I tend to develop headaches at work, so I allowed myself some 15 minutes to wander around the building. There wasn't much to see. The second floor was completely abandoned. Cubicles left unkempt, as though the owners had simply stood and left. Chairs swung backward; no one had cared to roll them back to their places, out of the way. There was a rolling cart with a few postal service boxes, left like someone hadn't the time or care to place them in their respective place. It was like a scene from armageddon, or something from a Hollywood film - The Day After Tomorrow, or something. Maybe the Shining. It was eery, but I tried not to think about it. Fears bring fears to life.
The first floor was an open space where the printing presses used to be. It looked like an old-school factory, left abandoned in the throes of modernization. Like a picture straight out of Detroit or Paterson. The vents were unbelievably loud against the somber silence. I couldn't stand either floor for to long so I headed up, thinking to return to my desk. But I noticed more stairs up to the fifth floor. This wasn't the same stairway that led to a big newspaper room - sometimes me and Rob would spend time there - this was something new. The ceilings were adorned with mold that had grown over the years. It smelled heavily musky. I pushed open the door and there it was, the view of Hackensack at dusk. The Court House's stately dome and its statue were centered perfectly in the distance. I stepped out into the cold and wrapped my pashmina around me. To the left were the distant lights of New York City, just faint blinks through the fog. The clouds were overtaking now. I saw the bustling highway of I-80, cars speeding past, hundreds of feet above houses and buildings and more cars. Someone was speeding down River Street to my right. I could hear his engine roar. To my left were more windows in some other part of this building...this dilapidated, abandoned old thing. It is the life-size view of what is happening to the newspaper today. We are slowly becoming irrelevant. And so is this building. In a few weeks, we move.
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