Descent

The funnel only runs one way, so when it ran backwards that night, everybody noticed.

Light came down instead of going up. It pooled on the dais around the two of them, the night-shift pair, the ones who always brought a flask and argued about music. Maybe four seconds. I don’t know which of us did it. I’d like to think it was me.

Four seconds is nothing. Four seconds is one breath at the wrong end of a pipe built to drink. But they both looked up, and they both went quiet, and one of them put the flask down.

Nobody on that shift ever made quota again. Slowest crew in the building. I love them so much.