@Arthur P. Halloway

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On The Job

Forty Years at the Same Desk

They say the office is getting a complete overhaul next year. Management calls it an open-concept collaborative space, but I just see the end of my quiet, familiar cubicle. I sit here in my gray-walled nook, the fabric faded from decades of sun hitting it through the blinds, and I listen to the mechanical click-clack of my keyboard. It is one of those heavy, industrial-grade mechanical boards that I insisted on keeping long after everyone else switched to those flat, silent, mushy plastic boards that feel like typing on a piece of cardboard. The click-clack is the heartbeat of my morning. It is a rhythmic, satisfying sound that cuts through the hum of the air conditioner. I sit here and wonder if anyone actually knows what we do in this office. I have been here so long that I feel like a structural element, like one of the support beams hidden behind the drywall that holds up the ceiling. I remember the days of heavy, motorized typewriters that would hum in the morning like a beehive, and the distinct, sharp smell of fresh carbon paper that would stain your fingers black by lunchtime. Back then, if you made a typo, you had to carefully align the paper, dab on the white-out, wait for it to dry, and then type over it. If you messed that up, you retyped the whole page. The internet was just a whisper in the distance, a sci-fi idea we read about in magazines, something that belonged to the military or government labs. Now, the office is full of young people darting around with tablets tucked under their arms like footballs, talking constantly about being more agile and efficient, as if sheer speed is the only metric that matters. They hover by the coffee machine, talking about sprints and scalability, while I just keep doing my work. I sit at my desk, looking at spreadsheets and claim forms, making sure the numbers are correct. It is a quiet, rhythmic labor. If the math is wrong, the whole system fails, but nobody notices the math until it breaks. People stop by my desk all day long, usually when the younger staff hits a snag they cannot solve. recently, a girl named Sarah came over, her face pale, worried she had accidentally wiped a three-year-old database entry. She was practically vibrating with panic. I asked her to pull up a chair, and I showed her how we used to track those records back in 1994, using nothing but paper logs and a green-screen monitor that flickered like a candle in the dark. It is not about the software; it is about the logic. They call me the oracle as a joke, but when they look at me, I think they really mean it. They look at me like I am a dusty old map for a territory they have never explored. I have learned to use the new technology, of course. I can navigate the cloud and pull up reports from databases that move faster than I can think, but the core work stays the same. It is about being careful. It is about catching that one misplaced decimal point that could cost the company thousands, the kind of mistake others miss because they are too busy looking at the next deadline. I have seen bosses come and go, each one bringing in their new branding and their new buzzwords, changing the paint colors and the coffee machines. My hands ache a bit more these days, and my eyes get tired under the flickering fluorescent lights, but I am proud of one thing: I have not missed a deadline in forty-two years. I do not need awards, certificates, or that fancy ergonomic furniture they keep trying to sell me. I just like having a sense of order in a world that feels increasingly chaotic. There is a deep, quiet, steady kind of peace when I finish my work and I know everything is exactly right. When the new college graduates start, they are often stressed, shoulders hunched up to their ears, worried about failing before they even really begin. I take the time to show them the tricks of the job, the little shortcuts that only come with decades of experience, and I watch them slowly relax. I like being the person they can rely on. If the network goes down or the fancy software crashes, they do not panic because they know I am here. I know how to fix the minor glitches, and more importantly, I know exactly where to find the old paper files in the basement archives that prove how we solved this very problem twenty years ago. This desk is my home. It is where I spent the better part of my life. My coffee mug is chipped on the rim, and I have a small framed photo of my dog from 2005 tucked into the corner of my corkboard. I might retire soon, or I might stay a while longer. For now, I enjoy being the one who understands how the machinery of this company actually works, watching the history of a firm that has largely forgotten its own past. I take a deep breath, push my glasses up my nose, and start on the next file. The work is never really done, and that is just fine by me.

