Boys of Ice and Fire

Sofa Scout

Ethan took the opportunity to explore this work space. His plan was to find a sofa where he could lie and sleep. So he scouted the entire Floor 3 for a sofa, but found none. There were only all sorts of home appliances. Coffee machines. Printers. Even ice machines. But no sofa.

 What piqued Ethan’s interest was the sound-proof booths alongside the aisles. They looked like phone booths in England, but contained no phones within. Ethan took a closer look at one of the booths by stepping inside it and closing the door. He then found he could hear almost nothing from outside. The walls of the booth were made up of material that looked like black asbestos. That must be the reason why the booth could absorb sound.

Then it reminded Ethan that when he had his interview with Shaun, the background of his pretty Shaun was this material. Ethan had always wondered what sort of place Shaun was in when he made that video call. Now he had found the answer by accident, in person. Touching the black material, Ethan could imagine how Shaun stood there, making numerous interview calls to candidates as the group leader.

Ethan was lost in his reverie for a while, before he snapped out of it, to the realization that he still had a nap to take.

Walking through a few aisles and corridors, Ethan found a staircase that could directly lead to Floor 1, to the hall where he had the orientation session. But the staircase looked out on a carved out whole space that extended from Floor 2 to Floor 3, sunshine falling through from a glass ceiling. To Ethan’s delight, right on a platform extending from the middle of the staircase, there were 8 blue sofas, placed in pairs, in a neat pattern. But as can be expected, they had already been taken up by several groups of workers. Some were sleeping; some were working, with computers placed on the tables between the sofas.

This reminded Ethan of his life at Peking University. In the library, students could sit or sleep on sofas like this for a whole day. It’s just the sofas at Monkey Education had a more colorful design, so as to cater to fashionable young workers, while sofas in Peking University library had plain colors and less sense of design.

Ethan continued to explore Floor 1, but on this floor were only giant halls for meetings or orientations, tiny one-person booths for broadcast classes, or normal glass-walled meeting rooms. No sofas.

There was nothing Ethan could do but get back to Floor 3 to sleep on his desk. But just as he was prepared to endanger his waist by sleeping like his colleagues, he found a one-end corridor just outside the bathroom. And lined along the wall of this corridor were three blue sofas connected in a wavy shape. Eureka!

Now he had to think about his position. To ease the numbness in his right leg, Ethan often had to curl his legs while sleeping, so he had to rest his right leg on the back of the sofa. However, by doing this, Ethan would mess up the sofa with the dirt on the sole of his shoe. Taking off his right shoe could solve the problem, but there was no way Ethan would sleep unshod. So the final solution was paper towels.

From the toilet, Ethan grabbed a few paper towels and placed them on the sofa, so that he could rest his right leg with the shoe on. He had planned to stick his left foot over the edge of the sofa with the left shoe on, but now that he had the paper towels, he could sleep in a flat position like he was on his bed.

Some workers passing by were curious about the sleeping position Ethan was experimenting with, but he didn’t give a s**t. Such was the attitude he always adopted when he found himself in such an awkward situation. When a social stigma persists, it becomes hardly perceptible. Now Ethan could lie down and sleep comfortably, but another problem arose. He couldn’t move his feet much! By doing this, his feet would leave the paper towels and start to put smudges on the sofa again.

Then Ethan thought of the plastic bags that many people used to take out food in Yoshinoya, and many other food shops in the underground food court.