**Diary Entry**
I was late for the tea ceremonyheld every morning at tenbecause I was finishing a report on PPE expenditure across the factory sites. When I saw no water had been left for me, I grabbed the kettle and headed to the loo.
The floorboards beneath the linoleum and laminate creaked softly underfootId stepped into the old part of the building. Behind the modern plasterboard hid walls painted in that drab postwar green, and beneath that, layers of plaster concealed narrow, bright red bricks. If you could pry one loose from the still-strong mortar, youd find an imprint: *1892*. Few in this city-centre office block ever thought about its history. But I knew it. Once, the building had only two floors. In the fifties, three more were added, and by the sixties, it had two wingsone of which housed my office. Mum once told me my great-grandmother, Beatriceshe couldnt recall her maiden namehad worked here somewhere. Id always hoped it was in one of the offices or shops, not in the most notorious brothel in town, *The Imperial*, which had once occupied the very corridors I walked daily.
Filling the kettle, I stepped out of the gents and
There she was. A stunning girl in a long beige dress, walking briskly towards me. Chestnut hair coiled into a bun, shoulders squared, serious brown eyes scanning the hall. And those eyesI drowned in them. Stumbling past, I sloshed water everywhere. For a heartbeat, I stared right at her before embarrassment forced me to look away.
She drew level.
*Sod it. If she doesnt look away in three seconds, Ill talk to her.* For the first time in my life, I held a strangers gaze.
Round face, delicate chin, low brows, a neat little nose, thin lips. But she swept past, leaving only the faintest trace of perfume, and vanished into the ladies.
My breath, stolen by her, returned slowly. The fairy-tale feeling faded.
*Wait for her to come out?* I loitered for two minutes, glancing over my shoulder, before shuffling back to my desk. No one ever emerged.
*Who was she?* I wondered, forgetting to switch the kettle on. *Maybe the new secretary for the MD? Too beautiful. Ill ask the IT ladsthey know everything.*
Work swallowed the day. But at lunch and again at closing, my eyes hunted for that beige dress in the crowd.
Tuesday, ten sharp, I lurked by the loos with an empty kettle. She never came. Nor the next day. Nor the one after.
Desperate, I spent my entire lunch break near the exitbut she never left.
*Why would the MDs secretary come down to the second floor? Mustve been a fluke. Or maybe she was a contractor?* I dismissed the latterit meant my chances of drowning in those brown eyes again were nil.
*Hey,* I messaged Paul from IT. *Seen the MDs new secretary?*
*Yep. Set up her PC last Monday.*
Last Monday! My pulse spiked.
*Pretty?*
*Obviously. They dont hire ugly ones. Proper ice queen, though. Gave me hell.*
*Name?*
*Harrison, Eleanor Victoria.*
*Photo?*
*Check her email profileonly one there.*
My hands sweat as I searched *Eleanor Harrison*. One result. No mistake. Squinting, I opened her contactand there she was. A smiling blonde with grey eyes.
Something inside me tore.
*Fine,* I thought grimly, forcing her from my mind.
*Well?* Paul messaged.
*Meh.* Just to shut him up. Then*Wait. Youve got access to the corridor cams, right?*
*Yeah. Want a live peek?*
*Not quite. Saw a girl last Monday. On our floor. Thought she was the new secretary, but not her. Could you check who she was?*
*Busy now. Later.*
Waiting was agony. The girl in beige haunted me, my heart hammering like a schoolboys. *Pathetic,* I scolded myself, forcing focus onto spreadsheets.
Finally, Paul messaged: *Ready.*
*When?* he asked, pulling up the CCTV console.
*Last Monday, around 10:1010:15. Came from the main stairs, headed to the ladies.*
*Right 15th, time Here.* He turned a monitor. The camera angle showed the far end of the corridor. I watched myself enter the gents, emerge with the kettle, thenthere I was, stumbling, freezing, staring at the wall. For minutes. Then shuffling away, glancing back.
Silence.
Paul raised a brow. *Well?*
*Rewind to when I left the loo.*
The timestamp read 10:17.
*Slow it down.*
The footage stuttered frame by frame.
*Stop!*
The screen showed a faint smudge between me and the wall.
*Whats that?* Paul squinted.
*Nothing. Close it.*
*Wheres the girl?*
*In my head, apparently.* I dropped a Dairy Milk on his desk. As I left, a thought struck me. *Wait. Check today, same time.*
We scrubbed through two weeks of footage.
*No one,* Paul said.
*Right. Cheers.* I forced calm, though my nerves fizzed. That shadow *had* moved towards the ladies. Every Monday at 10:17. But why couldnt I see her again?
*Get a girlfriend, you nutter,* Paul snickered.
*I found her. The best one.*
At home, I studied a tarnished teaspoontoo stubborn for even baking soda. Heavy, oddly shaped, with faded monograms. A family heirloom, passed down for generations. Granny didnt even know how old they were. Id brought one to work last month after a colleague lost hers. That Monday, Id had it in my pocket, crusted with Fridays cake.
After that? Left it at home. And never saw the girl again.
*Thats it.*
The next Monday, spoon clenched in my fist, I waited. When she appeared from the stairs, my knees nearly buckled. Just like before, she glided past andwith that familiar door-opening motionvanished *into* the wall where the loo once stood.
I swallowed thickly. *It worked.* The faint *click* of heels grew clearer; her perfume intensified. The spoon amplified her.
*What if I used all of them?*
The result stunned me. As she neared, the past bled into the present: plasterboard melted into dark green damask with gold trim; linoleum became polished parquet under her buckled black heels. *Click. Click. Click.*
New smellsoriental incense, musky perfumefilled my nose. A distant horse whinnied; two men argued in rapid, slang-heavy English (I had to Google half the words).
And herclose up, she wasnt flawless. Acne under powder, smudged mascara, uneven lipstick. Dust on her dress, a clumsily mended lace collar. Her proud gaze? Just squinting at wall plaquesshe was nearsighted. But these flaws only stoked the fire in my chest.
She vanished. Reality snapped back. Drenched and shaky, I panted. One thought drummed: *Again.*
Every Monday, I watched. Learned her route started at the stairs. I walked beside her, soaking in gas lamps, paintings, conversations. Even tried recordingbut my phone saw nothing.
And I fell deeper in love. Starved for more, I tried touching hermy hands passed through air. But it felt *close*. Like tuning a radioone more twist, and I could speak to her. *Bloody hell, I could tell her I loved her!*
Logic had no place in my obsessed mind. Shed *have* to love me backwe were alike! Lifelong couples always were. Shed come to the future with me.
To bridge that *almost*, I scavenged artifacts: forks, plates, photos, booksanything pre-1920s. Only the spoons worked.
Over tea at Mums, she sighed. *Nothing else old, love.*
Then*Wait!* She rummaged through a cupboard.
*Here!* She handed me a slender book in a homemade cardboard cover.
*Whats this?* It looked brand-new.
*Open it.*
The title page read: *A Concise Geography of England for Elementary Schools*. Printed 1912.
*Granny found it in a skip in the 70s. I rebound it.*
*Cheers, Mum!* I *knew* this would work. The book hummed like the spoonswarm, alive.
***
Monday, 10 a.m. I was ready. Then my boss appeared.
*Need that stationery report by two.*
*
