Secret Life
The Shadow Cabinet
Every second week of the month, on a Thursday, the Shadow Cabinet meets, all twelve men and women in black suits rising frictionless and fast via the glistening silver elevator.
On the fifth floor, the doors open with precision and out walks: the Shadow Cabinet. Eyes hidden by black shades. Faces unsmiling. Smoke-gray briefcases caught in vicelike grips at their side. Silver cufflinks. Black shoes so shiny the ceiling reflects in them.
As they pass through the sliding glass doors to the receptionist’s outpost, the Shadow Cabinet seems to flow or glide, their steps so smooth and controlled that they might as well be moving forward on an escalator.
In neat rows of two, they wordlessly pass by the receptionist—she scrunched low in her chair, making herself as small as possible; mouse to their collective snake—and ripple into the fifth-floor conference room: a wide space without windows. The last two in line always stare back at her, nod once, and close the door.
Outside the conference room an hour passes. No one knows how much time passes inside. No one has ever discovered the purpose of these meetings. No sound comes from behind the closed doors. Ever.
The receptionist’s part in the ritual is, by tradition, limited. After an hour, she will enter the now-empty room, gather up the twelve empty, open briefcases—resembling the discarded exoskeletons of thick gray beetles—and toss them into the incinerator at the end of the hall. The briefcases feel hot to the touch long before she reaches the incinerator. Any curiosity this phenomenon might arouse in her, she quells immediately. It is not her job she fears for.
One week, she entered the room as usual and was gathering up the briefcases when she felt an odd prickle on her neck. Turning, she looked up—and screamed, dropping the briefcases. There, on the ceiling, clung a man in a black business suit. His pale hands were splayed flat against the ceiling tiles. His eyes were large and luminous. When he saw the receptionist staring at him, he let out a soft moan, a shuddering shiver. Then he scuttled across the ceiling in a series of quick-darting movements, crossed over to the sidewall, and disappeared out the door, taking a route as far away from the incinerator as possible.
Since that moment, there has been no curiosity so great the receptionist could not ignore it.
Unexpected…
A green tendril of vine curled out from under one of the ceiling tiles. The janitor-in-training was certain it had not been there a moment before. It seemed to form a finger, beckoning to him.
For a minute or two, he did nothing, dark eyebrows scrunched together. He looked around. Was this, perhaps, a test of his integrity concocted by the Head Janitor? Should he investigate or not? He put down his pencil. The Head Janitor had assigned him the dull duty of requisitioning supplies. He had been writing down numbers in columns and then crossing them out, a scowling smile on his face. His parents had been artists. His grandparents had been circus acrobats. Yet he sat in the basement of an office building and created strings of numbers. If only he could lose the ability to write them—if only the numbers would, like leaves carried by the breeze, fly off the page and fall to the floor…
The young man contemplated the curling tendril above him. It was not in his nature to ignore it. He could not ignore it. So he stood on top of his desk and peeled aside the ceiling tile, revealing insulation, the hollow area between the tile and the next floor—and a tangled welter of green vines and giant yellow blossoms. The sweet, sweet smell of the flowers overwhelmed him; he almost fell, just from the memories they brought back to him. They smelled like the perfume worn by his first lover. They smelled of even earlier memories, too, like firewood burning in the fireplace of his childhood home, or the spices his father had used to season the pot roast for Sunday dinner.
The young man breathed in deeply and saw new numbers in his head: the chances of the Head Janitor noticing his absence; the chances of finding the source of the vine; the chances he might die of boredom while sorting through the inventory. Nothing added up. Nothing made complete sense.
