3rd Party Fantasy

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#36 Like Rice to Seaguls

Evil Emperor Nick

on Feb. 20, 2006

I saw a tie today when I picked up my dinner for the local chinese resturant. It is a black one with oriental dragons on it. Upon seeing it my father told me "Only you would by a tie from a chinese resturant".

Rant

Monday

I sleep for three hours and rise again. The weekend is over, Monday hath cometh again. I am torn from the wide open world swallowed once again by the cube. I arrive early. My plan is to make a good impression. Around nine O’clock I learn my boss isn’t in today. My sleep has died in vain.

The weekend has obliterated my knowlege of the past. I pore over my notes trying to rediscover what I was working on. What is the meaning of labor? My notebook is a war journal. It details the conflict between myself and my co-workers. I server the Quality Control Coalition, or enemy is the Developers. Our conflict is epic and eternal, a dance mirrored in the universe. Each day they build and each day we try and tear down what they build. My side usually wins. The universe is harsh but fair.

Tuesday

I sit in the lab. They keep it cold. They tell me the computers like the cold. I do not. My numb fingers fly over they board entering data like a master pianist in a full concerto. My fingers are true, I don’t even look at the screen. As I work I am more of a machine then the computer in front of me. Then suddenly my fingers stop as a stray thought unbidden bursts into my head. A comic suddenly comes to life and flourishes in my mind, a subtly crafted yet deeply jovial tail ending with hilarity. Unable to repress my amusement at my own joke laughter wells up from within and bursts forth as I spin about laughing.

This is the moment my boss chooses to come visit me for the first time in two weeks. She would like to share my amusement. My joke involves a succubus. I mumble out a joke my brother told me, a joke about his major anthropology. My boss tells me to get back to work.

Wednesday

Time has no meaning here. The walls are all white. What is this place? How can three walls hold a man’s soul. I mark the days on the wall. My calender reminds me to smile. Madness is everywhere. The printers is filled with pages. None of them mine. I reach into the printer to vent my wrath and dominate the rouge equipment. The printer has a laser, I am quickly defeated. It claims the fingerprints on my right had as a sign of its victory.

I am in a meeting. How did I come to this place? Infinity stenches out before me. It is dark and terrible. The voices speak to me they want things. I draw a kitten in my note book. She is smiling at the sun. Unseen behind her a note on data set looms over her threatening to crush her under the force of its dates and number. The sun has a face with no noise, it smiles back.

Development eyes me warily from across the table. They know of my earlier defeat. They know I weak. No good shall come of this.

Thursday

After two days development has fixed the button that turned blue when you pressed it. They offer it up to management like a sacrifice to appease a dark god. I stand in their way. They want it approved. They think it works. I laugh at their child like naive notions.

I see past their illusions. I tear apart their offering reducing to naught but ash zeroes and ones. I fire off an E-mail with the flames of rejection attached like a dark angel casting lucifer into hell a second time. Management over rules me. I am cast back into the lab from which I came. I have fallen from grace.

I go to lunch. My only source of sustenance has been raided a lonely granola bar remains. It is a sad echo of all that was, all that could have been, now passed. The machine eat my money, enough to feed a family in some parts of the world, it vomits back a pop tart when it is stated. Mmm pop tarts. A make conversation with my coworkers, this is tart too. One informs us of his intense desire for the Olsen twins, or tarts. I am no longer hungry.

Friday

Wages are released. 1/3rd of them don’t make it to me. I will miss them, but we loose so many I have no time to morn their lost. I must think of the whole and get the survivor to safety. We go to lunch, not all of us come back. My body turns against me and to my horror does the unthinkable and trades wages for food. I try to scream in protest but me hand inserts a quesadilla silencing my protest. I realize to my horror that I am danger to my own wages.

I stop at the bank and part ways. It is sad but for the best. I lie to them. I tell them we’ll see each other again someday knowing the automatic deductions are coming, but telling them will do no good. Three hours later they are no more. They were good men, but the war goes on.

The work week closes, a calm sweeps over the land. The darkness sleeps, so do I. For now…..