The unexpected visitor briskly dashed towards his boss’ desk, only just barely managing to halt himself before crashing into it. 

It was as it always was: Eric, with his stampeding enthusiasm, burst through the door with no prior declaration of his arrival, and Wilson was left helpless but to attend to his rambunctious worker, who, regardless of his occasionally abrasive passion for his work, was nonetheless both efficacious and prestigious in his occupation, and worse still, well-regarded by everyone at the company. That made it impossible to fire him, and, perhaps more awkwardly, unthinkable to simply send him away at a glance. To have a bad opinion with Eric would mean animosity from his peers, and absolutely no boss wanted that.

But, despite that, sometimes Eric’s attention was driven solely by his unyielding fervour for his craft, and his presence in Wilson’s office attributed exclusively to his desire to spread his teeming wonder to the world, and to his – he esteemed – equally passionate boss. At times like that, it was enough for Wilson to lower his head, resume reading whatever it was he was reading when Eric challenged the office door hinges for the countless time, and Eric would get the cue; or rather his joy, finding no valid receptacle, would recede back into himself, and bounce him right out of the room in search of more susceptible prey. It was only when Eric absolutely needed Wilson’s permission for something; approval for a new, exciting project, or a request for additional funding, or, worst of all, his boss’ engagement; that Eric had no other choice but to stay and pester him further. Thus, Wilson lowered his head, and pretended to be utterly engulfed in last month’s expense reports, in hopes that he might still have a chance of peacefully resuming his day.

‘Wilson! I’ve got it!’

Alas, he needed approval for something.

‘Wilson–’

‘What have you got?’

The boss slowly looked up from his superficial reading and met the eyes of his worker, no less brilliant than when they first shined through the door.

‘I’ve figured out a way to get to The Cube.’

Wilson gave Eric a bewildered look.

‘The Cube?’ he asked.

‘Yes, The Cube,’ confirmed Eric.

‘What cube?’

Now it was Eric who was taken slightly aback by his boss’ apparent ignorance.

‘The Cube? The one outside?’

Wilson’s memory was left unsparked. The worker, feeling slightly helpless at this unexpected lack of reciprocity from his boss, walked around his boss’ desk and up to the window behind it.

‘Look,’ he said, pulling the blinds slightly away, ‘The Cube.’

Wilson wheeled his desk chair back to be close enough to the window to see outside. Following Eric’s finger, he looked upwards at where it pointed, almost at the sky. Outside, he saw a pitch black fixture, suspended in the air some two hundred metres above the ground, motionless and unstirred by the wind, resembling in shape a perfect cube.

‘Oh yes,’ remembered Wilson, ‘The Cube.’

Eric released the tilted blind and skipped back to the front of his boss’ desk.

‘I know how we can get to it.’

Wilson wheeled back to his natural spot and gave a quick glance at Eric before lowering his head once again to the expense report. He was no longer hoping for the young worker to leave, but was rather getting somewhat exhausted by looking at him, and worried – though only subconsciously – that Eric’s youthful glee might somehow manage to combat the inveterate nihilism that had so confidently established itself in his daily routine.

‘I thought the spectroscopy department had found that The Cube was empty,’ he noted indifferently.

‘They did say that in the report, yes,’ answered Eric, ‘but the spectroscopy department also has no possible way of finding out what is inside The Cube.’

This returned the boss’ attention to his visitor.

‘What do you mean?’

‘The cube is opaque,’ remarked Eric, ‘completely. Spectroscopy can’t help see inside The Cube any more than we can see inside it through that window.’

Wilson’s confusion found its way back to his face.

‘Then why didn’t they write so in their report?’

Eric’s excitement gave his body some rest as his shoulders matched his eyebrows in a matter-of-fact shrug.

‘It was due, and they’d spent most of their time measuring its dimensions, which was somewhat difficult considering their equipment was only designed for spectroscopy,’ he explained. ‘Also, I don’t think they thought anyone would care to check.’

‘So, hold on,’ processed Wilson, still not entirely following or caring, but attempting to assuage the lurking concern of any kind of paperwork finding its way to his almost-empty desk, ‘they got the measurements wrong too?’

‘No,’ assured his coworker, ‘those they got right, it just took them some time. A lot of time, actually, because they didn’t understand how measuring the wavelengths of light had anything to do with measuring the sizes of cubes, let alone The Cube. Eventually though they did come up with a way, and it came to them rather quickly once they abandoned any interest in their equipment and just chose to take some basic measurements. It’s twenty metres across in every dimension, as I am ready to prove by the most empirical means known to science.’

‘Ah,’ affirmed Wilson, not at all less confused, but somewhat more understanding, and considerably more ready to move on to another topic. He drifted back to his expense report, which he must have now memorised by heart.

But his company would not relent, and quite quickly Wilson found Eric leaning over him once again.

‘So,’ he vexed on, ‘don’t you want to hear what it is?’

Wilson let out an exhausted sigh.

‘Eric, look, you know that we can’t build–’

‘Yes, yes, I know we can’t build on that land because the city won’t give us the permits, I know that. It’s not a building.’

With a look full of as much intrigue as concern, Wilson once more regarded his coworker.

‘Not a building?’ he queried, ‘Eric, you’re an architect. What do you mean “not a building”?’

Then it began. Eric’s lips contorted into a conniving smile, and Wilson knew he would not get a direct answer.

‘Well, why don’t I show you?’

Eric pranced away from his boss’ desk, gliding back into the doorframe he used to come in.

‘Eric…’

‘Come on. Aren’t you curious?’

He wasn’t, not in the slightest. What he was, on the other hand, was entirely uninterested in going back to work, and even more apathetic to the idea of pretending to have any to begin with.

‘Maybe your glasses are in The Cube?’

Wilson’s ears perked up at the mention of his glasses.

‘My glasses? Don’t tell me you’re the one who took them.’

Eric let out a smile at his tease.

‘No, of course not,’ he assured, ‘but who knows. Perhaps The Cube has…’

The boss met his coworker’s eyes. Though he could barely see them without focal assistance, he could see that they were resolute, and gleaming once more from Eric’s ever-enduring optimism for his craft. Something must have shifted in Wilson’s expression that betrayed him, for without a word, those same eyes opened wider to show a flash of new feeling. It was pride, and even before Wilson ultimately raised himself from his desk in dejected acceptance, Eric knew that he had successfully convinced him of the idea, and that the most difficult part of his approval was already gained.

