Thursday, September 22nd, 6:31
A.M.
The delivery truck drove most of the night. The smooth ride and the easy going music the
driver was listening to allowed me to get some sleep. Good thing I'm a light sleeper, otherwise one
of the guys unloading the truck would have found me when he was checking the
shelf I was hiding on. This was an early
sign of the heightened security at the Dha Chathair Dolore Federal Postal
Service Facility.
Once I emerged from the truck, I could see that this
facility was no slouch at lighting the place up. All of the lights in this facility were the
kind of fluorescent ones that give bright white light all day and all night,
and all of the lights covering all of the facility were on. The only shadows in this place lay underneath
tables or directly underneath people.
There were no dark shadows or deep black corners for me to hide in. There were, however, skylights.
Spread throughout the ceiling of this facility were
skylights that provided natural sunlight and some fresh air to the
facility. What good these skylights did
in a facility dominated by artificial light I don't know. Most of these useless skylights were sitting
out in the open, but one was situated above a rack of shelves used for storing
equipment. Scaling this rack was easy
but doing so without anyone noticing was hard.
I nearly got spotted at the top but I pulled my shoe back just in
time. As I lay on my back, lying next to
scarcely used tools covered in dust, I began to examine the skylight.
The skylight seemed to be made of repurposed heating
ducts, which are hard to climb up in a silent manner. The repurposed heating ducts also appeared to
be wet, mostly due to the fact that the vents installed to allow airflow was
allowing rain in.
When I realized I couldn't get out through the
skylight, I got frustrated and kicked the shelf I was laying on. This caused one of the tools on the shelf to
fall and loudly clang on the concrete floor.
I was sure that this would lead to my capture. I was sure someone would investigate the
noise, someone would look up on the shelf I was on, and someone would find
me. I was in a full panic. My mind was racing, thinking of the thousands
of different ways, both possible and impossible, for me to save myself. No one found me. No one investigated the noise. I don't think anybody even noticed the tool
falling. Still, that didn't help my
panic go away.
There are breathing exercises you can do to slow
down your heart rate down, but those exercises are difficult to do if you can't
control your breathing. While I was
trying to stop myself from hyperventilating, something my Dad said to me came
to mind. "Hato, you think too
straight ahead. You think of one
solution to a problem then you go after it, even if there are clearly better
solutions lying in front of you. You
need to slow down. You need to look
around more. You need to use your brain
more in situations." Admittedly
that conversation aggravated me at the time, as did any other time Dad
criticized me, but that conversations served me well at that moment.
My breath and heart rate eventually calmed down and
I began to slowly look around and assess the situation I was in. I saw a row of windows, but saw I could not
open them unless I broke them. There
were several fire exits, but I didn't really want to set off the fire alarm as
I made my exit. Then I noticed something
peculiar about one of the security doors.
Like most good security doors, you need a keycard in order to open the
door to enter the building. However, unlike
many security doors, you did not need a keycard to get out of the
building. People, mostly employees who
were usually dressed like I am, just pushed on the door and left the building.
The plan for me to leave the postal facility was
this: Climb down off the rack I was laying on, walk over to the security door,
and walk out. That's it. Just that easy. Way easier than shimming up a skylight and
then trying to get down without breaking something. Executing this plan was also easy. Well, as easy as walking out of a busy
security door while not making eye contact with anyone can be, which is easier
when the employees seem to be more interested in getting the fuck out of the
facility than in socializing.
It was dark out when I exited the facility, which gave
me an ominous feeling about the city I had just traveled to. I walked around the streets of Dha Chathair
for a while trying in vain to find my bearings.
After realizing how thoroughly lost I was, I decided to change my
perspective on the city. I found a
square with several tall buildings in them and chose the tallest one to
climb. Getting to the top of this
building took longer than normal, not because it was harder to climb but
because this building was taller than any of the buildings in Moenia Prima. Looking around I could see that Dha Chathair
was bigger than my hometown. There were
more tall buildings to climb on, more large groups of people to hide myself in,
and more billboards featuring more lovely women for me to stare at.
As I sit on top of this really tall building in Dha
Chathair, I don't know where exactly to go.
I don't know how I'm going to continue in my journey to Amcan to tell
the world of what's going on in Moenia Prima.
What I do know is I can see a building with a symbol that matches the
symbol on the church my family and I went to.
That looks rather inviting.
Later.
Hato Shurtleff
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