The instant the elevator doors closed, Leo felt as if his brain were an overloaded server—its fans spinning wildly but unable to process any data.
It was 8:00 p.m. on a Friday, and the air conditioning in the office building was cranked up like a morgue. As a senior manager in the marketing department, Leo had just wrapped up a four-hour international video conference. His mind was crammed with KPIs, ROI, conversion rates, and the image of his boss’s face, slightly contorted with anger.
All he wanted was to go home, collapse on the couch, and extract his soul from this exhausted body.
The elevator paused on the 15th floor. No one got on, but the doors opened.
Leo instinctively glanced outside. At the end of the hallway was a half-open fire door, through whose crack shone a strange, warm orange-yellow glow, like logs burning in an old-fashioned fireplace.
As if by some inexplicable impulse, Leo didn’t press the close button. He stepped out.
The hallway was carpeted in deep red; his footsteps made no sound, as if he were walking on thick snow. At the end was not a stairwell, but a lounge that looked like it was straight out of the 1980s. An old-fashioned wall clock hung on the wall, its hands frozen at 7:59.
Leo pushed the door open and stepped inside.
The room contained a dark green velvet armchair, next to which stood a floor lamp with an amber shade. The most eye-catching item, however, was the ornament on the coffee table—an exquisite, vintage brass hourglass.
The sand inside the hourglass wasn’t ordinary white sand, but a deep blue, like a crushed starry sky.
Leo sat down. The sofa was unbelievably soft, instantly cradling his aching lower back. He stared at the hourglass as the deep blue grains of sand trickled down from the top at an extremely slow, extremely graceful pace.
No phone vibrations, no email notifications, no boss yelling.
Leo suddenly realized it had been a long time since he’d been this “empty.” His life had been carved into countless 15-minute blocks, crammed full of to-do lists. He was like a precision gear, turning ceaselessly to keep the entire system running, yet forgetting that gears themselves don’t need to think.
He reached out, his fingertips gently brushing the brass hourglass.
It felt cool to the touch, yet offered a strange sense of calm.
In that moment, a ridiculous thought crossed Leo’s mind: If time stood still here—or flowed extremely slowly—could he just sit like this for a while? Even if only for ten minutes. Without having to think about tomorrow’s weekly report, without having to worry about that difficult client.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. The air carried a faint scent of old book pages and dry wood.
This tranquility was too tempting.
He felt himself slowly sinking, sinking into this warm, orange-yellow glow. His breath grew long and steady, and his heartbeat slowed. All that anxiety, fear, and ambition receded like a tide, leaving only pure, meaningless “being.”
He didn’t know how long had passed—perhaps a minute, perhaps a century.
Leo opened his eyes.
The blue sand in the hourglass didn’t seem to have decreased much.
He stood up and smoothed out the creases in his suit. Although it had only been a few short minutes, it felt as if he’d taken a long afternoon nap. The buzzing sensation of mental overload had vanished, replaced by a crisp calm.
He walked out of the lounge and returned to the elevator. The elevator doors were still open, as if he’d never left.
Leo stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for the first floor.
The elevator began to descend. A sensation of weightlessness washed over him as Leo gazed at his reflection on the metal walls of the elevator.
Suddenly, he froze.
He looked down at his wrist.
It was completely empty.
The mechanical watch he’d worn for five years—a symbol of his status as a corporate elite—was gone.
Leo frantically reached into his pocket, but his cell phone was gone too. He felt his chest; the company pin he always wore had vanished as well.
The elevator chimed as it reached the first floor.
The doors opened. The lobby was brightly lit; a security guard was looking down at his phone, and the receptionist was touching up her makeup. Everything was as bustling and busy as usual.
Leo stepped out of the building and stood on the bustling street. The evening breeze ruffled his tie.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a strange, copper-stained set of keys.
Leo looked at the keys, then glanced back at the office tower soaring into the sky. In that instant, a faint realization struck him, sending a chill down his spine yet leaving him feeling a sense of relief he’d never experienced before.
It was as if, in that brief moment of mental detachment, he had left “Leo the tool” behind in the lounge on the 15th floor.
And now, the person stepping out was a free man—one who even had to reaffirm his own name.
Leo smiled, slipped the key into his pants pocket, and turned to walk in the opposite direction of the subway station.