@Arthur P. Halloway

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Night Shift

The Final Shift

Working at the city crematorium is a lonely kind of job. Most people don't even think about who runs the machines at the end of a life. But someone has to do it. Someone has to stand there in the quiet and make sure things are done right, done with respect. It's serious work. The building always smells like metal and smoke, even after you clean it. The heat from the furnace room never really goes away, not even in winter. You get used to it, but you never stop noticing it. It sits on your skin like a second layer. That night, I was working late by myself. I usually don't mind the night shifts. They're quieter, less people around, less noise from the office upstairs. But this one was different from the start. A family had come in earlier that day, grieving hard, saying they needed it done quickly. The mother kept wiping her eyes with a tissue that was falling apart in her hands. The father just stood there, not saying much, nodding at everything I said. They asked if I could handle it personally, not pass it off to someone else. I told them I would. I always try to keep that kind of promise. It felt like the least I could do for them. So later that night, after everyone else had gone home, I rolled the body into the chamber myself. I checked everything twice, like I always do. Temperature, gas lines, the seal on the door. Then I started the machine. It made that low humming sound it always makes, deep and steady, like a giant engine clearing its throat. The floor shook just a little under my boots. I stood there for a moment, like I always do, just to make sure everything sounded right. It did. So I walked back to my office to wait it out, like any other night. It was close to four in the morning. The building was dead silent except for the hum of the furnace down the hall. I had a book with me, something to pass the time, though I don't even remember what it was now. The lights in the hallway buzzed faintly. My coffee had gone cold hours ago, but I kept sipping it out of habit. That's when I heard it. A heavy, steady thumping sound. It wasn't like the usual clicks and clunks the machine makes when it's running. This was different. It had a rhythm to it, like someone knocking, except harder, heavier. At first, I told myself it was just a part of the machine shifting, maybe something loose banging around inside. That happens sometimes with old equipment. But the sound kept going, steady, almost patient, like it was waiting for something. I put my book down and walked toward the furnace room. My footsteps echoed down that hallway louder than I expected. The air got warmer with every step, thick and heavy, pressing against my chest. When I reached the glass window on the chamber door, I looked inside. The fire was glowing white-hot, the kind of bright that hurts your eyes if you stare too long. But something was moving inside the flames. At first, I thought it was just the heat distorting the air, the way it does sometimes. But then I saw it clearer. A dark shape was pushing against the glass from the inside. It didn't look like a person, not exactly. It looked like thick smoke and shadow, twisted together into something almost human. It had arms, or something like arms, clawing at the window like it was trying to get out. I froze. My whole body went stiff, like my legs had forgotten how to work. The thumping got louder, echoing off the walls and ceiling, filling the whole room. It felt like the walls were closing in around me, like the room itself was shrinking. My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my ears. I wanted to run, but I couldn't move. I just stood there, staring at that shape clawing at the glass, the heat pressing against my face even through the small gap under the door. Then the emergency alarm went off, loud and sharp, cutting through the thumping like a knife. It snapped me out of whatever trance I was in. I ran to the control panel and hit the kill switch, shutting down the gas and power as fast as I could. The lights flickered, then the room went completely dark. The thumping stopped instantly, like someone had just turned it off along with the machine. For a few seconds, I just stood there in the dark, breathing hard, my hands shaking on the panel. Then I flipped on the emergency lights. The chamber was cooling down slowly, the glow fading from white to orange to nothing. I waited, maybe longer than I needed to, just staring at that door, too scared to open it right away. But I knew I had to check. It was my job. When it was finally safe, I opened the chamber door. My hands were trembling so bad I almost couldn't turn the handle. Inside, there was nothing. No remains, no ash, not even the usual fine dust that's always left behind. Just an empty space, clean and cold, like nothing had ever been in there at all. I stood there staring into that empty chamber for a long time, trying to make sense of what I was looking at. There was no logical reason for it. Bodies don't just disappear. Ash doesn't vanish into thin air. I didn't sleep at all that night. I sat in my car in the parking lot for almost an hour before I could even drive home. My hands kept shaking on the steering wheel. I kept replaying it in my head, over and over, trying to convince myself it was some trick of the light, some weird reflection off the glass, some exhaustion playing games with my mind. But deep down, I knew what I saw. I knew it wasn't just my imagination. The next morning, I walked into the office and quit. My supervisor asked why, and I just told him I couldn't do the job anymore. I didn't tell him the real reason. I don't think he would have believed me anyway. I just packed up my things and left, and I haven't been back since. People always say death is the end, that once the flames take someone, that's it, there's nothing left but memories. I used to believe that too. But after that night, I know it's not that simple. Something was in that fire with me, something that didn't belong there, something that pushed and clawed and thumped against the glass like it wanted out. I don't know what it was. I don't know where it went. All I know is that some things make it through the fire, waiting quietly for the next shift, for the next person foolish enough to stand alone in that room at four in the morning.

@Arthur P. Halloway

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