The manager followed his youthfully brisk architect as he propelled the two of them through the hall and into the elevator, leaving little opportunity for his boss to catch up. As Wilson caught up to him at the door the elevator nearly closed before him, with Eric jumping out to keep it open for his companion to enter. The two of them strode in, with Eric gleefully pressing and re-pressing the glowing button for the ground floor before his boss had even crossed the threshold. Once the two of them stood next to each other and the door closed before them, Wilson looked his coworker in the eye. The latter matched his gaze with one of unparalleled ecstasy, and Wilson could only suppress an internal groan. He was beginning to think that perhaps pretending to work wasn’t the worse of the two decisions.

The two employees left the elevator on the ground floor, from where Eric carried them out into the lobby and then out of the building entirely.

‘We’re not going to your desk?’ asked Wilson, only now realising they had missed Eric’s desk by about five floors.

‘No need,’ answered his coworker, ‘it’s not at my desk.’

‘It?’

The architect did not provide an answer, instead speeding along further outside their office building, trailing its perimeter till, with his inexorable haste, he disappeared behind the corner. Once Wilson caught up to him and turned the corner himself, he saw Eric standing near the centre of the car park that sat directly adjacent to the office building. It was not the usual sight of the car park, however. The boss noticed that the cars that would typically crowd the middle of the lot were missing, and before he could even begin wondering where they had gone, it was what had taken their place that concerned him most pressingly.

‘What is that?’ he blurted.

The manager ambled closer to the creation, which stood behind Eric at above twice his height, pushing past the myopic haze. As he neared closer, and the blur began to take on sharper form, his disbelief only intensified.

‘Is that…’

When he slipped his eyes over to his coworker, he saw him posing triumphantly next to his creation.

‘This,’ he pronounced, with arms outstretched to spill all focus onto his opus, ‘is a helicopter.’

Wilson wondered for a moment whether he had misheard Eric, and perhaps his hearing had finally caught up to his eyesight.

‘A what?’

‘A helicopter,’ Eric echoed simply. ‘It will fly us up to The Cube.’

‘Eric,’ his boss said with uncertain tone, for he was no more assured than before his initial impression was confirmed, ‘you’re an architect. What do you mean: “a helicopter”?’

‘I know I’m an architect,’ confirmed his subordinate, not straying from his immortal confidence, ‘that’s why it has… some quirks.’

His boss was not pleased by the zealot’s vagueness, and he returned his focus to the alleged aviatory contraption, approaching it even closer to scrutinise it for any possible quirks.

Once he came close enough, it became truly clear what Eric had meant. The helicopter, the whole thing, had been crafted – almost sculpted – as if it were actually a building. There were parts shaped of concrete, the body was made of bricks and mortar, and elements, including the landing skids – which were actually just the upper halves of Ionian pillars – and even the rotary blades themselves – asymmetrical, as was wont of a postmodern hue – appeared to be made of marble.

‘I’ll be honest,’ commented Eric, who saw the mounting disbelief as it twisted Wilson’s face, ‘I’d never made a helicopter before. It turned out to be quite difficult, actually. I figured that engineering was engineering and that it would be a matter of simply putting the right pieces in place, but it turns out there’s this whole field of aerodynamics that you have to consider that I’d never even heard of before. Anyway, it takes a while, but you get the hang of it eventually.’

Wilson panned his eyes over to his coworker, whose sanity had come into question long ago, but only now was facing proper inquiry.

‘Eric,’ he pleaded, ‘there’s not a chance in the world – any world – that this will fly. You don’t actually think it will fly, do you?’

Eric provided him with a confident, reassuring look.

‘It will,’ he guaranteed, ‘I’ve done all the calculations, and it will fly.’

‘No, Eric, I mean,’ his boss was starting to become too flustered by the whole fiasco to catch up with his own thoughts, ‘it’s made of concrete, for goodness’ sake! How can it possibly fly? How!?’

‘I’ve done all the calculations,’ repeated Eric, indifferent to his boss’ growing unrest, ‘it will fly.’

Just then, from behind the helicopter emerged a man whom Wilson recognised but couldn’t quite place. He was dressed in the same drab, grey uniform that both Wilson and Eric had to wear, so he immediately concluded him to be another employee, but the immediate connection to Eric eluded him, and he wondered what his place might be by the machine. The man walked up behind Eric, who on the approach of his footsteps turned around to give him a quick nod.

‘This is Elijah,’ he said, directing the introduction towards Wilson, ‘he’s our pilot for the helicopter.’

Elijah gave Wilson a brisk nod and a positive smile.

‘Our–’ began the senior, but before his breath could reach the end of its sentence, he realised that it might be best to choose this point to cut off the spiralling descent, and no longer entertain the madness that was unfolding before him. He composed himself, and gave the matter a quick – but resolute – thought.

‘Look,’ he voiced, clearly and definitively so as to hopefully reach Eric through the thick fog of his delusion, ‘we might be able to get the permit.’

Eric’s expression receded into one of confusion.

‘Permit?’ he asked, ‘no, Wilson, we don’t need a permit. Sorry if that wasn’t clear. I just need your approval, even spoken should be fine seeing how we have Elijah as a witness. That’s all, no paperwork required.’

‘That’s not what I mean,’ explained his boss, who was now doubling down on his firm demeanour, ‘I mean, if you want, I’m sure I can get you a permit for the land underneath The Cube. It might be tough, but I’m sure it can be done, so you can build whatever you need: a ladder, some stairs, even a whole building if you want, and you will be able to get to The Cube. Then you can see what’s inside all you like, no flying required. What do you say?’

