Bunker (nonfiction) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jonathan Kemmerer-Scovner

BUNKER

Portrait of a Landscape by Marc Schuster © 2009

verything still worked that morning, one week into the New Year. The automated elevator sang, “Seventh floor, good morning!” The keycard opened the office door. Halogen yet buzzed like a life-support system.

Beside the copy machine sat a dumpster, old and dented, scratched with graffiti. It would have looked at home in a refuse-swept alley running behind a row of cheap storefronts, an emblem of decay normally exorcised from any modern workspace. Someone must have carted it in earlier that morning. It was, as yet – I could not help but note –empty.

People were huddled in their offices, whispering. They glanced up with intense faces, returned to private conversation.

This is it, I knew. It’ s happening today.

The fax machine was warm, filled with copyright forms to be scanned, processed, filed, forgotten. My computer turned on. The password worked. The inbox filled up with panicked emails from production editors waiting for the next issue ’ s line-up, authors demanding to know what had happened to their manuscripts, notes about upcoming meetings, projects which needed completing. But all I could think about was that dumpster.

How would it come? An e-mail? A phone call? A trusted friend stopping by?

Beyond the walls of my cubicle, a voice said, “Grace, may I see you in my office, please?”

Grace was a stalwart of organized chaos, surrounded by stacks of journals, calendars, catalogues of office supplies. If the question began with, “How should I...?” or “Who do I ask about..?” The answer was always, “Ask Grace. ”

I heard Grace answer, “Sure, ” followed by the slow creak of her chair.

A moment later, an office door shut.

Everything that happens beyond my cubicle is faceless, without form. Every day, there are private conversations, conference calls, inner-machinations, corporate politics. I hear without listening. They don ’t know my name. They don ’t know I’ m there. Usually, I drown it out. On this day, however, I find that I am hyper-aware.

“Diane, may I see you in my office, please?”

Diane, my God. She ’ s the one who hired me. She ’d been in the business nearly as long as I’d been alive. I caught a glimpse of her as she passed my cubicle, on the way to the back office. She looked afraid, but also professional. Professionally afraid.

The office door shut.

All morning, that was how it went. Each time they were led past my cubicle,