The Performance Review of Eternal Damnation
I still get cold sweats whenever I walk past the executive wing of our building. It started on a that morning when my boss, Brenda, called me into a meeting room I had never seen before. It was tucked away in the back of the building, behind a heavy, soundproof door. When I walked in, I was shocked. The room was windowless and dim, lit only by a few flickering wall sconces. The carpet was plush, high-end, and a deep crimson color, which felt bizarrely out of place compared to the dungeon-like atmosphere. Brenda was sitting at the head of a long, dark oak table, looking like a judge in a high-stakes trial. She had set up some kind of speakers in the corner that were playing a low, rhythmic hum. It sounded like Gregorian chants mixed with the sound of wind howling through a canyon. I tried to clear my throat, but the sound felt trapped in the thick air. Brenda did not say hello. Instead, she pushed a stack of paper toward me. It was a five-hundred-page document, bound with heavy plastic rings. She called it my 'Life Audit.' As I flipped through the pages, my heart sank. It started with my third-grade spelling bee loss and tracked every tiny error I had made since joining the company. She leaned forward, her eyes narrowing behind her glasses. She pointed a perfectly manicured finger at page three hundred and forty-two. It was a line-item entry about my usage of paperclips. I had apparently gone over my monthly quota by three units. Brenda stared at me. She didn't blink. She just kept her gaze locked on mine for twenty minutes while the strange music pulsed in the room. I felt like I was shrinking. I finally whispered that I just used the clips for my project notes. She sighed, a cold, sharp sound. She leaned in closer and accused me of using the company’s metal supplies to build a secret, illegal statue in the breakroom. I was stunned. I told her I hadn't even been in the breakroom in two days. She didn't care. The meeting dragged on for fourteen hours. Every time I tried to defend myself, she would reach for a large, antique hourglass on the table, flip it over, and say, 'Your time is up.' It felt like I was being slowly erased. At one point, she pulled out a chart. It ranged from a tiny speck of dust to a perfect, divine genius. She asked me to place myself on the scale. I felt cornered, so I looked her in the eye and said I was just a normal, hard-working employee. Her face turned stony. She pulled out a thick rubber stamp and leaned over the table. Before I could move, she pressed the stamp directly onto my forehead. The ink was cold and smelled like ozone. When I looked in my phone reflection later, it said 'Needs Improvement' in bold, black letters. The final test was the most surreal part. She stood up and told me that to continue my employment, I had to recite our office rules in Latin. I told her I didn't know Latin. She just waited, tapping her pen against the wood. I started panicking, so I began to hum a pop song, keeping my voice as flat and boring as possible to mimic a chant. I went through the entire chorus of a Top 40 hit, completely monotone. When I finished, she nodded slowly, as if I had just recited the Magna Carta. She told me I had passed that specific hurdle. To reward me, she pushed a small cardboard box across the table. She said it was a raise. When I opened it, it was filled with brand-new, expensive-looking pens. I took one out to test it, but the tip was dry. I tried another, then another. They were all hollow, empty shells. No ink, no spring, nothing. I walked out of that room feeling like I had just returned from a war zone. My head was pounding, my forehead felt stained, and the silence of the office hallway felt deafening. I sat down at my desk, trying to process the insanity of the last fourteen hours. I checked the clock on my computer screen. It was almost five o'clock. My reports were still sitting there, waiting to be finished. Despite the humiliation, the stamp, and the empty pens, the work didn't care about my day. I opened the spreadsheet and started typing, wondering if anyone else in the office had been through the same thing.