text: “Adem! It looks like we have a problem.” Eugene was sitting with crossed arms in his office chair when Adem arrived at his manager’s desk. He gestured towards the computer screen with a subtle nod. “What is this about, Euge?” Adem suppressed his urge to sigh, but like almost everyone, it seemed Eugene could read him like a book. “I’m sorry, am I keeping you from something important?” “Well, actually-” Adem knew he would not make it to the end of his sentence. Even getting shit on by his boss only felt like acting out an uninspired play at this point. Eugene interrupted him, “Because I could swear I just saw you cracking jokes with the guys when I walked by your desk earlier.” Adem pressed his lips together. The truth was, Sandy and Carl were making fun of his skin, which, according to them, looked more translucent every day. He had attempted to save face by laughing it off as if he were in on the jokes. But he wouldn’t give Eugene the satisfaction of clarifying this misunderstanding. Adem lifted his head. “I got a few calls to make. We got two new orders from PC Whiz and they didn’t clarify the end customer.” With a quick jump-like motion, Eugene uncrossed his arms and grabbed the computer mouse on his desk. “You know, since you brought it up, Adem,” he started frantically scrolling the mouse wheel, “I’m a little concerned. I just checked your daily outbound calls and... Adem.” Eugene loved to throw in Adem’s name as often and as condescendingly as possible, “correct me if I’m wrong, but I remember that we agreed upon a minimum of 20 calls a day.” Somehow Eugene managed to make even his mouse clicks sound unbearably disappointing. “Yet I am reading here that you made only 17 calls today. Adem, I thought we had a deal...” For a brief moment, the image of his doctor’s face swiftly appeared in Adem's head. He didn’t eat and sleep well lately, and it clearly showed during his check-up at the clinic the other day. His boss had the same rehearsed, worried look on his face right now. But unlike Dr. Phelps’, Eugene’s expression provoked an emotional reaction in him. “As I said,” Adem noticed his voice becoming increasingly desperate. “I still have to do a few calls today.” “Uh-huh...” Eugene muttered, while dramatically lifting his left hand, checking his watch. It was late afternoon. Had Adem not been summoned away from his cubicle, he probably would have ended his two calls with PC Whiz and the supplier by now, scoring him a total of 19 calls for the day. For the twentieth, Adem usually called up his mom to let her know he was still hanging in there. He hated doing that after work. But it looked like this cheat was becoming a bit risky, given Eugene’s newfound attention to detail when it came to outbound calls. Management loved to use phone call numbers as some arbitrary indicator for sales performance. Nobody seemed to care that Skype and Zoom, next to email, had become the predominant methods of communication among their tech-oriented business customers. Of course, tracking any communication channels involving anything more modern than a landline would require new infrastructure, new software, new processes... generally things management wasn’t really interested in. At least that was Adem’s impression. For all he was concerned, phone calls remained the ‘key performance indicator’. “So you’re working late today?” Eugene asked with an expectant glance up from his watch. “Yes.” Adem sighed. This time for real. “I’m working late today.” It was already dark when Adem left the office. Like every day, he was parked at the very end of the business center parking lot. It became a habit after a few awkward interactions with coworkers once he started spending lunchtime in his car. Just as he was reaching for the key to his battered Ford Focus, the magical glissando of a harp started sounding from his pocket. The intro to Catherine The Great by The Divine Comedy. Once again, Adem was embarrassingly reminded that he really should change his ringtone. He loved that song, but it wasn’t an ideal ringtone for this particular woman - the only person who called him anymore. Tonight, he wasn’t going to pick up the phone. Instead, he typed a short text message: “I’m okay mom, just very tired. Call you tomorrow. Good night!” The response came only a few seconds later: “I found Nora’s handbag. What should I do with it?” “What handbag?” Adem thought to himself. It didn’t matter. There were about a dozen of Nora’s old handbags collecting dust somewhere in the house. Alongside boxes of coats, shoes, jewelry, even a fully stocked cupboard of Irish breakfast tea which he still had to get rid of somehow. “Keep it.” he texted back and unlocked his car. Once he arrived back home Adem didn’t bother turning on a single light in the house. He liked it better this way. The darkness allowed him to go about his business without seeing the trash bags piling up in the hallway. It also prevented him from seeing all the dust and dirt that had accumulated after months of abandoning his homely duties. And as a bonus, it spared Adem from catching a glimpse of the