The File

Jacob found himself pouring through listings of names, addresses and telephone
numbers as he started to notice his work colleagues around him putting on their coats
and hats and saying goodbye to one another knowing that he'd be working late again. It
seemed to be a futile effort, and he couldn't understand how he seemed to be the only
one who never quite got through the work he had to do throughout his day. Essentially a
cog in a wheel, he had great aspirations however used his livelihood as a means to an
end. He'd often get creative and sometimes this even led to lateral solutions being put
forward to the projects he was involved with. More often than not, it still felt like a prison
sentence.

With nothing better to do, once Jacob had finished all that he'd intended on completing
for the evening, he glanced out the window next to him and decided to wait around for
just a little while to see if the wind would let up before he left the building for the day.
Curious by nature, Jacob was a snoop and thought he might try to find his personal file
and see what it had to say. As it happened, the records were far easier to find than
Jacob had imagined. He worked in an old building, with old furniture and decor, old
ideals and old business pracitces. Truthfully he'd anticipated finding a locked filing
cabinet, decide that such a search would be like opening Pandora's Box anyway, and
leave for home for the day. In an age of electronic information, Jacob's place of work
kept one foot firmly planted in the past. Filing cabinet, bottom drawer, broken
lock. Rummaging through the documents, he found some client accounts, procedures
and.. staff. His file was least three times thicker than everyone else's.

Still raining outside. Jacob' curiosity easily got the better of him and he sat down to look
through the file. On first glance, one might have considered the contents to be
completely ordinary. A yellowing dossier page with a paperclipped Polaroid, financial
documents pertaining to Jacob' bank account, a report from the federal government on
Jacob's activities in the military. Except Jacob had never had any involvement with the
military, nor could he remember posing for the photograph on the first page. He was the
rabbit, and down the hole he'd found a pair of headlights rushing headlong his way.
There was no mistaking the fact that either someone had put ALOT of effort into building
this file, or that the documents were in fact legitimate. Pandora's Box indeed. There
were accounting records listed under his name for wholesale purchases of chemicals,
optical tools, and even raw natural materials. All in all, the records seemed like they
should belong to some kind of political dictator, rather than a logistics officer.. And those
speech transcripts..

Jacob was understandably overwhelmed and considered for a moment replacing the file
and just walking away until he noticed one small detail. His cell phone number listed on
his dossier file which looked nothing like his own. He called the number.
"Hello, this is Jacob speaking?" answered the voice on the other end.

"Hello, I'm sorry who is it that I'm speaking with?" Jacob asked, his heart racing. The
phone clicked and hung up. He knew that voice. It was his own.
It was one of those situations that was so far removed from ordinary life that Jacob was
stuck for even the slightest idea about what to do next. He looked back at the file, his
hands numb and he felt light headed. He decided he'd take the file home with him and
do some investigation on the documents inside. As if a civilian would have access to any
of the information that those documents related to. Looking out the window, the storm
had become more severe and nearby buildings were becoming hard to make out.

And, of course he couldn't get through the doors of the lobby. In a moment of
rationality, Jacob' first immediate thoughts were that of course he couldn't get out of the
building. First he finds a strange file containing alot of false information about himself,
and to make the night even more interesting, now he can't leave the building and would
have to call security to come and let him out.

Arriving back on the 19th floor, Jacob found the number of the security company for the
building and called them from his desk. A twenty minute wait in this weather. Ordinarily,
and even through the building's air conditioning Jacob could normally smell rain this
heavy. A pungeance lingered instead.. An almost acrid staleness to the air that Jacob
had never noticed about the office before. Perhaps it was for the lack of people in the
office and their various colognes and perfumes and that this is actually how the place
really smelt. And at once, every telephone in the office rang one ring only. Jacob picked
his up out of curiosity, but there was no dial tone but just as he was about to replace the
receiver, a voice came through loud and clear.
"We've isolated the problem, and..." But crackled out at the end. A voice he'd not
heard before.

