The Locked Room on the Fourth Floor Nobody Would Explain

The fourth floor had a room, and the room had no purpose anyone could name, and for two years I let that be a background fact of my life the way you let a coworker's weird laugh be a background fact. Then I paid attention, and I have not been fully comfortable since.

It was a door in the middle of a corridor, painted the same beige as the walls, no window, no label except a small worn plate that said 4C. Every other door on that floor had a function. Kitchen, server closet, the wellness room nobody used, three meeting rooms named after rivers because a consultant once told us that was calming. And then 4C, which was named after nothing.

I first noticed it because I wanted a quiet place for a call and tried the handle. Locked. Fine. I asked Facilities to book it. They said 4C was not bookable because 4C was "an HVAC access point." I said no problem and went about my life. Weeks later I mentioned it to a guy from the actual HVAC contractor, who was up a ladder doing real HVAC things, and he frowned and said 4C was not on any of his drawings, that as far as his company was concerned the HVAC access on that floor was a panel by the stairs. He said, and I liked him for saying it plainly, "I have no idea what that room is."

So I had a locked room that Facilities said was HVAC and HVAC said was not theirs. I asked around more. I got a different answer every time, delivered with total confidence. Storage. Old records. A decommissioned data closet. Something to do with the fire system. One long-tenured woman told me it used to be a smoking room in the nineties and had "just stayed shut," which was the only answer that felt like a real memory instead of a guess.