old pictures on the walls. He’d considered taking them all down for a little while, but he could not bring it over himself. At some point, he contemplated covering the pictures with blankets, but the thought of that made him feel like a sociopath. Granted, living alone in a dark, cluttered mess of a house wouldn’t portray him as a mentally sound individual either. But it seemed like a good compromise. This way, theoretically, all that separated him from living in a relatively normal home was a couple of light switches and window blinds. As Adem dragged himself upstairs, a sudden feeling of dizziness made him freeze up. He hastily reached for the wooden stair railing. Something was off... There was a sudden warmth surrounding him, but not in a comfortable way. It was like the air just got heavy and viscous. Every movement seemed to generate heat and pressure on his skin as if the atmosphere was resisting him. At once, Adem could feel his heart pumping violently and loudly as if it had just started beating for the first time today. Sweat started running down his forehead. “I’m not getting sick, am I?” He thought to himself. “Goddammit, Euge is gonna have a field day with me tomorrow!”. In his head, he could hear Eugene gossiping about him with his coworkers, “I’m sorry guys, you gotta handle Adem’s customers. Little Fight Club called in sick today!” He could see Sandy rolling her eyes, “Again? Wasn’t he at the doctor’s literally two days ago?”, and Carl complaining, “If you ask me that dude’s a lazy fuck. That’s probably why his wife left him too.” In a delirious blur, Adem could suddenly see Nora’s face before his eyes. Smirking at him cheekily. Nora was the one person who never gave up on him. Who always tried to understand and alleviate his pain. But she never let him feel sorry for himself. “Leave the self-pity to those who don’t have a Nora in their life, gummy bear,” she used to say to him. Adem abruptly realized that he had never told the office what really happened to her. But just as he finished this thought, it all went away, only to leave behind a painful feeling of emptiness. The house was eerily silent and dark again. Adem just stood there alertly for a moment, before climbing the last couple of steps. “Maybe one light won’t hurt” he negotiated with himself as he walked through the hallway. In his bedroom, he flipped the switch next to the doorway. A warm light illuminated the room dimly. Apparently, one of the two bulbs had died, causing the lamp to cast uncanny shadows from the ceiling onto the junk-covered furniture and the beige, scruffy carpet. “Alright then. Bedtime it is.” “What the fuck.” When Adem woke up, something was definitely, one hundred percent, very wrong. “What the fuck.” he repeated intuitively before he had even fully opened his eyes. This wasn’t right. It didn’t feel like waking up. More like regaining control after a very strong trip. Adem tried to recall if he had smoked any pot before going to sleep. No, he was sure he didn’t. He sat upright in his bed. Except, it wasn’t actually his bed, it appeared. It certainly wasn’t his bedroom. In fact, there wasn’t a room at all! Somehow, the bed he was sitting on was surrounded only by what seemed like an endless void. The floor looked like his regular bedroom floor. He could make out the familiar discolored spots and stains on the carpet. But the floor did not reach any walls. It extended endlessly, blending with a clean, cloudless, orange-yellowish horizon somewhere far, far out in the distance. The ceiling was gone. So were all the walls and furniture. There was no obvious source of light, yet it was almost blindingly bright. Adem’s eyes hurt from the abrupt change, adjusting only slowly to the new ambiance. His body felt weak and shaky while he touched the fuzzy carpet with his toes, and as he stood up he heard a familiar voice behind him. “Adem.” He turned around back towards the bed. Standing on the other side - was Nora. Immediately, an unfathomable amount of time passed. Or no time at all. It was impossible to tell. At some point, Adem must have fallen onto his knees. At some point, he must have started crying uncontrollably. But when was that? The tears had already started to dry up and were dripping cold from his chin when he first noticed them. She was still standing there. But not really. How could she? Smiling gently, Nora walked around the bed towards Adem. Right in front of him, she joined him on the carpet floor. Kneeling, she reached for his hands. She held them with a soft grip and looked deep into his dark eyes. “I am dreaming?” Adem whispered. He couldn’t tell for sure if he was really saying anything, but Nora seemed to understand him. She smiled. “Maybe.” “I... I missed you so much,” he said in a jittery voice. “Where have you been all this time?” He gasped. Every spoken word felt like it sucked all the oxygen out of his lungs. Nora laughed one of her silent, wispy laughs. “Well... Right here, gummy bear.” Adem smiled back at her. Then they hugged each other, and for the first time in what felt like an eternity, Adem was happy.