Into the Whirlpool

I'm at work, but the layout of the cube farm is different. Karin and I are by ourselves in a corner of the room; our cubes are tiny, more like kiosks, and they fit chair, computer, and nothing else. In front of our cubes is the customer service section. I get an e-mail from one of them, a guy named Bryan something, and I walk over to his desk to help him with something computer-related. He and I have a friendly chat and I'm able to solve his problem.

I get back to my cube, dimly aware that there is normally no Bryan, in fact no males at all in the customer service department. Someone, maybe Karin, says quietly to me, "They're scared of you, you know." This takes me by complete surprise. Why would customer service be scared of me? I'm a nice guy. I wonder what they say to each other about me...?

(skip) I'm leaving for the night and Erika is with me. Somehow I find myself in the foyer of my grandmother's house; it's mostly dark but there's light coming from somewhere. A noose and body are hanging from the high ceiling. I can't make out any features except for long blond hair--like Erika, although I don't react to this and she doesn't seem to notice the similarity. I have kind of a dull shocked response to seeing the body. Erika looks up and just says "Oh. Well," like it's nothing strange at all. Despite this, we run down a hallway to find another coworker, Tami?, and tell her about the suicide. She starts repeating, "Oh God, oh God," but seems to have the same kind of dulled, dazed response I did.