I have worked for this company almost 19 years.
For as long as I remember, these same coats have been hanging in the office hallway.
I do not know how long they may have been there before I joined.
For all I know, they may predate the company itself.
They may have hung there in space, inviolate and eternal, confounding and terrifying countless generations of people until local builders carefully constructed a building around them, planning the story heights with pinpoint precision and proper alignment with the stars so that the hand-carved closet pole would accommodate the strange garments.
Perhaps it was a temple at first, where holy men would perform rituals around them thrice daily, and people would throng to be allowed to see them on certain rare festival days. Perhaps some would find themselves healed of their crippling diseases after the briefest touch of a sleeve, and the holy men would just smile and light more incense.
Maybe the secrets were lost to time, and the building became storage or retail shops or housing. Maybe the timeless, unearthly coats were walled away behind wood and stone by frightened men.
Perhaps they were thought lost for centuries.
And when this company was formed, who’s to say that the coats were not waiting patiently for it?
These are the things I think, when I pass these coats in the hall. My imagination is a wild thing and I must let it run free sometimes lest it get bored and cause trouble. No harm done.
And yet, when I stop and listen, from beneath the folds I can hear, very faintly, the memory of chanting and the scent of burning sage.