The changeover

Keith flicked the switch and sparked the buffer into life as the final few suits left the building, ignoring each other.   As the doors revolved for the last time, the setting sun glinted off the marble floor.  The drone of the buffer echoed endlessly off hard pillars and walls.  He knew there was more to life than the concentric semi-circles he made on the ground; more money to be had and more power to hold, but at least he wasn’t like them.  He stopped to pick up a well-thumbed newspaper that had escaped the corner bin.  The pink sheets fluttered in the breeze from the air-conditioning overhead.  At least he wasn’t like them.  He smiled at the thud and swinging bin lid.  The newspaper now sat surrounded by stained coffee cups. 

                Geoff sat at his desk watching the flicking monitor with a casual negligence.  There had never been a break in.  As Keith approached him, Geoff flicked his fingers into a brief wave of acknowledgement.  That’s what sets us apart, he thought, the personal touch.  It had taken forty minutes to clean the lobby floor.  By now thousands of suits would be sat watching TV, eating dinners on lap-trays.  Their ties hanging limp, a half noose on the chest.  Alone.

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                “How’s the wife?”  Geoff called, cutting through the fading echoes of the dormant buffer.

“Good, good.  And yours?”  Keith replied in the customary way.  It had been too many years to ascertain her name now, although ‘Julie’ always seemed fitting. 

“Can’t complain, can’t complain, yet she always finds a way!”

“Good, good, well must crack on.”  There had never been more to it than this.  No new quip, no further enquiry, just these same few words, night after night.  They both knew that in two hours they would share their closing piece.  A touch of the hat and an “all the best” would leave a smile their faces right to the close of the security door. 

                Keith finished his routine and surveyed the final floor space.  A black mark by the lift doors plagued him, as it had for a week.  It sat brazen against the rich white and grey like a dead moth on a windscreen.  He had buffered it and polished it.  He had spent ten minutes a day on his knees pleading at it with a cloth and strong smelling cleaner.    It still stayed rooted to its spot.  He turned his back on it and wrapped the cable around the buffer.  He wouldn’t look back as he walked to the cleaning cupboard.

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                Keith packed away his bottles and cloths in uniform places on the shelves and removed his gloves.  He hung them side by side, thumbs almost touching, on the centre of the shelf at the back.  Wiping his hands down his trousers he caught his fingernail on a loose thread.  He would cut it later with the kitchen scissors, when he made his dinner, he thought, grasping the door handle with his ring-less fingers.

               

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