The truth was, and had always been – despite what Wilson might have claimed before – that it was not at all difficult to get a permit for the land. In fact, the company very nearly already owned that land, and could in the swift flick of a single signature claim whatever creation they wished upon in its space. It wasn’t permission that they needed, not at all, and if confronted about the matter, after due pressure was applied in a corner that Wilson could not lower his head out of, he would admit that it was indeed untrue what he had always claimed to Eric about the acquisition of permits for working there. He would stumble for a bit, and once his inquisitor subjected him to enough admonishing silence, he would spill the absolute, final truth that he had always concealed: that this lie had always been a means to keep Eric from inflicting more of his unprecedented enthusiasm on more of the Earth’s much-too-marred surface than had already been imposed. For this he would be tutted and given a disapproving stare, but ultimately his reason would be accepted by his inquisitor, especially those few that shared Wilson’s distaste for collaboration of any kind with Eric. The inquisitor would be pleased, accepting, and eventually indifferent to his choice of lying to his subordinate, expecting no change in action and leaving Wilson to remain unstirred in his passive, unwilling course of action, and he would be left to keep doing as he did and no longer pestered by the topic, with a smile of pleasant delight on his lips that was mostly unknown to his crotchety mien. But even that sound and entirely reasonable explanation, cowering in fear behind the illusory veil which bureaucracy was only too facilitating to provide, was not the actual truth. The truth was, and it had been for some time, that the reason Wilson did not want to provide Eric with the permission to build anything on that land, was that he had simply forgotten how to. There was most likely a form somewhere for it, or a person somewhere to ask, but Wilson did not know what either of those might be, and worse, he didn’t even know who to ask to find out. He had, after all, been promoted to a managerial position quite some time back now; he had forgotten how to do real work a long time ago.

At hearing his boss’ proposal, Eric’s eyes almost sparked up with a new hope, a new inspiration, but quite quickly dimmed as they fell alongside his face. The suggestion, which would have typically been met with jubilee that Wilson would struggle to avoid even by lowering his head all the way to the floor beneath his desk, was instead received with what almost looked to be a feeling of guilt, and the thoughts that sprouted from that discordant response filled Wilson with waxing dread.

‘Look,’ said Eric, speaking quietly, almost mumbling through his words, ‘there’s something I didn’t tell you about the project.’

Wilson’s growing concern spread to his eyebrows, which furrowed in inquiry.

‘What is it?’

‘Well,’ continued Eric, slowly walking closer to share the sensitive news, ‘I’m not exactly an engineer – we’ve established that already, I’m an architect – and, well… to put it plainly, I don’t know how to make helicopters.’

‘Yes,’ confirmed Wilson, listening attentively to every word, ‘I think you mentioned that before.’

‘I did say that before, yes, but what I didn’t say – what I mean is that, not knowing how to make helicopters happens to be a problem in more ways than only theoretical when it comes to making a helicopter.’

‘More ways than theoretical – you mean practical?’

‘What I mean is,’ muttered Eric, now basically whispering right to his boss’ face, ‘there were more helicopters before this one that I couldn’t get to work.’

His boss nodded in understanding, not as surprised by what he was hearing as he had expected from Eric’s careful tone.

‘I see,’ he said, ‘how many?’

Eric’s sour expression twisted from further discomfort.

‘It’s not exactly about “how many”…’ he squirmed.

‘What do you mean?’ asked his boss. ‘How many helicopters were there before this one that didn’t work?’

‘… it’s more about how much.’

Wilson’s eyes shot open, finally seeing the full picture of what Eric was talking about.

‘Ah, that’s what you mean. Alright then: how much did you use for these helicopters?’

Eric looked him straight in the eye, solidifying his expression.

‘The budget,’ he said, and the moment the words left his mouth, his sternness failed him, and he looked uneasy again.

‘The budget?’ queried Wilson, ‘what budget?’

‘The department budget,’ clarified his subordinate.

‘Yes,’ pressed his boss, becoming irritated by this reticent side of Eric that was somehow more annoying than his vivacious side, ‘how much of it did you use?’

Eric closed his eyes, attempting to soften the blow of uttering the whole truth without any further obfuscation.

‘What I mean is: I spent the whole department budget on building all these helicopters…’

The tension of suspenseful inquiry left Wilson’s face, as did its pigment, and he turned deathly pale.

‘You spent the department’s budget, the entire thing–’

‘… and half the spectroscopy department’s too…’ Eric continued. ‘…but nobody was using that anyway!’ he added, in comforting interjection.

Wilson felt a weakness in his knees that he could not yet attribute to arthritis, and it quickly spread to the rest of his body. Had he not managed to compose himself just in time, he likely would have fallen straight to the ground, losing consciousness completely.

‘You spent two department budgets–’

‘One and a half,’ corrected Eric happily, but Wilson did not seem all that pleased by the correction.

‘One and a half department budgets, then: you spent one and a half department budgets on your stupid helicopters, and they didn’t even fly!’

Here, Eric’s expression became more positive, as he sensed an optimistic turn in the conversation.

‘But this one does; or rather, it will,’ he assured. ‘I’ve done all the calculations. It will fly, I promise.’

‘Fly!?’ shouted Wilson, outraged far beyond his wits. ‘It better take me to the fucking moon!’ 

Without any further mention of the topic, Wilson turned to the helicopter next to them, reaching for and twisting the finely-crafted brass doorknob to open the Venetian door that led to the passenger area of the architectonic aircraft, leaping in with as little hesitation as his aged body permitted and landing on the vintage leather seats that accommodated him snugly. When he settled himself in, he turned to look down upon them, and he realised that the seats were indeed antique leather armchairs, with munificent armrests to suit.

A short moment after, Eric leapt into the one next to him, with considerably more haste and enthusiasm than his older superior. When the dejected manager turned to look at his company, he saw that his parasitic, gleaming smile had returned to his face, no longer oppressed by any more doubt or concern whatsoever.

‘I’m so glad you changed your mind about the project,’ he told his boss.

The grumpy senior did not even deign to entertain him with a response, instead reaching for the seatbelts of the craft to secure himself. When he reached behind his shoulder, he found a soft material which, in the absence of anything else in the area, he concluded must be the seatbelt. As he pulled it down he found its buckle, assuring himself of his conclusion, but as his attention was on the belt, he noticed that its entirety was made of some sort of delicate, smooth material, which felt quite uncommon for any type of seatbelt he had ever come across.

‘Curtains,’ commented Eric, noticing his boss’ curiosity. ‘Specifically ones styled after the eighteenth century, though I opted for a brighter colour than was common for the time…’

The return from ire to his absurd surroundings helped reinvigorate Wilson’s doubt from before.

‘And you’re sure that it will fly?’ he asked with a supplicating look, allowing his utter helplessness to accommodate the space left behind by the strict expression that he never truly owned, only ever borrowed.

‘It will, Wilson: I guarantee it.’

‘And how is this any different from the planes we sent to check The Cube before? Didn’t we send planes to check it before?’

