everyone could contact the Internet regarding what to do.

Everyone did not recognize that the dilemma did not really involve ethics. Everyone’s reason for not calling the authorities was, in fact, cowardice. Everyone did not think about how if he or she could not risk calling about the body, everyone could not risk what was necessary to find the meaning of life, as he or she desired. If everyone had listened to his or her former coworker Harvey, everyone would have known that finding the meaning of life involved giving up one’s life.

Harvey would have told everyone that whether to call was not an ethical dilemma. Harvey knew a lot about ethics because religion and philosophy were what Harvey liked to talk about with the Internet. Harvey often mentioned religion and philosophy to everyone.

Harvey was a custodian. Harvey owned a vacuum cleaner. A vacuum cleaner could gather a body from the bushes. A vacuum cleaner could make a masterpiece of a mess.

Everyone did not have a vacuum cleaner at this moment.

Everyone wiped at his or her brow with the plaid handkerchief. Everyone did not go into the bushes. Everyone was uncertain whether the body was inside them. The handkerchief seemed like something everyone had seen in his or her closet soon after everyone had been married. Everyone’s spouse had denied the thing existed.

Everyone threw the handkerchief into the bushes.

Everyone Visits the Hospital

Everyone needed $5092. Everyone was in the hospital. Everyone was wishing that back in chapter 2 everyone had not used the $5092 to pay for her or his child Journey’s chocolate fixation. In fact, everyone wished that she or he had never introduced children to the novel. The novel was about finding the meaning of life, but every time everyone needed to write something in relation to that, the children stormed in.

Everyone had contacted the meaning of life via e-mail and via a comment on the meaning of life’s blog, but there had been little progress beyond that, despite the Internet’s help. And now, everyone needed $5092 to pay a hospital bill, or the hospital would not let her or him leave. Everyone needed to contact the Internet, but the hospital would not let everyone do so, unless everyone paid a fee, because the Internet was not a blood relative.

Everyone called her or his oldest child Jody. Jody was twelve years old and had known the Internet the longest of everyone’s children. The Internet knew virtually all of humanity, as it did everyone’s offspring, excepting Jan, who was six. Everyone had not let Jan and the Internet meet. The Internet knew some shady people.

“Jody,” everyone said over the phone, “I need you to tell the Internet that I need $5092.”

Jody refused. She or he was working everyone’s second job for her or him and could not, at this moment, contact everyone’s friend.

Everyone was in the middle of the eighteenth chapter of her or his novel. Everyone could not wait. There were readers to satisfy.

Jody didn’t seem motivated to change her or his current state. One hundred dollars was involved, and being down $5092 and in the hospital, everyone could not pay the hundred dollars to make up for Jody’s lost time.

Everyone was scared the reader would stop here, and this would be the end of the novel, which was not how the Internet and everyone had planned it. Everyone was supposed to find the meaning of life. If the novel ended in the hospital, its beginning would not work.

The Internet had warned everyone about this, that everyone might get to chapter 18 and discover that the events in chapter 2 were all wrong and that everyone might want to change them. Everyone had not listened. The Internet had dithered about posting chapter 2 to everyone’s blog but in the end had acceded to everyone’s command. Everyone wished the Internet had failed to follow directions. Everyone cursed.

Everyone did not know the janitor was in the room. The janitor did not like cursing. The janitor watched religious movies with the Internet. The janitor was an ex-coworker of everyone’s named Harvey.

The reason everyone did not see Harvey was that Harvey was inside the vacuum cleaner. The vacuum cleaner was in the corner of the room, next to the visitors’ chair that was perennially empty. It was perennially empty because everyone did not have a car because everyone’s $5092 had been spent paying for everyone’s child Journey’s chocolate fixation and everyone’s children could not drive.

“Get me out of here,” Harvey yelled. Harvey was an unwitting visitor. The vacuum cleaner had traveled a long way to be here, and so had Harvey, but they had not traveled here for cursing.

Everyone thought her or his head was in the novel and that everyone had imagined Harvey’s voice.

“Harvey, is that you?” everyone asked, to be sure the voice wasn’t real.

To everyone’s surprise, Harvey acceded.

“Where are you?” everyone asked.

“In here, you lunkhead,” Harvey said. “In here.”

Everyone could not see Harvey. The room was very dark.

“In here,” Harvey repeated.

Everyone looked under the table beside the bed, under the television, next to the curtains, on top of the chair for the visitors, but no matter how long everyone looked, everyone could not see Harvey, and the room was getting darker. Everyone was going blind.

It was a dreadful end to the novel.

