He stepped out, and the door sealed itself behind him with the quiet sound of something relieved to be rid of him.
The street met him with a soft damp that clung to hair and sleeves. Cars idled at the light with a gentle growl. Tires hissed over wet asphalt. A bus exhaled and took on a row of faces that did not look up. He started walking. The air smelled of warm metal and yesterday's rain, and from the bakery on the corner, the clean sweetness of dough that would not be his breakfast.
People passed him in steady lines. Their shoes struck the pavement in separate rhythms that merged into one patient beat. A woman hurried by with a phone held flat against her ear. A boy dragged a rolling backpack that clicked across a seam in the sidewalk every few steps. A cyclist cut the turn too close, and the strap on Ash's shoulder tugged, then settled again. He said nothing. The cyclist did not look back.
He kept to the outside edge of the crowd, near the buildings. Windows showed quiet rooms and dusty plants and, sometimes, his reflection floating on the glass, a pale figure that kept pace and did not complain. He adjusted his tie once and then stopped touching it. A bus splashed a shallow puddle into smaller puddles. Drops dotted his shoes and then were gone.
At the station entrance he paused to take the stairs. The rail felt damp under his palm. The tunnel air was thicker, warmer, with the smell of iron and something that remembered oil. A musician at the bottom step played two notes on a small keyboard over and over. The notes did not find a third. Ash stood to one side and bought a ticket from a machine that printed slowly, as if thinking it over.
On the platform, conversations drifted without landing. Someone laughed at the far end. Someone argued close by, then lowered his voice when a train approached. Wind pushed through the tunnel like a long breath. The train arrived with a soft grind and a gentle shudder that ran through the concrete and into his shoes.
He found a seat by the window and held the resume flat on his lap with one hand. A man in a navy coat sat across and closed his eyes the way some people do when the world is a noise to be managed. A child stood on the seat beside her mother and watched the tunnel flash past in gray frames. The mother smoothed the child's hair without looking away from the ad above the door.
The train started. The lights in the car flickered once and held. Walls ran by with stains in the shape of unknown stories. His reflection repeated itself in the glass, thinner now and bordered by streaks of rain from a time when these windows were outside. He read the first line of his resume and felt the paper flex against his thumb with each turn of the wheel beneath them.
At the next stop a cluster of people entered, bringing a smell of wet wool and coffee. A man with a bright tie stood near Ash's shoulder, reading a checklist on his phone. The man's lips moved. He nodded once to himself, then twice, then stopped. The doors closed. A recorded voice named the next station in a calm tone that made every name sound equal.
Ash looked at the map above the door and followed the colored line to his stop. He noticed the small scar on his knuckle where he had once cut himself opening a can. He closed his hand and opened it again. The train slowed. The brakes reached a low moan that felt like a tired animal. When the doors parted, he stood and gave the seat to a woman waiting with a folded stroller. She thanked him without meeting his eyes. He stepped into the aisle and joined the flow up the stairs.
Outside, the rain had gathered itself into a steady fine curtain. He walked under a row of awnings that leaked at the seams. The office building waited two blocks away, a square of glass that reflected the color of the sky and did not show the small tree planted by its door. The lobby held the cool of air conditioning and the weightless smell of cleaner. A man in a suit spoke to a receptionist with a voice that sounded friendly and tired at once.
Ash pressed the elevator button and stood with two other candidates. One wore a slate jacket and a smile that sat well on his face. The other studied a sheet of paper with a column of figures and underlined two of them, then underlined them again. The elevator chimed. They entered and arranged themselves as if by an old agreement. Floor numbers rose with a quiet blink.
On the sixth floor the carpet softened the sound of his shoes. A framed photograph showed a street at night with wet stones and lights that blurred into patient circles. He felt his shoulders lift and then lower, an automatic attempt at posture that did not settle.
The waiting room had a white sofa and a row of chairs that matched the wall. A plant in a gray pot did not seem to be suffering, which felt ambitious. A woman at a small desk asked for his name and time. He told her and handed the resume. She thanked him in a tone that contained the whole of her day. He took a seat near the end of the row.
There were four people waiting. The slate jacket man from the elevator read questions from his phone and answered them in a whisper that trusted the air to hold his plans. A woman in a neat blue blouse wrote a few lines in a notebook and then closed it as if closing a door quietly. Another man stared at his shoes as if they had something to say.
The wall clock looked exactly like a clock. It moved once each second and did not dramatize the work. He watched the minute hand pass a small mark and felt that it had done him a favor it would not repeat. The receptionist spoke on the phone in a careful voice that made every word fit neatly in the line. The interview room door opened, and a young man came out with his shoulders set for a victory he was not sure of. He left without looking around.
The slate jacket man stood when his name was called. He walked into the room and the door closed. Ash placed his hands palm down on his knees and lifted them again. He looked at his reflection in the dark window and saw only the room behind him, the plant, the chairs, the clock. The second hand reached another mark.
The door opened. The slate jacket man came out with a practiced smile that had not decided what it meant. The receptionist glanced at her screen, then lifted her eyes.
"Ash Ardyn," she said. "You are next."