‘We did send planes, yes,’ confirmed Eric, with a wry smirk which assured Wilson that this was a point of inquiry already addressed by the manic architect. ‘But the reason they could never reach The Cube was because they always got swept by the galewinds which ruffle the air at around a hundred metres up. This helicopter, on the other hand, allows us to push through those winds – though not without a little difficulty – since it depends mostly on downwards propulsion, and not horizontal like the planes.’

The reasoning appeared sound to his boss, since it was spoken in the same confident tone that all sound reasoning was spoken in, though he found himself incapable of following the contents of the reasoning itself and was therefore not allowed to be any more reassured by the actual reasoning than any other reasoning he himself might have thought up. It should have perhaps settled him finally, allowed him to accept his situation and carry on as he normally did: uncaring and indifferent to the events that unfolded outside his own little bubble, but the truth was that independent of anything he was being told or anything he could possibly perceive, he was simply becoming too tired to deal any further with the nonsense that Eric was curating right in front of him, and the overwhelming fatigue he felt from finding himself so far away from his typical realm of reason drained him of any further choice of action. Wilson instead accepted what Eric had told him – all of it, for better or for worse – and with a resounding, cathartic sigh, he simply surrendered all strength that remained in his aged muscles, and slumped deeply into the accommodating armchair, which provided a gentle creak in response.

Shortly after the two men were occupying the entirety of the passenger area of the helicopter, Elijah jumped in through the door and claimed the final remaining chair on the craft: the pilot’s seat. He closed the door behind him, and when he securely fastened himself with his belt and placed the pilot’s helmet on his head – uniquely, this was the only piece of the helicopter that had managed to remain unscathed by Eric’s architectural Midas’ touch; and, still somehow managing to come out in the worse from what should have been a positive situation, looked completely hideous and out of place within its surroundings – the pilot spun his chair around to gesture the affirmative towards his two passengers. As Elijah’s chair moved around, Wilson, from his reclined position, managed to spot what appeared to be the control panel for the aircraft, and it jumped his back straight up in an instant.

‘Are those all the controls of the helicopter?’ asked the boss of the two co-occupants, pointing to the panel of mahogany wood in the cockpit right before the pilot’s chair, which contained on its shiny, polished surface a single protruding stick, in appearance resembling what could best be described as an ergonomic bedpost, stuck with Arthurian profoundness into a soft, malleable sponge that allowed the stick to be moved, accompanied by two buttons on the panel right beside it, and not much else.

‘The controls were a bit of an issue,’ explained Eric, simultaneously giving Elijah the go-ahead nod which signalled the pilot to turn back towards the front of the heli. ‘You see, initially I had tried my best to mimic all the panels in the helicopter manuals and guidebooks I found when I started to design blueprints for this project. The earlier models–’ Eric cringed slightly at his casual reminder of the cash that had been sunk into his projet, but Wilson was already too far gone to care anymore, ‘–the earlier models had all those buttons, but seeing as how no matter how many times I read through the manuals I couldn’t understand them one bit, a whole lot of the buttons didn’t actually do anything, and were more confusing to poor Elijah here than anything else. A little down the line, I reckoned the safest approach would be a simple joystick system, with which our dear pilot could direct the craft in any direction he might choose, and then of course two buttons as well: one for going up, and one for going down.’

Just as Eric finished his sentence, the helicopter gave off a loud rip and started rumbling.

‘Then of course there’s still the ignition, too,’ he added in afterthought. ‘That’s what gets the heli going.’

Wilson was once more collapsing into his passenger armchair, his body having developed the reflex to avoid the direct sightline of Eric’s speech. He was no longer thinking to interpret his surroundings and understand them: it was all an abstract experience, delivered to him as in a dream, and he was only there to perceive it, nothing else.

‘All secure?’ asked Elijah over the hum of the helicopter’s idle engine.

Eric darted his eyes onto his own as well as his partner’s seatbelt, confirming they were in place, and afterwards attended to the doors. Each had a small latch on it by the doorknob which flipped over and landed in a groove. He flipped the latch on his own side, then reached over his clandestine boss’ seat to treat the other door similarly.

‘All secure,’ echoed Eric upon latching both the doors.

‘Then we’re ready for liftoff,’ declared Elijah.

Wilson, whose eyes could not allow themselves to rest even when the remainder of his being reasoned that it would be healthiest for his nerves if they did so, saw the pilot reaching down with his hand and pressing the upper button of the encompassing pair. Shortly after he did, a soft whooshing sound swept the air above his head outside the helicopter. It was followed by another, then another more quickly, and another even faster, until the space between whooshes became negligible to his ears, and instead the pressure of a constant torrent of wind took its place. A moment after the propellor reached its desired speed, the discomfited boss felt a shock of fright pass through his body as the momentary feeling of being suspended in the air pushed down on him, though he quickly got used to it as his mind caught up to his skin, understanding that the helicopter was lifting off the ground.

‘Well that’s a relief,’ he thought he could hear from their pilot through the surrounding tumult, which his own ears could barely overcome without the assistance of headphones, ‘it really can fly!’

Their ascension in the craft continued steadily, though Wilson felt as if he was moving closer to the ground instead, since considering the total distance he had pushed himself down in his armchair, he ought to have been underneath the earth by now. When the boss glanced over the arm of his seat to take a peek out the window, his eyelids involuntarily closed before he could gather anything more than a snapshot image of the shrinking ground slipping farther and farther away from them.

‘This is amazing!’ exclaimed Eric – Wilson had no trouble hearing him; it appeared no cataclysm could overpower Eric’s voice – and the subordinate hopped ecstatically in place as much as his seatbelt would allow. He tossed his body from one side of the helicopter to the other, attempting to see as much as he could around them through the small square windows of the Venetian doors, and as the aircraft climbed higher and higher into the empty space above them, so did Eric’s elation, which had already known no bounds, but was now exploring new dimensions.

‘Look!’ he shouted at one point, nudging his boss in the shoulder, ‘there’s your office! We’re passing it now.’

Yes, thought Wilson: there was his office, and here he was, finding himself the same distance from the earth as the place he could practically consider his second home, but with considerably less support under his feet, which he was discovering made all the difference. How much he yearned just then for the subtle comfort of solid ground beneath him, he started to think, but in a swift motion dispelled the thought. After all, a moment’s failure in the mechanical cacophony could procure him precisely that which he desired – at a precipitated rate to that which was reasonable, too – and as long as that option was present to the multiverse of possibilities that sprouted from the moment to moment that he found himself in, he ultimately preferred to take his chances with the other direction, wherever it might take him.

