This is my second submission of the events I experienced while working at an old hospital in Johannesburg, South Africa. For more information about the location and its history please see my profile and my first submission, 'My job at the hospital'. This will be a fairly long relation of events so please bear with me.
Our archive was located in a different section of the hospital but still fairly close to our office area. The room itself was fairly unremarkable and also fairly well lit because of its many windows. This is where we kept our old files and other administrative documents from bygone years. Attached to the room on one side was a small windowless room that could quite possibly have been a broom closet. It was in this small room that we stored our computer software packages and software licenses under lock and key.
When I first began my job, I noticed that my co-workers often avoided going to the archive. At first I just considered it laziness on their part. One day the manager I mentioned in my first story called me into her office and asked if I would mind taking a box of old files to the archive for her. Of course I agreed to take the box and promptly set off to the archive.
The door opened easily and I entered the room. As soon as I had closed the door behind me I suddenly felt that something was not quite right. The room was just too quiet and I felt anxious and wanted to leave the room. I knew it couldn't be claustrophobia because the room had large windows and I could see clearly out of them. I forced a chuckle and said out loud "Pull yourself together and archive the files", which I did. I did however keep glancing over my shoulder and I remained nervous through the entire duration. As soon as I had left the room I felt fine again. No worries at all.
Sitting back at my desk I easily dismissed the feelings I had experienced by telling myself that I must have imagined it, being the new boy and being alone in a new part of the building for the first time. Soon I was working again.
A couple of days later another fairly new guy asked me if I would help him to find an old bank statement that he needed because of a question from the auditor. We went to the room together and we both suddenly felt uneasy as soon as the door closed. Of course being two guys together we tried to cover up our feelings. We started to move around the filing racks in the room to look for the banking files. We were walking side by side him reading the spines of the files on one side and me the other. That's why we entered the cold spot together. It was a hot Johannesburg midsummer day and it was as though we had stepped into a one meter squared deep freeze.
We looked at each other in shock and surprise and as he said "This can't be right!" condensation vapor came from his mouth! We of course decided to abandon the search and get out of there with all haste. It was such a relief to be out of that room. Of course we couldn't return without the bank statement so we called a third guy to come and help out. I'm sure some people are going to ask so I'll say it up front. There were no air conditioners or fans in the room, and the windows did not open.
Again as we entered the room all three of us felt as though we shouldn't be in the room. We walked through another two cold patches. That freaked us out because it was so hot outside and the air in the room was also hot except for the certain patches. We couldn't have imagined it because we all saw the vapor on each other breaths in these patches as we walked into them and make a startled sound from the sudden change in temperature. At last we found the file and left the room.
Back outside the room it was so different and normal that we started to doubt what had happened yet in our hearts of hearts we knew that it had really happened. I can't properly in words describe the instant change in feeling from inside the room and being back out of it. We all agreed that we would leave the file lying around under a desk and 'forget it' for as long as possible.
Can anyone explain a bit more about these cold patches? What are they and what is their meaning? Could they be related to the feelings we experienced in the room? Many thanks for reading this through and understanding. That already helps a lot.
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