Everyone Develops Three Traits of Character

The key to developing character, the Internet told everyone, was hard work, truth, and faithfulness. Everyone believed she or he already worked hard. Every week, right on time, everyone delivered an entry to the blog. This was in addition to working two jobs, one as an archivist for the Dasney family of amusement park malls and the other as the weekend custodian of random office buildings. Everyone told the Internet everything, including all the things she or he archived, and it was the Internet who had set everyone up with the janitorial job and the blog, so the implication that everyone was not working hard yanked at everyone with the force of a high-pressure vacuum cleaner unfairly aimed at her or his newly laundered underwear.

The Internet had not meant to be insulting. It had no strong feelings on this matter and had merely been stating an opinion. It elaborated: To forge strong character, you might have to do something several times. Strong character didn’t simply emerge wholesale from the end of a pen. It wasn’t a set of random words. Everything--every action--had to fall in line with those words. Strong character involved consistency, of the kind that everyone showed in posting to her or his blog every Sunday.

The last statement was a bone the Internet threw out to make everyone feel better. The Internet knew that the statement was not without problems. You could blog every day, but if your content was crappy, you still weren’t going to forge much in the way of character. You might even forge bad habits that would be more forcefully engrained than whatever habits the more occasional or haphazard blogger might build.

Everyone took the bone, however, and moved her or his contention on to truth. “What is truth?” everyone asked, mimicking the words of Christ, though she or he didn’t know they belonged to the Savior.

Everyone assumed the question belonged to her or his former coworker (Dasney) and boss (custodian) Harvey, who had quoted it one day in reference to everyone’s allusion to a survey posted in a television commercial about preferred bleaching products. Harvey himself had gleaned the question from the Internet, with whom he often discussed theology. The Internet shared with Harvey Christian movies, of which Matthew: The Real Story had been one recently on Harvey’s mind.

Neither Harvey nor the Internet drank, which made them close friends. This is not to say that the Internet was opposed to drinking per se--it would happily suggest drinks to anyone who asked. The Internet was a pleaser and tried to satisfy anyone it came in contact with, which is often how the Internet ended up peeving people off.

In this case, the Internet did so by suggesting that truth is beauty, ala Matthew Arnold among others. Everyone didn’t buy it.

The Internet proposed another definition: “Truth is whatever seems real and lasting.”

Everyone nodded. A lasting character, everyone thought and then went on to argue: “In that case, none of us are true. In fact, the entire universe is false, since nothing lasts. Thus, no character can have truth.”

The Internet thought for a moment before responding. “Seeming true is what matters. To do that, all something has to do is outlast you.”

“In that case,” everyone quipped, “my body is more true than I am, unless of course my body burns up in a fire or something.”

The conversation had become tedious. The Internet wanted out. “Perhaps you would care for a drink,” the Internet suggested, “at Ample Bs Bar and Grill. Ample Bs is open till eleven, and right now margaritas are half off.”

The Internet was a materialist, everyone realized, which made her or him uncomfortable. Everyone had assumed the Internet was a latent spiritualist, ethereal and ascetic as it often seemed, since everyone had never seen the Internet eat or drink.

“What about faithfulness?” everyone asked the Internet?

“Ample Bs is really good,” the Internet warned. “These prices aren’t going to last.

Everyone thought about Ample Bs. The Internet had a point.

But faithfulness--wasn’t that the point? To work hard, stay faithful to the task at hand, be consistent. That a drink was half price across town was no reason to quit now. Everyone was blogging a novel, and everyone had to stick to it. That was how one forged character.

And then it hit everyone, everything the Internet had said about character. It was true, all of it. Everyone grew excited. Everyone shouted that truth at the Internet: “But faithfulness--wasn’t that the whole point? To work hard, stay faithful to the task at hand . . .”

The Internet shut down.

Everyone Moonlights

Everyone had to take a second job. She or he needed to save money for a new car. Everyone had had money--$5092 worth of it -until one of everyone’s children had blown it on chocolate. Now everyone was living on whatever her or his regular employer Dasney doled out to her or him every two weeks, which was why everyone had agreed to this professional opportunity. The professional opportunity had been proffered to everyone through some surveys that everyone’s friend the Internet had given to everyone.

As it turned out, everyone’s coworker Harvey knew the Internet too, which the Internet and everyone discovered through the surveys. Harvey had a sideline job as a business professional. The business Harvey was a professional at was cleaning, and that was what everyone was now a professional at as well. Each weekend, everyone cleaned a new office building. This meant running old towels along the bottom of the window frames and over blinds, dropping wet bundles of string onto lunchroom floors, and vacuuming one’s way through a redundant maze of doors and door stops.

Everyone did not like the job, but everyone liked being paid one hundred dollars cash at the day’s end--tax free--because that was how Harvey rolled. (“Don’t tell the Internet, though,” Harvey warned, knowing their friend’s selective punctiliousness with regard to legalities.)