After a couple minutes of uninterrupted flight, a sudden jolt pricked the aircraft, turning Wilson momentarily to stone from fear.

‘The galewinds,’ commented Eric, and the pilot nodded in confirmation.

Only seconds after that initial push, another one followed, then even sooner another, until a wild turbulence began to take hold of the helicopter, shifting it and tossing it in every direction.

‘Steady,’ commanded Eric, and although Elijah understood it to be directed at himself and felt somewhat offended by being told how to fly a helicopter – ‘how about you fly it, then,’ he thought, though not aloud – Eric’s instruction was actually directed at Wilson, who had now curled up entirely into a foetal ball and was shaking more than the aircraft.

The forceful winds tossed and turned the heli violently around, slowing its pace dramatically from that which had gotten it there, but nonetheless the craft persevered, and despite the notable resistance from the elements around it, it managed to continue a steady upwards trajectory, eking its way to the surface of the torrent, centimetre by centimetre. The final stretch was the most commanding, requiring the pilot to perform a harsh turn to liberate the body of the helicopter from the unyielding clutches of the pressing winds, even requiring a second attempt at the manoeuvre once the first one failed, sending them back down into the gusts for a momentary bout of catastrophic terror from Wilson. But ultimately Elijah’s prowess persevered through the troublesome patch of airspace, conquering the galewinds and setting the helicopter once more into a peaceful ascent, disturbed only by the sound of its valiant rotors, and the subtle hum of Wilson’s weeping.

The trio of explorers travelled the final few stretches of airspace beneath The Cube in tentative silence. When there were only a few metres separating them from the perplexing black fixture, Eric leaned over fervently to Wilson’s seat, where he attempted to pry him open from his curled-over stance with a gentle prod on his shoulder.

‘Wilson,’ he said, in a tone that, subdued by the constant battering of rotors above their head, functioned as a whisper, ‘we’re almost there. I told you we would make it.’

Wilson for the most part was no closer to caring about making it to The Cube than he had been half an hour prior, but he was at least somewhat happy that they had made it past the galewinds without a scratch, and that helped ease him out of his internalisation enough to allow him into an upright posture. The flustered manager sat back up, correcting his ruffled receding hair with a single run of his hand, and attempted to reclaim his composure. He tried to calm his breathing, and made good progress in creating his own new serenity within the chaos that terrified him so. When he considered himself sufficiently eased, he braved a glance outside the helicopter window at The Cube. 

It appeared much closer than he had ever considered it before, stretching impressively in every direction and trumping their aircraft with its size. It seemed strangely dominant, with an overpowering stasis that would not yield even to gravity, and the darkness of its surfaces exuded a resounding nothingness that claimed the light from the air around them like a vacuum. Within seconds of inspecting it a little closer, Wilson became somewhat intrigued by it after all. What was it made of? How had it gotten up there? Was it indeed empty, or did it contain something inside?

‘How are we going to land?’ asked the boss, in his first utterance since liftoff.

‘I presume it’s made of solid matter,’ answered Eric, though it must be conceded that it was his first response that did not offer absolute reassurance through his ostentatious confidence. ‘And if it is not, then finding a way inside will be that much easier, but the discovery of such a material will be inspiring in itself…’

‘So you don’t know if it even has an entrance we can use?’ the boss darted his eyes at Eric, who had chosen to abandon certainty at the least convenient time.

‘Well, I hope it does,’ admitted the subordinate, ‘this is mainly to learn as much as we can about The Cube. If it doesn’t have an entrance, then we’ll do what we can with the surface, and save disturbing that surface for another future expedition.’

‘One I’ll be spared from,’ commented his boss, more in declaration than in suggestion, appreciating in that moment that he was the one who held the managerial power in their relationship, though not entirely detaching himself from being the sole reason he found himself so separated from precious terrafirma.

The helicopter approached The Cube till it was as close as it could safely be below its lowermost face, and when the bottom of the prism did not betray a single available entrance, Elijah started to traverse horizontally to allow more scrutiny to the other sides of the shape. The duration of the trip to the side went on for long enough to stir doubt in Eric’s mind.

‘I don’t think The Cube is only twenty metres long,’ he said. ‘Turns out the spectroscopy department’s not even good for taking simple measurements. Why does a building company have a spectroscopy department, anyway?’

Wilson was on the verge of pretending to give an answer, when the helicopter emerged from beneath the dark underbelly of The Cube, and admitted itself to the pleasant sunlight of a cloudless sky. Once a single face of the seemingly enlarged shape was evident, Eric immediately forgot his prior concerns, and instantly began scrutinising every millimetre of its dark shape to find a single disagreement to its uniformity.

‘There!’ he shouted after a second of silence, ‘look there!’

Wilson turned to follow Eric’s finger, while Elijah desperately scanned to reach his conclusion independently. After a couple of seconds, all were in agreement as to what caught Eric’s eye, and each of them were equally amazed: a fine, precisely-formed opening in the surface of the cube’s side, square and spanning both wide and tall; tall enough, thought Eric…

‘Do you think you can land it in there?’ asked the architect, pushing against his seatbelt to get closer to Elijah’s ear.

‘It looks big enough, I think,’ answered the pilot, ‘I’ll get a bit closer, just to be sure.’

The heli swerved over to align itself vertically with the opening, allowing a glance into the interior of the structure. Both the boss and his subordinates squinted their eyes in an attempt to discern anything from the interior, which retained the darkness that shadowed its outside. No one could seem to find anything, however, and Eric, despite his consistent belief in the enterprise he had dedicated so much excitement to, which did not shy away from only the first instance of discouragement, still felt somewhat disappointed that The Cube was not showing more promise from the first waves of their investigation.

After only a little more distance, the crew’s concerns about the dimensions of the opening accommodating their craft were assuaged, and with great confidence Elijah lowered them closer and closer inside. Once fully engulfed by the levitating fixture, the pilot began to reduce all movement to be only that of a gentle descent, and as the helicopter’s landing skids came nearer and nearer to what would be the floor of the black cavern, everyone felt their muscles become tense.

