corporate nostalgia

There I am, sitting on a grey ergonomic fully equipped rolling chair, on the forty-seventh floor of a glass building, looking down on tiny vehicles moving slowly on well organised monotone streets, staring down on even tinier people, passing by, walking to the rhythm of their own lives, unaware of my languid gazes. There am I, sighting in disbelief at the distance I have put between me and the world. The noises of my red bottomed shoes are muffled by the moquette that embraces every horizontal surface of the office floor, the sound of distant voices is covered by the sweet AC, constantly running. Day and night, week days and weekend, empty or not, the lights are always on. This building is nothing but a shrine. A shrine to efficiency. An ode to both eternity and the lack of time. For how long have I been sitting in this same chair, in this very same position, looking up at a screen and looking down at the same crossroads? I honestly do not know. For how long have I been building up these glass walls? Reflected in them, ephemere, I find, horrified, the lavish portrait of my condition. A wave of sentiment wins me over. I observe myself longing for a different time, for a different place. An acute sense of nostalgia glooms over me, a nostalgia for something that perhaps never was, a nostalgia, even, for something yet to be. Could I ever be a different woman than what my life brought me to be? How long before reality decides to check in on me? When will all of this come to an end?

And then, finally, as sudden as a car crash, it strikes me. Giulia, I say to myself, you don’t work here. Giulia, I have to insist, you are just pretending. You are an artist, you are here to write and you are here by choice. You are also here because you get free coffee. Immediate relief. I feel my full consciousness invading me back. I remember my entire existence, like a movie I watch it back, frame by frame, each one more colourful than the one before. I am me again. The weight of the world leaves my shoulders. 

I realise I must have spent too much time under the direct flow of the AC. As my laptop is fully charged, I unplug it, place it in my backpack and, without a care on earth, I mumble a see you tomorrow suckers and leave the building.