I stood at the massive reception desk peering over a monitor at an intimidatingly pretty girl with lots of make-up who smelled strongly of vanilla.
‘I’m here to see……..’ I froze suddenly self conscious of my black ex-school trousers. Too tight. Too short. I looked stupid. I felt stupid. She stared at me with bright, unblinking eyes, chewing open mouthed with the sound of a tiny army marching to war. I could feel my cheeks burning as they reddened and my semi-lobber pressed against my fly, taunting me like a warm, tingly demon. My eyes grew watery, my breath catching in my throat, the sound of rushing water in my head.
Nowhere to hide.
She waited.
What the fuck was her name? I had it a minute ago and now it’s gone. It’s that fucking vanilla, inflaming my senses, I can’t think.
‘Umm…..I’m the temp’, good recovery. Without a word she pressed a single button on her phone, bending her finger backwards to keep her unfeasibly long, brightly coloured nail from dialling more numbers at the same time.

I was sent to the fifth floor.
My armpits felt moist and cold. I lifted my arm and checked for sweat patches, sniffing them at the same time and was caught doing so by a tall, thin, pale, ironed woman with ironed hair and an impossibly ironed skirt suit. She glared at me for a moment and led me into a grey office where a pin-striped man with a pin-striped moustache and grey eyes sat behind another massive desk.
‘Aah Martin’, he said in a bland but friendly voice, ‘sit down’. I felt slightly relieved by his friendly manner and began to relax. I went to sit in the single chair in front of his desk.
‘AAAAH!’ A sudden horrible banshee scream, I jumped up, my heart pounding.
The skeleton-suit woman was in my chair! And I had sat on her!
“Not there you fucking idiot! Over there!’ Pin-stripe’s voice had lost its calm, welcome manner and he roared at me, his eyes suddenly bright and piercing with rage, pointing a shaking finger to skeleton-suit woman’s left where there was no chair. ‘On the floor!’ he snarled.
I looked at my space on the floor. My heart was pounding. The rushing water sound in my ears was louder than ever. My face was so hot it felt like it would burn away and leave me feeling even more naked.
‘I….I’m-‘ Pin-stripe cut me off, ‘Shut up you cunt! How dare you!’
I felt claustrophobic, their accusing eyes boring into my soul, raping me. Big, cold droplets of sweat ran down my ribs on either side making me shiver.
‘Now,’ Pin-stripe’s voice calm and cold again but without the friendliness, ‘You’re here to do all the filing and answer all the phones’.

Ten minutes later skeleton-bitch marched me into a massive room with paper everywhere and about 50 phones all ringing incessantly. RING RING.
Once again the rushing water sound was back, but this time it felt like it would never end. It roared louder and louder. My heart was thumping steadily harder in my chest. THUMP, THUMP, THUMP, THUMP.

Skeleton-bitch looked down at me with disdain over her half-moon glasses, her pale-white face sucked in below her razor sharp cheek-bones and contorted into a permanently thin-lipped scowl.
RING RING. RING RING.
THUMP, THUMP, THUMP, THUMP.
‘Now’, she sighed as though she had had enough of my stupidity and my tight, short trousers and my sweaty arm-pits and my gormless, watery eyes and useless, shiny red chops, ‘It is quite simple; just put all the paper in order and file it away. Answer the phones and put the enquiries through to the correct department’.
RING RING. RING RING. RING RING.
THUMP, THUMP, THUMP, THUMP, THUMP, THUMP, THUMP, THUMP.
‘But…..how do I…..’
She whipped out my cv from her shiny leather folder and began loudly reading all the buzz-words the agency woman had put in there in a mocking voice, ‘Self-motivated! Fast learner! Team player!’.
‘I didn’t write that, the lady at the agency….’
RING RING. RING RING. RING RING.
THUMP, THUMP, THUMP, THUMP, THUMP, THUMP, THUMP, THUMP.
She cut me off again, but I couldn't hear her any more. The rushing water in my head was blocking out the ringing of the phones, the skeleton-slag's voice, even the beat of my heart.

The rushing water engulfed everything until there was nothing. I was nothing but pure energy; no skin or bones, no watery eyes, no stupid, tight fucking school trousers, just rage. Suddenly time slowed down and everything was so simple, so easy.
My heart was no longer beating at all. I was not sweating or shaking, I was suddenly so calm. I looked up at skeleton-fucking-bitch, I could see her eyes staring at me, no longer boring into me, but I could not hear her voice, I was on a different frequency now. I was watching her from space, entirely detached, yet standing in front of her at the same time. I could see everything, I knew everything, I was ONE with everything.
Power coursed through my veins until it controlled me.
I roared at her, picking up the letter opener without even looking at it, her look of pure disdain turned to fear and utter surprise. I leaped forward and jammed the letter opener in her jugular. Warm blood spurted up my arm as an arc of dark red shot across the room. Her life began pumping out rhythmically from the ragged hole in her neck.
I picked up a ringing phone, screaming 'HELLO! HELLO!' and then smashed it over her nose with a satisfying crunch. Before she had time to slump to the floor, I grabbed a handful of her bloody, matted hair and dragged her from the room, her eyes still unable to come to terms with the sudden switch of control from her self-assured bully to my malevolent beast. I leaned close to her ear, my breath slow and study but heavy, 'Now, where's that pin-stripe cunt?'.