‘This is it,’ declared Eric, no longer hopping with joy, but rather expertly careful, gauging his expectations with a prudent air that would not cloud his judgement should an immediate deviation from expectations demand a call for action. ‘The moment of truth.’

Only Elijah could sense the final few centimetres that remained between the skids and The Cube, leaving the passengers in a state of obsequious nervousness, withholding all thoughts and senses as they felt the helicopter descending within the dark abyss.

‘Ah!’ exclaimed Wilson, but Eric grasped his shoulder to calm him.

‘It’s alright,’ he soothed, ‘that was us touching the bottom. It’s solid,’ and his radiant smile immediately possessed every muscle of his sweating face, as he once more could resume all certainty in the plan he had crafted for every step of the way.

Wilson allowed his mind to communicate with his senses once more, and he instantly appreciated the firm support that only a stable foundation could provide. Relieved of the counterforce that the helicopter had needed to provide for their journey to The Cube to not be conquered by gravity, the manager regained almost all of his senses within a moment, and the overpowering terror that had controlled his entire being for the past eternity quickly dissipated into what felt like only a distant memory, or perhaps an uncomfortable dream. He could once again move freely, unconstricted, and he even felt the confidence to regain his regular speaking faculties, which he wasted no time in appreciating with equal gravity to the safety he felt with the assurance provided by solid ground.

‘It is solid, isn’t it?’ asked the boss, but when he turned to look at his subordinate, he noticed him missing, the Venetian door from his side of the craft open wide, and his head just protruding from the ground below them, walking off to the side, out of sight.

‘Eric,’ muttered Wilson, and he fumbled to unbuckle his fine seatbelt. Once he released himself from the armchair, he turned to his own door, which took him a moment to notice was latched by the small piece of wood Eric had tipped over while Wilson was too occupied with his own anxiety, but once he discerned it he flipped it back, pushing the door open and allowing his legs a direction to move freely after the paralysis his body made them endure. Just as he was about to plant them on the black, uncertain substance below them, however, he froze, suspending himself by just above it, before pulling himself back into the craft to reassess his courage.

‘It’s fine,’ called out Eric, who had migrated to stand before his boss’ door, almost like a bellhop prepared to escort him out of the craft. He extended his hand to him in a similar manner, too. ‘It’s solid.’

Wilson met his eyes. Though he could have searched them for the certainty that would have no doubt convinced him to take the steps himself, he instead decided to take a simpler, more efficient path to the same conclusion: What was his other choice, after all? Remaining in the craft? What, really, did he have to lose? He reasoned it was nothing, and without addressing Eric’s hand, Wilson hopped out of the passenger area of the helicopter, landing with firm feet on the uncertain ground, which he preferred not to think of as being suspended two hundred metres in the air, meeting the eyes of his subordinate once more, which could not have been beaming with more delight at how smoothly everything had unfolded for the three of them.

‘Well,’ he skipped, light as a feather, ‘this is it:’ and with a gesture of grandeur, stretched his hands out into the air, his head lifted to the distant, infinite ceiling, which resembled a starless night in both its depth and indefiniteness – ‘The Cube.’

When he relaxed his posture to find his boss equally amused, he did not find Wilson’s eyes regarding his charades; instead, the manager was looking entirely elsewhere, an expression of scrutiny and intrigue giving gravity to his brow, his gaze directed somewhere behind Eric entirely, deeper into the centre of The Cube. Without hesitation, Eric turned to trace the distant gaze, and – for there was nothing else to see in the entirety of the expansive mass – too became enchanted by what he found, and a look of no weaker inquiry than Wilson’s combined the two in an explorative trance that beckoned their minds to come to thousands of conclusions at once.

The interior of The Cube was a bounding expanse, undefined by clear space that would allow them to sense its volume, with pitch-black walls, floor and ceiling, apathetic to all illumination, communicating infinity, disrupted only by the wide opening the coworkers had used as their entrance. An indefinite distance away from where they had landed there was a white protrusion of some kind coming from the floor, apparently glowing, unconsumed by the abyssal faces that surrounded it. It appeared small to them, shrinked by depth, but without any way to gauge distance in that extraordinary space, they could not know just how far away it stood, or just what its true size really was.

‘What’s that?’ asked the voice of Elijah, who had walked up behind the two of them and whose presence all but him had forgotten in the midst of everything seemingly unnatural that they beheld. The pilot was of course referring to the white object, for there was nothing else alongside them which could be seen but endless blackness in every direction.

‘I don’t know,’ answered Eric. He wanted to turn back around, tell them that they should all go investigate it, inspire them with his boundless curiosity which even that infinite room could not contain, but instead he remained still. He did not move a muscle, eyes fixated on the glowing shape in the distance, and by a force he could not explain, he felt paralyzed in its presence.

‘Let’s see then,’ prompted a different voice from behind him. Before Eric could turn to see which of the two it was, Wilson’s definite step carried him into the architect’s field of vision, where he stopped momentarily to offer a motivational nod to his subordinate. ‘Nothing else to do in here, is there?’

Eric mutely agreed as he watched his boss resume his forward direction facing the white object, marching without a second thought deeper into the profoundness of the dark chamber. Seeing him gain a few metres then, Eric felt a sudden jolt of necessity rouse him from his stasis, and in a brisk succession of steps he caught up to his boss. When he reached him and the two began shuffling in tandem, Eric offered a glance back to check on Elijah’s progress in their party, yet he could not spot him closely behind, or even until he completed a full turn and found him standing by the helicopter, unmoved since claiming his position behind them after exiting the aircraft inside The Cube.

‘Elijah?’ shouted Eric, stopping, and causing his boss to cease his momentum as well, following his call, ‘are you not coming?’

The pilot replied with a firm shake of his head. 

‘I’ll stay here, by the heli. We don’t know what might happen when you get close to that thing. I’d rather stay here, just in case.’

Eric was prepared to accept his first response and turn back to continue their walk, but stopped himself.

‘You’re not curious?’ he asked.

A wide smile spread across Elijah’s lips, almost sending him into a quiet laugh.

‘You and your curiosity, Eric,’ he said, ‘you’ll tell me all about it when you get back.’

The architect did not feel like offering even more resistance, and was beginning to become too concerned with his own intrigue to continue addressing his colleague’s apprehension. He turned back to Wilson, who had no preference to Elijah’s decision, staying or going, but was himself resolute on exploring what secrets the mysterious Cube was hiding inside its walls, by then almost more than Eric was. In such a fashion and with an air of mutual understanding between the two of them, the pair of coworkers resumed their travel towards the object, the sole attraction within the peculiar void.