Some time had passed, and Jacob had kept himself occupied by looking through the file,
in fact about an hour had gone by when finally he heard the muted ding of the lifts in the
corridor. Jacob collected his things and made his way over to the lifts to meet the
security officer. Except there wasn't one. The lift doors were held open and the carpet
inside was soaked through and a puddle of water had formed. He'd never known the
inside of the building to be vulnerable to the leaking of storm water. The storm outside
was becoming more severe than any he'd remembered. The phone at the front desk
rang.
"Hello, this is Jacob speaking?" It must be the security company he thought.
"Hello, I'm sorry who is it that I'm speaking with?" Answered the voice which was
distant and hard to make out through the noise on the line.
"Jacob! My name is Jacob! And I'm stuck on the 19th floor! Can you hear me? I need
somebody to help me get out of the building! The front doors are locked, and now the
lifts don't work because of the storm!"
There was a pause from the other end of the line where Jacob could only hear static and
noise.
"... Because of the weather! Sir can you hear me? I'm sorry it's going to take a little
while! Just hang in there!" The line went silent. "RETURN THE FILE!" Clear as crystal, his
own voice again, and then nothing. Jacob put down the phone.

More water had started leaking through the roof, and the air was taking on the smell of
rot and mould. The lights flickered and became dim. Jacob went to return to his desk,
those three words ringing in his ears. This was all too much. That file. The voice on the
phone which sounded exactly like his own. One last time to flick through the file. Was it
his conscious playing on him? The anxiety was creeping up on him.. For a person of
Jacob' curiosity, there was no way that he could simply return the file now. Indeed
curiosity would lead him to a document toward the end of the file. Much of it was jargon,
but contained details of Jacob that he actually recognised. It seemed to be the only
information that seemed familiar to him. Information concerning his place of work, his
daily habits. Also, it included information about a secret that Jacob had thought he'd
successfully swept under the rug. Listed as an anomoly was information related to a time

where Jacob had sold some of the information he was privalege to to an unnamed party.
Information for cash, don't ask, don't tell.

Suddenly a section of roof fell from being heavy and swollen with water, exposing the
wiring and ducting. The shock put Jacob into the mindset of destroying this evidence
against him that he found. He switched on a nearby paper shreadder and ran the
incriminating document through it. Another section of roof fell from the far opposite side
of the office floor, and a gust of wind blew heavy rain against the window next to him.
Water continued to drip through the roof. It surely couldn't be that the floors above were
absolutely flooded, Jacob thought. He also decided to shread the rest of the file, and he
ran another document through the shreadder.

Jacob' phone rang once more, but this time the ring was slower as if itself was
waterlogged. He picked it up to hear his own voice once again again crystal clear, but
this time with a great deal of urgency.
"What do you think you're doing!? Just return the file NOW!" and the line went dead
for the last time. Jacob threw the receiver down, looked about his surroundings and
scattered the contents of the file all about him. He took up a random statement of
banking transactions and ran it through the shredder. As he did this a window from the
far end of the office yielded to a powerful gust of wind and smashed through. Through
this mist of rain that came through Jacob thought it must be poor visibility and his
imagination which made him think he saw apparitions of people going about their daily
office routines in his peripheral vision.

A window closer to Jacob smashed, and even through the storm coming in, he could
make out grating where the window was. His phone rang, this time an even slower,
more sickly sounding ring. He picked it up but the line was dead. Jacob didn't know what
end this would all come to, but he continued to destroy the documents from the file.
Purchasing records, mission reports, even the photograph of himself from his dossier.
The final document he came across was again related to Jacob' actual life as he knew it.
It was mostly jargon but it contained esoteric information about parallel dimensions,
weak points between them, and their effect on the world as we know it. It identified
Jacob and his entire world to be a drain on the spiritual energy of Jacob the man, as
illustrated by the documents in the file. It concluded that one may gain power if all other
parallel versions were destroyed, and this could be done by removing all known traces of
evidence and by creating reports of every possibility of a persons life, and destroying
them. Thus, an alternate version of one's self would cease to exist.

The flooring beneath Jacob started to become unsteady. With wind and rain blowing in
from all directions, and nothing but void and oblivion surrounding him, Jacob tore up the
last document.

Reviews

[Smirking Poison]

Very intriguing, and I like the twist at the end. Creative and enrapturing, Jacob's curiousity leads him to discover more then he ever intended, and he showed an inner rebel, destroying things that are perhaps better left untouched. He wanted to take control, maybe... and in that pursuit ended up beating himself into non-existence. Enjoyable write anyway X