By Eamonn Ryan
The wall had seen too much.
If walls could testify, this one would already have cut a deal.
Supplied by Bernd Prüter
From the outside, it looked like a chaotic mess of HVAC improvisation – layers of condensers bolted on over the years like geological strata of bad decisions. On the left: rusting, mismatched condensing units – some humming, some clearly just there for emotional support. On the right: a heroic run of oversized ducting blasting air out like the building was permanently exhaling guilt.
And at the very top, perched like a crown jewel of denial, sat the newest unit. Shiny. Overconfident. Already failing.
Inside, in what was officially labelled ‘Boardroom 2B’, the temperature was a steady 34°C and rising.
“Why is it hot again?” snapped Deon, CFO, part-time criminal strategist, full-time panicker. His tie was wrapped around his head like a bandana of poor life choices.
“It’s not hot,” said Gavin, head of Operations, wiping sweat off a spreadsheet printout. “It’s… thermally aggressive.”
“The York is down,” muttered Rakesh, who had appointed himself “Chief Technical Visionary” after watching two YouTube videos about refrigeration cycles. He pointed vaguely upward, as if that explained everything.
Silence. Then, simultaneously: “Again?”
“AGAIN?!”
“This is the third time this week!” Deon slammed his laptop shut, immediately reopened it, then closed it again for emphasis. “Do you know what happens if the temperature goes above 36?”
“Yes,” said Gavin quietly. “The product destabilises.”
“THE PRODUCT EXPLODES, GAVIN.”
Rakesh coughed. “Technically, it undergoes an exothermic – ”
“DON’T TECHNICALLY ME.”
From the far end of the table, Cheryl, who handled ‘compliance’ (which mostly meant inventing paperwork after the fact), raised a trembling hand. “Should we… maybe not be running a highly illegal, temperature-sensitive operation in a building where the cooling system looks like it was installed by… pirates?”
Everyone paused.
“That’s not helpful, Cheryl,” said Deon.
Up on the wall outside, the York unit gave a sad, metallic clunk – the kind of sound that says, I warned you. The truth was, the wall told the whole story.
First installation: a modest, respectable system. Probably legal. Definitely boring.
Second installation: slightly bigger. Slightly louder. Questions beginning to be asked.
Third installation: panic phase. Extra condenser slapped on. No one remembers approving it.
Fourth: the “temporary upgrade” that became permanent.
Fifth: ducting added. Massive. Overcompensating. Someone used the phrase “industrial airflow solution” in a meeting and nobody challenged it.
And finally, the York. Installed in a rush. Mounted above everything else like a last-minute thought. Wired into the system with the electrical equivalent of crossed fingers.
Back inside, things were deteriorating rapidly. “The financiers are not going to like this,” said Gavin.
“No,” said Deon. “No, they are not. They already think we’re incompetent.”
“We are incompetent, Gavin. That’s not the issue.”
Rakesh leaned over a laptop, zooming into a grainy CCTV feed of the outside wall. “Okay, look – if we just… reset the system again – ”
“We’ve reset it twelve times!”
“Yes, but this time with intent.”
“What does that even mean?”
“It means I press the button harder.”
Cheryl stood up abruptly. “We need a plan.”
“We have a plan,” said Deon. “We fix the aircon.”
“No,” she said. “A real plan. Like… if the product goes, and the financiers find out, and the authorities…”
“No authorities,” said everyone, far too quickly.
“– and there’s no more space on the wall for another unit,” she continued, “what do we do?”
They all went quiet. Outside, another unit sputtered into life for a brief, heroic moment… then died with a wheeze.
Rakesh stared at the wall on the screen. “We could… stack one on top of the York.”
“That’s ten metres up,” said Gavin.
“We get a ladder.”
“A LADDER?”
“A big ladder.”
Deon slowly stood up. “We are running a multi-million-rand operation,” he said, voice shaking, “and your solution is… a bigger ladder?”
Rakesh shrugged. “Or we could… leave?”
That landed.
Leave.
Walk away.
Abandon the warehouse, the wall, the humming relics of escalating bad decisions.
Cheryl nodded slowly. “We fake a power outage. Blame loadshedding.”
Gavin brightened. “Yes! That’s believable.”
Deon considered it. “And the product?”
Rakesh grimaced. “We… don’t mention the product.”
Another heavy clunk echoed through the building.
The York, in its final act of corporate betrayal, shut down completely.
The room fell into a thick, suffocating heat.
Deon loosened his tie-bandana. “Alright,” he said. “We’re done.”
“Done?” said Gavin.
“Done. Pack everything. We leave in one hour.”
“And the wall?” Cheryl asked.
Deon glanced at the CCTV feed one last time – the layers of machinery, the absurdity of it all.
“The wall,” he said, “is someone else’s problem now.”
They ran. All at once. At full speed. Directly into each other.
The impact sounded like a filing cabinet falling down a staircase.
“MOVE!”
“I AM MOVING!”
“YOU’RE MOVING INTO ME!”
Deon tried to squeeze through first, got stuck halfway, and began reversing while still insisting he was going forward.
Gavin attempted to go under him.
Rakesh tried to go over both of them.
Cheryl, somehow, ended up sideways in the doorway, wedged like a human placeholder.
“ONE AT A TIME!” someone yelled.
“WE DON’T HAVE TIME FOR ‘ONE AT A TIME’!”
“I CAN’T FEEL MY ARM!”
“THAT’S MY ARM!”
“THEN WHY CAN I FEEL IT?!”
Behind them, something in the building gave a concerning pop.
They all froze.
Then, in perfect unspoken agreement: They pushed harder. The doorway became a writhing, shouting knot of limbs, briefcases and extremely poor decision-making.
And then…
Like a cork from a shaken bottle…
They burst through.
All four of them spilled out onto the pavement in a heap, rolled apart, scrambled to their feet and immediately started running in four completely different directions.
No plan.
No co-ordination.
Just pure, unfiltered escape.
Back inside, the heat continued to rise.
Outside, the wall stood quietly, layered with history, bad choices and one very dead York unit.
And somewhere in the distance, faintly, you could almost hear Rakesh shouting:
“I STILL THINK WE COULD’VE FIT ONE MORE UNIT ON TOP!”