After only a few more steps it became evident that the white glowing protrusion was in fact not that far at all, and based on the relative size of their movements, they gauged it might be roughly the height of themselves, if not slightly shorter. A few steps closer still, and Eric, unbothered by the nearsightedness that plagued his manager, was able to provide some description as to the nature of the white shape.

‘It looks like it’s some sort of pedestal,’ he said, ‘Grecian perhaps…’ 

Wilson squinted his eyes in an attempt to share in his coworker’s discovery, but quickly gave up, resolving to provide a most clear picture of the entity by placing a distance between him and itself so short that his myopia would have no chance to interfere. 

‘…and it seems to have some sort of glass ball on top of it, too.’

Within only a few more seconds of travel, the colleagues found just a couple of metres between themselves and the shining white pedestal, which only intensified in glow the closer they came to it, evidently having been occluded by the surrounding darkness when they were placed farther away. When they finally reached it, and the base of the short pillar was right at their feet, they stopped. The two coworkers stood still next to one another, observing the curious fixture, and in a glance between themselves after a second or two of silence, agreed that they were both unsure as to how they should proceed from there.

Eric was the first to stir from their uncertainty, producing his hands in front of him, palms open, appearing prepared to place them both on the surface of the crystal ball.

‘Woah!’ exclaimed Wilson in panic, ‘we don’t know what it does. Are you sure you just want to touch it?’

Eric shrugged.

‘Do you have a better idea?’

His boss stared at him blankly for a moment, not offering any further resistance. When after a couple seconds Eric budged his palms closer to the surface of the ball, Wilson did not object, and the architect understood that as his cue to complete the distance. Without any further ceremony, Eric placed both his hands on the surface of the glowing orb.

Wilson subtly twitched when his subordinate’s hands made contact with the foreign object, expecting something to happen, but a second of silence passed, and the two looked at eachother with further acceptance: nothing, as far as they could tell, had changed.

‘Huh,’ grunted Eric, ‘I’ll be honest, I was expecting something to happen.’

His boss stared plainly at him.

‘I mean, would anything really happen from only a touch?’

Eric gave a look of indifference, looking towards the ball.

‘I suppose it would be odd to expect it to, wouldn’t it?’ he agreed.

An inconclusive silence fell between the two of them. They remained in it briefly before Eric, hands still glued to the white ball, broke it.

‘I wonder what it is for, then?’ 

Just as the final word left his lips, a jolt shot through Eric’s body, shutting his eyes closed and freezing him in place. To Wilson, standing next to him, it appeared as the beginning of a seizure.

‘Eric!’ he shouted, extending his hand half the way towards his coworker, then stopping. His body understood before his mind that whatever it was that was happening to him was unknown, and as long as it was unknown, Wilson could not predict how it would affect his colleague, or, more practically, himself. His thoughts swiftly caught up to that notion, and despite wanting to pry Eric away from the ball, he retreated to standing firmly in place, observing his coworker.

The architect remained motionless, entirely still, and after a few seconds which felt like they lasted hours, his boss realised that despite his frozen muscles, Eric was not strained by his stasis. After the initial shot of force, whatever it was, had moved his body, the architect was relaxing into a state of calm, his shoulders gliding down into meditative poise – his hands still fixed to the white orb – and the muscles of his face sinking soothingly, like into a cushion, making him appear as though he had fallen asleep standing right up. It made Wilson much less nervous to watch him, though he still could not be entirely comforted without knowing what effect this was really having on his colleague. The manager would not have to suffer in his concern for long, however, as after only about five seconds in all, Eric’s eyes slowly slid back open, and he removed his hands from the orb, as though he had not been disturbed by it in the slightest.

‘Eric,’ spoke his boss, attempting to make eye contact, and quickly finding it, ‘are you okay? What happened?’

Eric’s lips stretched in a sly smile.

‘I know what it does.’

Wilson, still not assured as to his coworker’s wellbeing, chose to be present with him before pressing for medical assistance.

‘What does it do?’ he asked.

‘It answers questions,’ replied Eric simply.

The manager’s ears perked up by such an unusual response.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, it answers questions,’ explained Eric, ‘you ask it a question, and it answers it. Simple.’

No matter what Eric stated the simplicity to be, Wilson still didn’t completely understand.

‘How do you know?’ he queried on.

‘Because I asked.’

Wilson turned his attention momentarily to the white ball next to both of them. It did not appear to have been changed in any way from Eric’s interaction with it. There also didn’t seem to have been any changes to it during the short episode the architect had experienced when he touched it, though this Wilson could not affirm so certainly, as he knew his attention had been mostly placed upon his colleague, and something likely could have occurred outside his immediate field of vision without him ever taking note of it. For a moment Wilson considered whether, perhaps, it had been a crude practical joke, and Eric had faked the entire experience, but although reason could not entirely dismiss such a possibility, there had been a certain sincerity to the force which had initially impulsed Eric’s limbs which Wilson could not shake, and which endowed the show with a degree of credibility that, amidst all else that was strange around them, could be easily believed, at least initially.

‘How does it answer them?’ asked his boss. ‘I didn’t hear anything.’

The serenity which the architect had maintained since severing his connection with the white sphere slipped from his face, and uncertainty took its place.

‘It’s not a voice,’ answered Eric, ‘it’s like… I don’t know.’

‘What do you mean you don’t know?’ asked Wilson, with an impatience that had initially hidden behind sympathy, but was beginning to rise above it.

‘I just,’ stumbled the subordinate, ‘it’s hard to say. I wasn’t thinking of making sense of it as it was happening, it just happened. I can ask it something else, and then we’ll see…’

His speech trailed off into a silence that confirmed both were in agreement that such a course was the correct one, when after a moment, Eric’s eyes shot open in inspiration.

‘…I can ask it where you left your glasses!’ and with a jovial leap, the architect raised his hands, prepared to place them back onto the white ball, when they were arrested by a resounding thunder from right next to him.

‘No.’

The word bellowed from Wilson’s lips, with uncharacteristic gravity: an administrative tone more befitting his station than his person.

