Five People in an Empty Room

It was quite lamentable that they should all find themselves in such a predicament.  How in the world did five capable adults end up locked in the attic stockroom above the department store?  Someone obviously let the door close, locking them inside.  No one was taking the blame for it.  And no one had any ideas on how to get out.
         “Yes, well, we will simply have to wait for someone from downstairs to come up and extricate us”, said Frank in his usual dry monotone.
         “And just how long do you think that will take, pray tell?” quipped Bianca, not even attempting to hide her annoyance.  Bianca found Frank to be especially boring, not that she found any of the other three individuals any more interesting.  It was just that Frank was especially vexing to her.
         “It seems like we’ve been up here a long time.  Maybe they’ll never come for us” said Chester, while straightening his bowtie and adjusting his thick, black-rimed glasses.
         “Well, cheer up gang.  We could be stuck in worse places” intoned Lisa, who was perpetually perky and filled with eternal optimism.  Her sunny disposition clashed sharply against Bianca’s petulance, Frank’s lethargy, and Chester’s timidity.
         “What’s done is done.  There is no point in snapping at each other.  Let’s just make the best of it and quit grumbling” said Grant in his usual assertive, yet diplomatic, way. 
         Bianca snorted her resentment while Lisa smiled coyly at Grant.
         For a while the five sat quietly in a semicircle listening for the sound of footfalls upon the hallway stairs that led up to the stockroom.          
When no sound stirred, Frank was the first to break the awkward silence.
         “Isn’t it strange that we should all be gathered here together?”
         “How so?” asked Chester warily, expecting something foreboding in the question.
         Frank merely shrugged his shoulders and replied, “I don’t know.  It just seems so unusual that five people who are so different from one another should all find themselves thrust together like this”
         “Everybody’s gotta be somewhere, dear” sighed Bianca, “I just wish it had been somewhere with a wet bar”
         “This is so depressing.  We’ll never get out of here”, Chester whined.
         “Hey, I know what’ll cheer us up-and help pass the time!” Lisa suddenly intoned, “Let’s play a game!”
         “Oh, for Pete’s sake!  What is this kindergarten?” Bianca moaned with a roll of her heavily made-up eyes.
         With a clap of her hands, Lisa laid out the rules of the game, “We’ll all take turns telling a little something about ourselves.  Okay, Frank, you go first”
         Frank beamed at the prospect of having his very own spotlight among a captive audience.  But before he could respond, Bianca spoke sharply out of turn, “If you start with that windbag, none of us will ever get a turn”
         “Now, Bianca” Lisa chided softly, “Everyone will get a turn.  Go ahead, Frank”
         Frank cleared his throat as if about to give a lengthy speech to a gathering of influential ambassadors and then began, “I would just like to say, as senior member of our little gathering, when we are at last freed from this place, I shall gladly buy you all a drink at that wet bar to which Bianca previously referred.  For my detainment here has left me quite parched”
         “Oh, Frank, you’re such a kind and generous soul!” admired Lisa.
         Frank accepted her accolades with a formal bow and sweep of his arm.
         “You’re next Chester” she then said.
         Chester blushed when he realized that all eyes were fixed upon him.
         “Well…I don’t really have anything to…say” replied Chester, fixing his bespectacled gaze upon the floor as he spoke.
         “Oh, the poor little shrinking violet-he’s turning all red in the face” taunted Bianca mockingly.
         Lisa ignored her comment and tried to offer words of encouragement, “Sure you do, Chester!  Everybody has a story in them.  Now what’s yours?”
         “I guess I just want out of here.  I just want to go home…a place where I belong…a place where someone I love, loves me” Chester said the final words very low, in a whispered tone.
         “I think we all want that, Chester” Lisa said smiling at him.
         “What more could any human being want?” added Grant, who had been listening quietly to the remarks, “But sometimes you don’t have to look far to find that special person”
         As he spoke the final words, his eyes met Lisa’s.  For a moment something unspoken lingered in the air between them.  There was a brief, magical silence in the room.
         The romantic hush that had overtaken the room was quickly shattered by Bianca’s vitriol.
         “Oh get a room, you two!” she hissed, “I really don’t know how much more of this I can take!  A windbag, a wimp, and two silly-hearts.  I don’t soon get-“
         Bianca was suddenly shushed by Grant who had raised a finger to his pursed lips.  Bianca was incensed by having been silenced.  She started to lay into him but good, but stopped when Grant pointed excitedly towards the door.
         Everyone listened intently to the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs toward the attic stockroom.  Closer and closer they came.  Then there was a jingling of keys and the doorknob turned…

         Marianne, the receiving clerk, nearly screamed when she first saw the five sets of eyes staring at her.  She knew they were there, yet always forgot about them until she was upon them.  She put her hand to her pounding heart, and let out a relieved breath.
         It was the same five mannequins that had always been there since she could remember.  And yet, they always caught her off guard.
         After laughing a nervous little laugh, she went back to duty of finding D-5 double F label paper.  Clara, the cashier, told her she had seen some up here some time ago in aisle 4.  Marianne made a wide berth around the shop dummies and searched aisle 4 for the coveted label paper.
         After a brief perusal of the dusty shelves, Marianne concluded that there was no D-5 Double F available.  She knocked the dust from her hands and clerks smock, and then departed through the door that she had come through.  Her last duty was to lock the attic stockroom door behind her.

         “Well, overlooked again” said Chester dolefully, “We’ll never get out of here”
         The others hung their heads in tacit agreement.
         “Hey, now don’t be so glum” Lisa exclaimed, “I know, let’s play a game!”