Depths Read Online Free Page A

mornings there. Cheap, filling
and tasty. Not much more I could ask for. I'm not picky when it
comes to food. You have your “ live to
eat ” people and your “ eat to live ” people. I easily fit
into the second category. I found it to be a waste of my time,
especially since I got hungry so often. It takes roughly fifteen to
twenty minutes to drive somewhere and back, order and get your food
before you can start eating. Then another ten to twenty minutes to
eat depending on the meal. So somewhere between twenty-five minutes
to forty minutes for one meal. But let's say you want to eat at
home. So, depending on what there is to make it could take anywhere
from five minutes to heat something up to forty-five minutes for
prep work and actually cooking the meal. Then another ten to twenty
minutes to eat. And then there's the dishes to wash and clean up
afterward. It takes way too much time. That's why I preferred
doughnuts. You point at the one you want and start eating. Same
reason I like Chinese take out; they ’ ve
practically got the food in your hands before you're done
ordering.
    I parked in the front of the shop and walked in.
Today I was having a strawberry jelly-filled doughnut. Look at me,
the poster child of healthy habits. I sat in my usual spot in the
back corner, absently chewing on the pastry. Jelly gushed out from
the opposite end that I had just bit into and plopped onto my
pants. Great.
    I jolted awake, a glob of jelly
plopped on my pants from the doughnut on my desk. Great. I hadn't
slept very much the day before. I worked the graveyard shift for
Copymate Copy Machines as a security guard. It's a job anyone can
do because I mean really, how many people steal a copy machine? Who
even buys a copy machine anymore? But I wasn't complaining. It was easy
money and I could take naps here and there. I had a small office,
well kind of an office. More like a closet in the back of the
store, separated by a thin door from the rest of the
store.
    The clock read 12:00 A.M. I had been out for a good
two hours and still had five left to go on my shift. On my
paper-cluttered desk were two computer monitors with security feeds
coming from eight cameras, each camera had its own window, four
windows to a monitor. I lazily glanced at the monitors, not seeing
anything noteworthy, and searched for a napkin to clean myself. I
found one and wiped as much of the jelly off as I could, smearing
the rest, and looked back at the screens.
    The first window showed the parking lot from atop a
light post facing the street away from the building. Nothing
unusual going on. The second was a different view of the parking
lot, from a camera on a light post in the opposite corner of the
parking lot. Still nothing.
    Oh fuck....
    On the third window I saw
movement. It gave a view above the main entrance outside and it
looked like a person had just opened the door. I confirmed this on
the next window which showed the sales floor. Rows and rows of copy
machines created a winding maze, and sure enough, a shadowy figure
lurked across the floor, bobbing and weaving from one machine to
the next. I couldn't make out any features on him. It looked like
a him at least. He kept his face hidden as if he knew where the
cameras were. I couldn't even get a better view of him from the
other cameras. As he floated from one machine to the
next — steadily shifting to the back of the
store towards my office — the machines fired
up with a whir. The clamoring, clanking discord swelled as more and
more machines came to life.
    He moved slowly and deliberately, taking his time,
probably not expecting there to be an on-call night-shift security
guard. Most likely assuming any surveillance would be from
unmonitored closed-circuit cameras, which wouldn't be reviewed
until after whatever crime he was about to commit was long done and
over with, and he was far away. If the owner of the store had any
common sense, that would have been the case but no, I was the lucky
one to