Working late at the office isn’t all that bad. Until you actually need to leave. Now, before you start thinking that I have an unnatural and quite possibly twisted affinity for work allow me a moment to clarify. (Like you had a choice. It isn’t like you would have a chance to interrupt this post with your own typing. I do not expect the words, “You fucking workaholic” to rudely interject themselves between that last sentence and the one following it…Except that they did. Albeit in a twisty round about manner.)

Well, the problem is that the building has a very large parking lot. And late at night that very large parking lot, by day a large friendly parking lot (Like a friendly Golden Retriever, but with a lot more tar and more parking-lot-ier), by night is a large, lonely and very, very dark parking lot.

Very, very, very dark.

And lonely. There are maybe three cars parked in it. One of which is mine. Which one is mine, you may ask. Well the one that is fucking furthest away, at the far end of the lot. Even if I had parked in the first available spot when I came in, in the morning, by the time I leave at night, my car has telekinetically transported itself to the far end of the lot. And there it waits for me, softly sniggering and chortling, like a schoolboy who has pulled a particularly wicked prank. If my car had elbows, and if there was someone next to it to nudge, I’m sure that my car would be nudging it.

Did I mention that the lot is dark? Very, very dark? That’s because the powers that be have turned off the lights. The normal light producing lights, that is. And they’ve turned on the negative lights, the ones that suck in any ambient light that there may be. “No moonlight for you” is their motto. “Wade through the coagulating darkness” is their alternate motto. Neither of the two would make very good battle cries. (Unless the opposing host consisted solely of a poor, tired Rajneesh trying to make his way back to his car. In which case they would be moderately effective battle cries.)

The parking lot seems to stretch away to infinity…and beyond. My car is definitely in the beyond part of the Infinity. And as I make my way to it, all I can think of are Axe murderers that go “bump” in the night. I start whistling and then I stop. I do not want to annoy the axe murders. After what seems like an eternity I reach the car and then my nerve finally breaks. I dive in and screech out of the parking lot almost before my seat belt is on.

And then at the first stop sign, I remember that I haven’t checked my back seat for the psychopath who might be lurking there.

Gulp…

(Nothing in the back seat except for a T-shirt, a computer keyboard, a carton from Amazon.com and a spiked collar. That last would be worth remarking about, except that it belongs to me. If it wasn’t in the car I would be worried, because a spiked collar is a must for every well dressed Axe Murderer. Sadly, and I’m not kidding over here, I did check the back seat when I had stopped at that first stop sign.)