My work colleagues and I had taken the underpass from our office block to the opposite side of street. Yvonne looked left just before we exited onto the food court and stopped short.
Shutting her eyes she leaned on me for support saying,“Woah!”
“What’s the matter?” Said Becca in a throw away manner, like she didn’t really care.
Yvonne said slowly, “I saw…um…no I felt…I heard…” We walked into the food court.
“Make up your mind, you saw or felt what ?” Becca barked.
“I, er.”
“Well?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Okay. Is this another one of your experiences?” She made inverted commas int the air.
“I guess I was just a little dizzy.”
“Go to the doctor. I’ve been telling you. Everyone has been telling you to go to the doctor. You could be schizophrenic.”
We went to lunch. Yvonne picked over a cob salad. Becca peered at her sharply.
“You’ve got to eat, you know.”
“I’m not hungry.”
Yvonne pushed her plate away, stood up and went to the bathroom. I followed her and waited outside the stall.
I said, “What happened back there?”
“Where?”
“Near the wall."
Yvonne was quiet.
“Yvonne?” I prompted.
“Hmm?”
“Tell me.”
She sighed,“Why? So you can poke fun at me?”
“Not at all. Just curious.”
Yvonne flushed the toilet, emerged from the stall and went to the sink.
We regarded each other. She reluctantly said, “I saw something.”
“I thought as much. You almost fainted. What did you see?”
“A doorway, but it wasn’t a doorway. It looked like a cave entrance. Rounded, you know?”
I nodded, “Go on. What was beyond the entrance?”
She looked askance at me. “People.”
I asked,“Regular people?
“I suppose.”
“Did you recognise any of them?”
“No.”
“What were they doing?”
“One of them was working on a mechanical thing. The rest were noodling about.”
I laughed,“Noodling?”
“Well, you know, like, they were doing normal things. Walking, talking and stuff.”
I was still chuckling to myself when Becca entered the bathroom. She gave us both stab eyes.
When Yvonne finished using the hand dryer we left the bathroom.
On the way back to the office I whispered, “Show me where you saw it.”
“After work.”
*
At the end of the day Becca asked Yvonne, “Are you coming?”
“No, I’m going shopping, then I’m going home.”
“But we were gonna have drinks with the guys from the fifth floor.”
“Not tonight.”
Turning to me, Becca said, “You coming?”
“I’ll meet you later. Just going to finish this. I have half a page…”
“Okay.” Becca shrugged. “See you at the Ivy.”
Becca raced to catch the elevator.
Yvonne watched her leave as I shut down my computer.
Yvonne said, “I thought you had to finish…”
“I just said that. I’ll meet up with her later, but you take me to the place you saw the cave or whatever it was.”
*
We approached the spot apprehensively. There was nothing that showed anything other than a perfectly flat, plain wall. While crowds hurriedly passed us on the way to the Metro, Yvonne and I stood examining the wall.
I encouraged,“What are you looking for exactly. Like, how big was it?”
Yvonne reached up and pointed to a spot indicating a height, “About this big.”
“So, just a bit bigger than you.”
Yvonne gasped. Paused transfixed. “There it is!”
I saw nothing but wall and said, “What can you see?”
“The same thing only the man who was working on a vehicle…he’s gone. It looks like a different time.”
“What do you mean?
“I’m not sure. It just feels different. I felt like it was midday then, now it’s…” She paused.
“What is it?”
“The people… they can see me.”
“Us?”
Yvonne sounded like a sleepwalker, “I don’t know. They’re looking at me, beckoning to me. Can’t you see them?”
“Just looks like a wall.”
Yvonne turned and smiled wanly at me then turned back and walked towards the wall. I expected her to hit it and tried to stop her from moving forward.
Yvonne just kept going. She melted into the wall. Vanished.
I threw up.
*
The next day at the office, Becca said, “Where were you last night?”
“I wasn’t well.”
“Oh? Pity. You missed a great time. Where’s Yvonne?”
“She left for good.”
“Quit?
“Uh huh.”
"That’s sudden.”
“Family emergency or something.”
“Hmmm.”
We never spoke of her again. I wouldn’t know what to say if the subject ever came up.