Eric placed his hands back at his sides, looking his boss expectantly in the eye. The latter met him for a moment, before shifting his attention to the orb himself. Wordlessly, Wilson raised his own two hands, and without any sign of interference from his subordinate, lowered them onto the shining white surface.

A moment of silence passed, with Wilson staring mutely into the white ball, the dark room fading around him. Eventually, the vacuous air was filled with a profound sigh, and words at the tip of Wilson’s lips.

‘Why did he leave?’ 

A sudden wave pulsed through the boss’ body, massaging his muscles as it passed each one, shifting him into place just as it did Eric, however the sensation was nothing like what it had appeared from outside.

‘Wilson? Are you okay?’

He could hear the architect’s voice addressing him from beyond, but the voice felt faded, distant, occluded by some veil that separated him from the world he had only just inhabited. He sensed a soothing warmth ease its way into his skin from nothing, spreading throughout his entirety as it enveloped him and detached him further from the material world he had come to know so well.

‘Wilson?’

The cries of concern came more departed with each moment, and the darkness, that used to construct the geometry that held each one of them amongst its strange phenomena, was beginning to yield to some unknown light within his eyelids. That light spread, engulfing his entire vision, suggesting that should he open his eyes now, he would not at all find the blackened box which he knew contained him, but rather the beaming light of day, sported by the glory of the shining sun. It was an alluring thought, as the thought fizzled into a feeling, and once it became intangible entirely, compelled him to follow it through, to entertain the impossible. When Wilson opened his eyes, he found them dazed by the intensity of a sun unfettered in a cloudless sky, and when his image came to and his eyes adjusted to the new light, he saw trees surrounding him in the distance, and bright green grass beneath his feet, spreading into a meadow.

‘Wilson?’

The voice came once more, yet less removed than before, not fogged by the dense illusion being produced by the magical orb he held between his palms. The voice felt more present, though it did travel from afar, and despite being muffled by the miraculous image he found being projected around him, Wilson knew that the voice was not Eric’s anymore. It was a familiar voice; though its exact qualities felt distorted to him in a way that he could not quite place, it carried with it the singular truth of how it resonated viscerally within his being: it felt perfect.

‘Wilson? Where are you?’

Inspecting his surroundings more clearly, he could see that the white orb he had been holding – that which had presumably transferred him here to this meadow – was now completely gone. Turning around, he found a certain sluggishness to his movements, one that he could not entirely attribute to a loss of sensory acuity, but which belonged more closely to the sensation of a lack of familiarity with his body: as though he had been removed from his own, and placed in one that he did not know so well. 

He did manage to turn around towards where he heard the words coming from, however, and when he followed them, he saw a small hill in the meadow. After a few moments, a figure emerged from behind them, climbing to its short top and looking around frantically with irrational concern. Though the individual was too far for Wilson’s eyes to observe acutely, the manager realised that a certain sharpness was provided to everything around him within the illusion, and he could see that the figure resembled a woman, adorned in a blue sundress, decorated with a pattern of white flowers. She continued to spin all round her, till her eyes and face found Wilson, when she stopped entirely, until less than a second later all the forces in her body propelled her forward, and she began running down the small hill, directly towards him. There was some forlorn familiarity to her, he thought, and the last thing in the world that he wanted to do was move away from that spot, standing helplessly in the meadow.

‘There you are,’ spoke the woman in a sweet chirp as she ran, ‘I thought—’

The closer she got to him, Wilson realised just how tall the woman was, and after a few more steps, just how short this illusion had made him. When she reached him, the woman did not even attempt to slow her charge, instead swooping down with all momentum to pick him up in her arms, pouring over him with her embrace like warm honey, coddling every cell in his body.

‘Don’t run away like that,’ she said to him, almost in a whisper, and when Wilson regained control of his arms, he tightened them as best he could around her. As he embraced her in reciprocal love to that which she emanated so vibrantly, Wilson knew that he was hugging his mother, and he squeezed her all the tighter for it.

After a second of such bliss, she broke his grasp on her, holding him in front of her, looking him in the eye, an aura of happiness between them.

‘I was worried you left,’ she said, her voice as her skin, unwrinkled by the cruel currents, cracking as she spoke the last syllables of her sentence. ‘You can’t worry me like that. You can’t, you just can’t…’

Before she could help it, she tugged him back close to her, squeezing as tightly as she could, choking all sadness that might come out, leaving only love. 

Wilson felt his hands around her, and he knew that he was a little boy, and that his mother was young too, her quiet tears trickling down onto his shoulder. With all the might allowed to him within his tiny body, he tried to squeeze her back, to comfort her, even searching for the right words to say with his little mouth, that likely was only on its way to learning those words yet. Ultimately, no words came, and all he wanted to do was to hold her as closely as he could, to close his eyes and feel her before him, as real as she was. With every millimetre he managed to pull them closer, he could remember distant feelings of bliss surfacing from everywhere around him, encompassing him with overwhelming might that rattled every fibre of his being, before he no longer knew what it was to think, or act, or do, but only to feel, and he felt that he wanted to belong to that moment forever.

The boy clutched his hands until they touched, pressing harder and harder down until his palms felt as though they were pressing hard stone, and all feeling escaped his limbs, and he was floating in space. He pressed so hard, that his closed eyelids blocked out any sunshine that kissed that idyllic meadow, and all blood left his body, till he felt numb to his mother’s touch, and she disappeared around him, slowly fading from every part of him that she held in her arms, and it felt as though she wasn’t really there, and his arms were stretched before him, his back up straight, his feet dangling below him, ready to hold him when the ground came up to touch him. 

When he opened his eyes, Wilson saw the darkness of The Cube, the white sphere once more before him on its Grecian pedestal, and from the corner of his eye his colleague, watching him with as much inquiry as concern. Without feeling them go, Wilson’s fingers slipped off the white ball, dropping to his sides. His body returning to him, he turned it to look at Eric, an exuding nothing propagating from within.

The architect watched him in silence for a few seconds more, scrutinising the air for the correct moment to speak to him again. At one point, he was no longer sure there was one, and he assumed it came.

‘Well,’ he asked uncertainly, ‘did you get an answer to your question?’

His boss’ eyes fell for a moment. When they found Eric again, they carried with them a subtle tune of joy, which eased his colleague.

‘Yes,—’ answered Wilson, with a pleasant smile that waxed with each ataraxic moment that passed thereon. 

‘—Just not the one I asked, I suppose.’

17.XII.23