The sound of heavy breathing made itself apparent as I sit here in the library. Poor chap sounds like he's going to expire of a heart attack before he gets to the second floor. I do sympathise, having to climb stairs all day at work too, but he's going to need oxygen at the top of this climb. He does make it to the top of the stairs, waddling slowly onto each step with weary persistence.

Hang on a minute... If that was such a physical performance, why isn't he breathing deeply and resting? Instead he waddles onward. Now this begins to picque my interest. He approaches the nearest bookshelf, and instead of turning his head to search for whatever title attracted his attention, he turns his whole body stiffly, waddling on the spot. Don't mock the afflicted, Caldrail...

Solo Performance

KS didn't turn up for work today, and although I asked around, no-one at the department store knew (or cared) what had happened to him. My guess is he's gone down with the sniffles I had over the weekend. Nasty little bug that one. The former ambience of the stockroom has vanished,. I'm the only one working up there all the time. No more sounds of packing tape and merry banter. Just me and the air conditioning.

After a while I realised that someone else was working up there too. One of the ladies was busy stacking clothes to take downstairs and she'd managed to creep into the racks without attracting my attention. Now that I was alerted to her presence, I asked her how she could stand working up here alone.

"I like my own company" She shrugged. Okay, okay, I'll wander away, lonely as a stockroom assistant that floats o'er cardboard boxes...

Little Things For Amusement

J made his usual fleeting visits to ensure that I was still alive. During one he had a screwdriver in his hand. What's that for?

"Oh this?" He said, "Dunno, just found it lying on the floor. Always finding stuff lying about." He shrugged, "Yesterday I found a spanner."

Oh? Well, maybe you could throw these things at each other to keep people amused?

"Yeah" Replied J with misty eyed visualisation of victory from the trenches of the cardboard no-mans land, "We could play Spanner Tennis."

Chortle. You might might be sceptical, but believe me, after three hours of solitary tedium that was hilariously funny. He muttered something about the war going on and wandered off to lecture some managers about how a stockroom should be run, screwdriver in hand.