I am back at work. I am in the branch office, Watsonville, in the morning, and I am set to go back to the main division in Santa Cruz in the afternoon, only -

Someone is here. A client. Disgruntled. He makes sluggish demands and I go about looking for a typewriter. Someone has moved my typewriter. The facility is expanded drastically from reality, and it never matches the waketime Watsonville office anyway, of course, but I must walk through plenty of rooms brightly lit without windows to find one solitary typewriter.

I realize I will be here for a while. There are hordes crowding in on me now. Everyone is demanding, insistent, although no one is raging. They just have expectations unmet, and they hover, frown.

I say to one who looks like an efficient department store clerk, can I borrow your typewriter? It's an old manual, just as I lost, and as I expect to find. She demurs. Someone else is nearby. They have a jewelry store function. I don't have anything to do with their business. They are hoping I will go away. I am hoping the original client, the reason for my remaining there, will go away. Everyone is hoping someone will go away, or at least bring presents.

The jewelry store guy must rush out. He has a parrot, who needs care. He has the bird perched on his wrist, and he hurries. For some reason, I understand it my duty to follow him. We move through a series of office spaces into the clear air out of doors and immediately cut right to hurry down the street.

There are pedestrians all about, but at least they expect nothing of us. I think, I must call the home office and tell them I probably will not be in Santa Cruz this day. The guy places the parrot on a perch in an indeterminate location and we leave.

At least that's taken care of...whatever that is.

Back at the office suites, I find a greater crowd, and they importune disconsolately as I pass through. I have affected the serene composure of one among unreasonable and unwarranted demands.

In my portion of the office, here is one who is threatening with a crossbow. I must take care of this. I wonder about the efficacy of my next move, but grab him anyway. The bolt shoots out but rattles harmless along the floor. I see to his front there is a confederate, also holding forth with an indeterminate threat.

At least the original bore has left.

I make to bring the guy out the back door. He is surprisingly easy to handle, like a depressed wimp. I hustle him into the clear air. Turn left. Release him.

At least, I am passing now through a corridor like a mall and I sit at tables beside the passing. Some from the offices are gathered there, like after a disaster, only nobody has any clear idea what has happened. There's one now, an older gent, and someone behind calls to him. The old one pauses, then comes to sit at the table of the one who called him, probably the jewelry store guy.

But their conversation has nothing to do with whatever happened. I realize I will know nothing more about my day than I do already.