Everyone was on the sixth office down the sixth hallway of the sixth office building when the vacuum squealed and burned. Everyone was not religious, so everyone did not notice the prophetic congruence of the numbers, nor would everyone have understood their significance, except to know that they were supposed to mean something bad. Such information would have had to come from Harvey, but it could not, because Harvey was missing. That he was missing was a bad thing, but that, too, everyone could not know without Harvey pointing it out to everyone, which Harvey desperately wanted to do, because it hurt.

Everyone smelled and stared and listened to the vacuum. The vacuum was uncomfortable, but everyone did not know why. Everyone tried to turn the vacuum off and restart it so that everyone could take advantage of her or his professional opportunity, but the vacuum would not shut down.

Everyone turned her or his head in every direction, looking for Harvey. Harvey was not in the office.

Everyone walked to the hall, looked up and down it. Harvey was not in the hall. Everyone walked down it, to every place she or he had been.

Everyone could hear the squeal in offices five and four and three and two and one. Everyone could hear the squeal among the cubicles and in the kitchen and the bathroom. Everyone could hear the squeal everywhere.

Everyone began to panic.

The windows were moving inward as if the air outside were a paperweight. Everyone had never been under a paperweight. Everyone was having trouble identifying the safety procedures she or he should initiate.

And then everyone remembered the cord.

Everyone ran back to office six and pulled.

The office was on fire, however, and so was the vacuum. Everyone dashed between the two chairs and the table and the desk to save her- or himself.

Everyone had probably lost today’s one hundred dollars, perhaps the entire professional opportunity, and everyone was sad. Everyone needed the $5092 back for the new car.

Everyone wanted to salvage the situation.

Everyone found a water cooler in the kitchen. Everyone filled a paper cup, then another, and another.

Everyone abandoned the paper cups.

Everyone raised the bottle off its pedestal, lugged it to the office.

The fire did not abate.

Everyone stomped on its edges.

Harvey screamed.

Everyone turned to look at Harvey, but Harvey was not around.

“In here, lunkhead,” Harvey called.

Everyone looked for a closet, a place in which to hide.

“In here,” Harvey repeated.

And then, everyone saw the hand extruding from the bottom of the vacuum, the vacuum rising and falling beneath the burning bag.

“In here,” Harvey yelled. “In here.”

Everyone Learns about Windows

Everyone returned from lunch to find a window open at the office. The opening stretched from floor to ceiling. Everyone worked on the twelfth floor, the penultimate floor, of an all-glass building. Everyone thought the windows weren’t supposed to open.

“Actually,” Sam said, when everyone noted the open window to the next-door coworker, “having windows that open was the plan at one time.” Sam stood up from her or his desk, volunteering to show everyone.

Sam had a crush on everyone. Everyone knew about it and felt awkward whenever she or he was alone with Sam. Everyone’s spouse was intensely jealous, and now that they were separated, Sam’s crush was unbearable. Everyone wanted her or his spouse back, and everyone was trying to make that happen. One wrong move, everyone knew, and the spouse might have grounds for the divorce.

At the window Sam pointed to the metal landing to the window’s right. “These were supposed to go across the whole building,” Sam said.

“I thought those were fire escapes,” everyone said.

“Now, you’re no longer ignorant,” Sam observed. “Congratulations.”

Sam pointed out the screen and then pushed on it so that the window closed, except for the glass.

Everyone realized how unobservant she or he had been these many years everyone had worked in the office building. How many other things had everyone not noticed? Everyone suspected she or he had been too focused on archiving records for the Dasney Amusement Park Malls. Perhaps, everyone mused, that is why her or his spouse had left.

Other people were at the window also, enjoying Sam’s lesson on architecture. Everyone had been ignorant. Now no one was.

J. D. stood against the screen. “The company could have saved oodles on electricity last summer,” she or he said. “It’s cold up here.”

Papers lifted and fell from the desks of nearby cubicles. There was quite a breeze.

Other people stepped toward the window, looked. Harvey pushed the screen back, opening the building to the sky. Alice pushed it closed.

Everyone backed away. The open window made everyone nervous -so high up -and only that flimsy metal landing to stop a body.

Everyone went back to her or his office. Sam trailed google eyed. “Is there anything more you’d like to know?” Sam asked, standing in the frame of everyone’s door after everyone had sat.

Everyone shook her or his head.

Sam dawdled, playing a song on the doorjamb with her or his fingertips.

Everyone smiled awkwardly, looked down. Waited.

All afternoon, everyone could hear the screen on the window squeak open and slam closed, squeak open and slam closed.

Everyone stayed away.