Jared Diamond Books

Sarah had been at WindoSolutions Labs for a few weeks now, and her job had taken a leap from routine to downright fantastical. Her new assignment was testing the portal glass. At first, it was an adrenaline-inducing ride that felt like a child’s dream come true – stepping into one piece of glass and magically appearing from another.

They used different rooms, each laden with an assortment of glass that would have made other businesses offering decorative glass installation for Melbourne offices jealous. The spaces felt like mazes, filled with a dizzying array of coloured glass, frosted partitions and mirrored surfaces. The sheer aesthetics of the spaces were mind-boggling. Every room held its distinct charm and character, which only added to the complexity of her task.

Sarah quickly learned that she needed to pay close attention to the type and tint of the glass she was using. The Labs used a plethora of tinted glass in their setups, each serving a unique function. The blue ones cooled the room, green ones reduced glare, and the yellow ones enhanced the room’s natural light. Knowing which piece of glass led where and how each tint impacted her journey became critical to her task.

But the seemingly innocent exercise grew more perilous. The glass maze became more intricate, and the locations of the entry and exit glasses more unpredictable. Each round was a test of her wit and agility, a challenge she accepted head-on. She needed to pay attention to not just the glass installations, but also the colour applied to them by the best business for commercial glass tinting services in the Melbourne CBD.

One particular day, Sarah misjudged a tinted window and landed smack in the middle of a corporate board meeting in a building several blocks away. Another time, she ended up in a bustling kitchen during peak lunch hour. The unpredictable teleportations made her task challenging and fraught with potential danger.

Despite the risks, Sarah’s determination did not waver. The thrill of the unknown, the ever-present danger, and the satisfaction of overcoming the odds kept her going. Her life had turned into an extraordinary adventure, and despite the growing danger, she was not ready to back down.

I cried out as the first tremor shook the building, joined in a chorus of surprised and frightened voices. The lights flickered above us, the gaudy hotel chandelier swinging with a sudden and unexplained momentum.

Earthquake, the crowd began to whisper to itself, and I felt the unmistakable psychic energy of a hundred people trying to remember if doorways or tables were the best place to be when the earth tried to buck you off like so many parasites.

‘Be calm, be calm,’ the hotel manager’s voice rang out across the lobby. ‘Just a slight shake, nothing to be concerned ab—’

A second, more violent rumble echoed through the ground and up into our feet. I clung to a staircase, alongside a man whose luggage proclaimed he’d just been to Melbourne – glass balustrades were a bad thing to cling to, we quickly realised, letting go in a distinct hurry.

‘Okay,’ came the hotel manager’s voice once more, slightly more wobbly than it had been moments previously. ‘As you can see, the structure is more than stable, and it’s highly unlikely that we’ll experience another—’

A huge, violent lurch ripped through the planet. For more than a minute, the entire world became the worst roller coaster ride imaginable, as busts and plasterwork fell to the ground and crumbled into the carpet.

Eventually – mercifully – the movement stopped. The world returned to its calm facade; I knew I would never trust it to stay solid beneath me again.

‘Well then,’ the manager began to speak. ‘As you can see—’

‘Shut up!’ a voice from the crowd screamed at him. ‘You’re jinxing us!’

‘Yeah!’ roared the crowd.

‘I want my deposit back!’ a lady in a leather jacket roared at the poor man.

‘I hope you know someone in Melbourne to do affordable glass replacement,’ another man cackled.

I simply shrugged my coat back onto my shoulders, brushing off the light cloud of dust that had settled over me. Picking up my suitcase, I made my way for the exit and out onto the blissful, open street.

And that’s how I got out of paying for my hotel.