Part Siks

I started working for my summer job. It’s hell. It’s Dante’s Inferno come true. It’s life without sunshine and eternal damnation in a freshly air-cooled office space. Time does not exist in this place, every second is expanded and separated into neat little groups of sub-seconds, you have to file these sub-seconds in alphabetical order, then forget where you put the file, file them again, wait for approval of filing, and pray you can advance to the next second. In most cases, you’ll have to do your sub-seconds all over again.

I have been working two days, and I feel like I’ve aged twenty years. Imagine me sitting in my veal-fattening pen staring at a computer screen with tiny tiny little numbers on them so I have to squint the entire time, and drinking coffee non-stop just to keep myself from falling in a permanent comatose condition. Occasionally, there’s a mindless and brief conversation with a plastic.

‘Hey.’
‘Good morning.’
‘Sleep well?’
‘Are you kidding me?’
‘You should try herbal tea.’

And that’s it. I so often feel like stabbing a pencil in my eye that I actually see myself doing just that. Early this morning, I posted an anonymous message on the company’s forum. ‘You have a choice. Live or die. Every breath is a choice. Every minute is a choice. To be or not to be.’ So far, I’ve had no reactions. I saw my neighbouring cow look suspiciously at her screen though. Who am I kidding, she always looks suspiciously at her screen. She must be suffering from chryptotechnophobia. I read about it. It’s the upcoming trendy neurotic syndrome. Must have!

Actually, I’m getting pretty good at conversational slumming. At lunchtime I had a satisfying encounter with barbie nr. 7.

‘See Lyn today?’
‘Yeah, she looks perky this early in the morning.’
‘She even smiled.’
‘She must be on coke.’
‘Definitely.’
‘Coffee?’
‘Yes please.’

Twenty-six days to go.

Before I cast this into the blogosphere, I’ll tell you what I have seen written on the bathroom wall in the office: ‘I’m dead. Really dead. I’ve been literally dead for six days and nobody noticed.’ Scary stuff, isn’t it?