I usually viewed the nighttime as a time of the day that was alive with magic - normally horrible memories would flood into my brain but with a more pleasant spin attached to them. I cannot explain why or how, that’s just it.
The only time I didn’t view the nighttime world in such a positive light was when I had been called into the office where I worked, on my day off. I worked at a Law Office, there was myself - the paralegal, the associate and the head lawyer.
The associate always had me doing his work literally hours before it was due in a courtroom, to be read by a judge. Rarely did his work get out on time before I came along and started working there; back then, it was the head lawyer picking up the slack. Man, I hated the associates deeply lined bloodhound face!
The head lawyer called me and asked me to come in to help lighten the load - I at first said no, that neither of us should be picking up the associate’s slack, and that the head lawyer should just fire the associate.
I ended up going in anyways, the head lawyer was going to pay me for an extra day, and who honestly ever said no to extra money on their paycheck? The Law Office where I worked at was in a decent part of town, totally nice and pleasant, so parking and walking to the office complex didn’t bother me none.
The head lawyer worked out of a second story suite, suite P, I walked up the stairs and twisted the knob to find it was locked. I was confused as the head lawyer had called me not twenty minutes ago, asking me to come down and help him with the work. Dogs barked from the near by neighborhoods that had the complex surrounded.
“Mr. Rao? I’m here, hello! I came as you asked! Hello?” I called out to the door, not looking anything like a paralegal in a plaid wool Pendleton, jeans, and Birkenstocks. I got fed up with the head lawyer, and dug through my purse, fishing out the key to the office - something only the head lawyer and myself had.
I opened the door to the office and saw all the lights were off inside. “Mr. Rao? Mr. Miller? Anyone here?” I questioned aloud in the dark waiting room of the Law Office. I turned on the light, and saw the waiting room area was completely empty.
Which wasn’t a huge shock, the law office closed at six, why would there be a client? I headed towards the bathroom - a single room for both men and women. “Mr. Rao?” When I opened the door, I saw the room was just as empty.
I peeked outside once more to see if I could see the head lawyer outside taking a smoke break, but saw not a soul. Again, no big surprise there, it was ten fifteen at night after all. It was moments like this that made me sit back and ask myself if I really wanted to be a clown in this circus.
I closed the door once more and heard the keys of a computer keyboard clicking away in the head lawyer’s office. I was mad. “Mr. Rao? Why didn’t you answer me?” I called out, trying to keep a sweet tone to my voice. Still, no answer as I placed my hand upon the knob to his office, something told me not to go in, but since I couldn’t put my finger on why not, I opened the door.
Outside of the head lawyer’s office window, the long green fronds swayed like hula skirts in the street lights. “Mr. Rao? Are you there?”
I opened the door, all the lights were off, but there was the head lawyer, sitting at his computer. “Hey, quit fooling around! We have work to do!” I snapped at the head lawyer. When I didn’t hear his reply in his usual warm and husky - like dark melted chocolate fudge caramel - voice, I got more and more frustrated. “You know, I can see you, right?”
“Help me!” Mr. Rao shouted.
I turned on the light and the head lawyer vanished, the computer turned off. I said nothing as that had thoroughly spooked me and took a seat at my own desk. My phone began to ring, I fished it out of my purse and saw it was the head lawyer.
“Mr. Rao, why did you leave?” I asked the head lawyer upon answering the call. “Say something! Matthew? Hello? Matthew?” I was finally answered, a sound as if the head lawyer were choking upon his own blood rang through my pierced ear.
I tore the phone away, looking upon the screen as if that would give me any answers and hung up the strange call. I decided to call the head lawyer back. I heard his phone ringing in the associate’s office.
Something was now screaming at me to not enter that associate’s office. If I left and went home, I could just relax and watch some anime, but I had worked too hard to become the head lawyer’s work wife, and that fact prevailed.
The associate’s office was just as dark, and I clicked the light on. The associate sat at his desk, a bloody, trembling wreck of a man, and next to him, at his feet was the dead body of the head lawyer, his throat had been slashed, the head lawyer’s breathing had been reduced to a tortured panting.
His ringing cellphone was mere inches from his outstretched fingertips. “What did you do, Adrian!” I wailed.
“Please don’t call the police,” the associate begged me with dark circles under his eyes, and the skin on his bulbous nose and hound dog towels were florid with broken veins. He was drunk. As if in slow motion, he placed a gun into his mouth and shot himself. I stood there and screamed, though I felt like I was far away in both miles and time.
I don’t know why the associate not only killed himself and the head lawyer, and that’s an answer I’ll never get.
The only answer I have is why I saw the head lawyer at his desk, a word of warning perhaps from my Schizophrenia? A ghostly premonition of what I could have seen if I had arrived sooner?
That’s not really an answer, but at least it’s more than why did the associate kill the head lawyer then himself.
I now view nighttime as a time of coldness and loneliness, where people watch things and see things, but never do anything about them, turning a cold shoulder to all manner of things.