Endless Hallway Leads to Grocery Store with Mrs. Patel

Endless Hallway Leads to Grocery Store with Mrs. Patel

I was late for work again, sprinting down the hallway of my apartment building, but the hallway kept stretching forever. I finally burst through the doors and found myself not in the office lobby, but in the grocery store down the street, the one where I always run into Mrs. Patel. She was pushing a cart full of the same canned beans I buy every week, but the price tags were all in a language I didn’t recognize. I tried to ask her for the price, but her face flickered between hers and my old high school math teacher’s, and she answered in a voice that sounded like both of them at once. I realized I’d left my badge at home, so I fumbled for my phone—only it was a sleek tablet with a holographic screen that kept projecting my calendar in 3‑D, showing meetings I’ve never scheduled. A security guard walked by, looked exactly like my brother, and nodded as if everything was normal. I woke up just as I was about to hand him the wrong key.