The Paper Hole

Reggie’s first day was going better than he expected. Boring, of course, but that was to be expected– it’s not like he thought being a part-time assistant would be the most thrilling job in the world. The girl showing him around– either Kaitlyn or Katherine, he’d been too nervous to remember– was not a lot older than him and kept reiterating that it was okay to be overwhelmed, that he’d figure out how to navigate soon enough.

Reggie figured that didn’t bode well for his expression.

“And this is where the good water fountain is.”

“There’s a bad water fountain?”

Kaitlyn/Kathrine laughed. “Oh, you’ll see. Everyone has to try the bad water fountain water at least once. You’ll think ‘Surely, it can’t be that bad’ and then it will absolutely be that bad.”

“And don’t call it Shirley?”

Kaitlyn/Katherine squinted. “What?”

“Nothing.” Reggie’s cheeks grew hot. “Don’t worry about it. Anyway, what’s that?”

“That’s Lauren’s other office. She likes to pretend that she’s part of the team by having an office down here with us peons, but she’s never really in it. Sometimes Luce and I go in there to pretend to have a meeting when David gives us busy work. Hey, now that you’re one of us, you can join!” Kaitlyn/Katherine– maybe he could get away with calling her Kate? -- bumped him with her shoulder.

“Sounds, uh, good!”

“Don’t worry, we won’t get you in any trouble.” Kate paraded him back by all the offices and all the people she’d already introduced him to. “One last stop and then I’ll take you to HR for the mountain of paperwork that’s going to take up the rest of your day.”

“Oh, goody, goody gumdrops,” said Reggie for the first time and hopefully last time in his life.

Kate didn’t seem to notice or mind. “Alright. So this is the supply closet. You probably won’t have to go into a lot since you’re Richard’s assistant and he’s actually pretty competent when it comes to figuring out what actually needs to be printed and not losing his pens and stuff.”

Kate swung the door open, and for a second Reggie wasn’t sure what he was looking at. He’d seen supply closets before, sure– and technically speaking, this supply closet wasn’t much different. He saw pens, staplers, paperclips, a broom with a cracked plastic handle– however, in front of where there might have been a few reams of paper, there was a jittering, staticky blur obscuring and absorbing all the light in the closet. It was as though the beams of light from the dim, flickering bulb on the ceiling were sucked in, making Reggie squint.

“What… what am I looking at?”

“What?”

Reggie went to point but decided against it. He didn’t want to get too close. Instead, he gestured vaguely. “That. The… thing.”

“Oh, that! We call it the Paper Hole.”

“Why?”

“Cause it’s only really inconvenient when we try to get paper out. According to Richard, it got installed two years ago when the company had that big merger. You shouldn’t have to worry about it too much– like I said, Richard’s pretty careful about how much paper he uses.”

Reggie watched the edges of the glitched-out space fizz in the air. “But what is it?”

Kate shrugged. “Nobody really knows. It’s weird at first, but you kind of get used to it. Plus, tall guy like you will be able to reach over it pretty well if you ever do need to get more paper.”

“I have to touch that thing?”

“I would not recommend touching it. You should reach over it or around it if you need the paper.”

“What happens if someone touches it? Do they get like, sucked into it?”

“They disappear for a little bit, but they usually come back within the workday, four hours give or take. If it does happen to you though,” Kate advised, “I wouldn’t report it. Technically, we’re supposed to tell David so he can mark those hours as off the clock, but if you don’t tell him, it’s unlikely he’ll notice. And I mean, forty dollars is forty dollars, right?”

“So you just get sucked in? Where do you go?” Reggie watched the Paper Hole with a hesitant, morbid curiosity.

“I’ve never been sucked in myself, but the people I know who have say that from your perspective, you don’t go anywhere. You just kind of pop out of existence for a bit and then pop back in a few hours later.”

“Like taking a nap?” The Paper Hole was starting to sound not so bad. “Could you go in it on purpose?”

Kate wrinkled her nose. “I mean, technically yes, but I wouldn’t. Going in the Paper Hole changes you. It’s not super obvious but if you go in, when you come back out, you come back older. Like, a decade older. Carla– she works in marketing now– she accidentally got sucked in twice back when she was an intern, and when she reemerged, she had back pain and grey hairs and stuff. She just instantly became like forty-five even though she went in in her twenties.”

Reggie took a step back. “That’s… that’s awful. Why did they install it?”

Kate shrugged. “No idea. Probably some business thing. It doesn’t really affect anyone except the interns and the assistants, since we’re the ones getting the paper most of the time. I guess and the delivery people, since they have to put the paper back there. My guess is that it would be more expensive to get rid of than it is to just have workers sometimes age ten years. And honestly, it doesn’t affect the daily life here enough to worry about. Unless you get sucked in, I guess.”

“Do the police know about this?”

“I mean, maybe?” Kate shifted from foot to foot– she either really hated this conversation, or she was bored with it. Maybe both. “But there’s not exactly anything illegal about having a Paper Hole.”

“But if someone went in there like, ten times, they could die.”

“Well, yeah. But technically they’d be dying of old age and stuff, so you can’t really prosecute that. Plus the only people who have to get paper are people like us, and I don’t know about you, but I definitely don’t make enough money to pay for a lawyer.”

“Huh. Well, I guess I’ll… be careful, then.”

Seemingly satisfied, Kate shut the door. “Alright! Then let’s move on to our last stop: HR!”

Still thinking about the Paper Hole, Reggie followed Kate down a hallway and to the right, to a door marked HR. Inside was a woman with a crisp, blonde bob who grinned broadly when they walked in.

“Felicity! And you must be Reggie, then.”

Felicity? He hadn’t even been close.

“Yep!” said Felicity, pushing Reggie towards the desk. “That concludes our tour! See you tomorrow for the meeting with me and Luce.” She winked as she closed the door.

The HR lady gestured towards the seat across the desk. “Alright, Reggie– hope you’ve been enjoying your day so far. Let’s get started on some of that paperwork.”

Reggie smiled at the new hire as they walked– he looked straight out of high school and terrified. “And this is the good water fountain.”

“Is there, um, a bad, bad water fountain?”

“The one on the second floor is awful. You’ll think ‘Surely, it can’t be that bad!’ and the water fountain will be like ‘I can be that bad. And don’t call me Shirley.’”

“Um, what?”

“Nevermind.” In his head, Reggie ran through the list of locations left to show him. They’d met all the floor personnel, he’d seen his workstation, the bathrooms and the break room… The supply closet and then to HR, that’s right.

When he opened the door, the new guy’s eyes widened. “What is that?”

“What is what?” Reggie looked around the supply closet for abnormalities. Pens, staplers, paperclips, a broom with a broken plastic handle, the Paper Hole, and some reams of blank paper– everything seemed normal to him.