This is the story of a man named Stanley. He worked for a company in a big building where he was Employee 427. His job was simple: he sat at his desk in room 427 and he pushed buttons on a keyboard. Orders cam to him through a monitor on his desk, telling him what button to push, how long to them, and in what order. This is what Employee 427 did every day of every month of every year, and although others might considered is soul rending, Stanley relished every moment that the orders came in, as though he had been made exactly for this job. And Stanley was happy.
And then one day, something very peculiar happended. Something that would forever change Stanley; something he would never quite forget. He had been at this desk for nearly and hour when he realized that not one single order had arrived on the monitor for him to follow. No one had shown up to give him instructions, call a meeting, or even say 'hi'. Never in all His
years at the company had this happened, this complete isolation. Something was
very clearly wrong. Shocked, frozen solid, Stanley found himself unable to move
for the longest time. But as he came wits and regained his senses, he got up
from his desk and stepped out of his office.
All of his co-workers were gone. What could it mean? Stanley decided to the meeting rom; perhaps he had simply missed a memo. When Stanley came to a set og two open doors, he entered the door on his left.
Yet there was not a single person here either. Feeling a wave to disbelief, Stanley decided to go up to his boss's office, hoping he might find an answer there.
Stanley
stepped into the broom closet, but there was nothing here, so he turned around
and got back on track. There was nothing here. No choice to make, no path to
follow, just an empty broom closet. No reason to still be here.
Later
coming to a staircase, Stanley walked upstairs to his boss’s office.
But Stanley
just couldn’t do it. He considered the possibility of facing his boss,
admitting he had left his post during work hours, he might be fired for that.
And in such a competitive economy, why had he taken that risk? All because he believed
everyone had vanished? His boss would think he was crazy. And then something occurred
to Stanley: Maybe, he thought to himself, maybe I am crazy. All of my
co-workers blinking mysteriously out of existence in a single moment for no
reason at all? None of it made any logical sense. And as Stanley pondered this
he began to make other strange observations. For example, why couldn’t he see
his feet when he looked down? Why did doors close automatically behind him
wherever he went? And for that matter, these rooms were starting to look pretty
familiar, were they simply repeating? So ten minutes later of Stanley walking
the same rooms (while he found extremely strange), he came to the conclusion
that had been on the tip of his tongue, he just hadn’t found the words for it. He
yelled: I’m dreaming! This is all a dream! What a relief Stanley felt to have
finally found an answer. His co-workers weren’t actually gone, he wasn’t going
to lose his job, he wasn’t crazy after all!
T H E E N D
