Office of the Big

This is the opening to a story of mine that Taddle Creek is publishing. I'm unsure as to whether I prefer "Big Office," or "Office of the Big." The location appears a few times in the story, a bit metaphysically and with some kind of Kakfa-parablesque overtones. What do you think? Which is better?


We were sitting in a waiting room
outside the Big Office. I’d
brought a copy of a jazz magazine to
read and it sat on my lap, unopened.
She was around my age, mid-twenties,
her dark hair tied back, her jeans and Tshirt
plain and nondescript. Did you
know that Chet Baker died by falling
out of a window? she asked. Imagine,
she said, the propped window, Chet’s
lank body draped sideways over the sill,
a leg hanging over the edge as he gazes
out at the Amsterdam street below.
He’s singing a tune in his sweet voice.
Maybe it’s “When I Fall in Love,” because
then he really did fall.