The tower lobby reverberated the sound through the air-conditioned halls. Unlike the residential structures, consisting of tenement blocks, the tower rose modern and cold. Cooper slipped into the grayscale. He felt himself equilibrate to the sublime state of tranquility the tower offered its operators.

  From the entrance to the elevator, he checked the volume. Satisfactorily, the chant barely abated, if at all, and only as the symphony tempered to a lull.

  Cooper exited on the ninety-ninth level. All beat clearer than his pulse up here. He tucked in his slovenly shirt tails and straightened his tie. Moreover, work uniforms included shorts, black, and sneakers, black, in the business casual dress code. A leather belt completed his fetching operational apparel, surplus holes punched in to fit.

  Cooper possessed the spinning metabolism of youth. Skinny but solid, quick and agile, he fit into the engineered dimensions.

  “Ouch!” he slammed his shoulder into a sharp metal case containing a painting.

  Not just any ordinary painting, but colors on canvas, painted in the real live world. A collection graced the elegant gallery, all in the same style. Though priceless, they looked profoundly ugly. Priceless as in worthless. Like all art, they hung meaningless, exhibiting the huge and vast and thoroughly comprehensive meaninglessness of existence.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “Damn!” he struck the next case down, and the next case after that.

  “Oops, sorry!” Cooper rounded a corner into oncoming traffic.

  He tried to pass on one flank, but the interloper tried the same. It was Kelly, his office manager in charge of operations. He wasn’t sure what she did exactly, but she was always kind to him. She never docked his pay as his supervisor Arnold did, for doing his job as well as he could have.

  “Good morning, Kelly! How do you like the music this morning?” Cooper asked.

  Whenever he liked something, from a food to a food to a sound but never a girl, he went on and on about it. It was compulsory, as if the thing would vanish from the world if he didn’t actively broadcast its existence. The longer he went on and on, the denser the matrix of consciousness, many minds more, keeping the thing extant.

  The sound propagated in waves but relied on his brainwaves to surround him. A nightmare was to wake from a daydream to hear it damped to gone.

  “Isn’t it crazy?” Cooper started, “No matter where I go, outside or into the building, up to the roof or gliding along, the music stays the same. Maybe a little louder here and there. I would need to measure on a machine to be sure though. Maybe that’s just my imagination?”

  “Sure, Cooper,” Kelly glided by, “Music is always great in the morning.”