I dragged her down the corridor to pin-stripe cunt's office. I could see his head through the window of his office as I painted a nice, shiny red stripe down the wall with skeleton-bitch's face. A gratifying look of shock spread across his face as he looked up and saw me moving slowly but surely towards him with obvious purpose, locked the door and picked up the phone with a shaking hand.
Skeleton's face exploded through the glass, spraying blood and teeth across pin-stripe cunt's desk, followed by my boot. I kicked the rest of the glass through, unconcerned about the disturbance which brought others from their offices to gawp in horror at the glorious scene I had created. I glanced at each person as they emerged, my eyes seeming to strike them one by one like a fist as I looked around, inviting anyone to try and stop me. There were no takers.
But it wasn't them I wanted, it was pin-stripe cunt. He was cowering in the corner now with tears in his eyes, one hand held up in some vain hope of placating the rage which burned in me. I turned his desk over to make some space, letting Skeleton's pale corpse slump behind it. The chair I had previously been denied flew from my hand, shattering the remaining window in pin-stripe cunt's office and hitting the opposite wall in the corridor.
For a moment there was silence. I listened to his whimpering. I took a deep, satisfied breath and let it out slowly, smiling at pin-stripe and whispering to myself, and to him, 'There, there. It will all be over soon. All over soon. Cool, indiscriminate darkness. All over soon'.
Pin-stripe stared at up me, uncomprehending, his head shaking slowly from side-to-side, tears streaming down his cheeks.
I heard the mournful wail of sirens outside. All over soon.
I lunged forward and kicked pin-stripe in the throat with all my force. It made a wet crunching sound and he coughed blood down his shirt. I reached down and grabbed what remained of his wind-pipe and pulled him up right. 'All over soon', I whispered as he begged and choked. I pulled him over to the window and slid it wide open. He seemed to come to some realisation about what I intended to do and began to panic, clawing weekly at me with his pale, chubby hands. 'No, no', he tried to speak more but I stabbed the letter opener under his ribs and twisted it. His face contorted but he was unable to make a sound.
I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and leaned him out the window. As I leaned out after him I could see several police in the car park below, looking up at us. As I grabbed the seat of pin-stripe's pin-stripes, he began to shudder and wretch, knowing what was coming. Then I let him go. He plummeted the 5 floors and I watched as his head exploded on the concrete below, creating a big, red, rose-shaped blossom on the ground.
Then I stood on the window ledge, looking down as one of the policemen called up to me. I couldn't hear what he said, it didn't matter any more anyway. It was time to go.
I could see the policeman become more agitated shouting 'No! Wait! Don't do it!'. I heard a scream in the office behind me as I let myself drop head-first.
I could hear the rushing sound inside my head again as I plummeted. It seemed to take an eternity to hit the car park below. I watched as the policeman hurtled towards me, getting larger until he filled my view.

Blinding light pulsed through my head along with a thunder crack of intense pain. Then pure, unadulterated darkness, everything still for a moment. What now? I started to feel like I was back at the reception desk but without the erection.
Then suddenly agonising, crushing, mind-blowing pain. The world spinning out of control. Trying desperately to breath, boiling hot. The rushing sound in my head again, getting louder and louder. The crush getting tighter and tighter. Panic welling up in my soul, screaming and screaming incoherently. ‘AAAAAAAAAGH!! AAAAAAAAAAAAGH!! WAAAAAAAAGH!! WAAAAAAAAAAGH!!’
Then the blinding light again, but this time with a breath of fresh air! Sweat, lovely air. I gulped lung-fulls of fresh, life-giving air but still screamed with every exhalation ‘WAAAAAAAAGH!!’ only this time it was like an unexplained, purging shriek of pure, helpless relief. ‘WAAAAAAGH!’ My screams seemed to take on a more solid, physical quality, like they were echoing off hard surfaces instead of being lost in the ether. I realised that my shrieks were no longer those of a desperate, terrified adult, more like the high-pitched, innocent wail of an infant.
The light seemed to fade slightly. I tried to focus.
Gradually a huge face blocked my view. A calm, smiling, massive, pink, female face. Was that a little white hat on top or a cloud?
I stopped screaming and blinked slowly up at the big face, pondering. I felt tired, dopey but warm and relaxed. My mind was clear, I knew nothing except what I could feel and see.
Then the world span again, the big, pink face whirled away and another face, equally as big appeared from the other side like a massive, speeded up sunrise, filling my view again.
The second face was the most beautiful face I have ever seen. So serene, so loving. Staring intently at me like I was the centre of the entire universe. Was it God? Was I the earth? I never wanted to stop looking at that face, ever.