Prose - : - On the job by Ciprian Begu

Poetry (0.030s) Poetry, prose, essays, comments, poems - International Culture and Literature

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On the job :: The sparrow should never land where tigers roam (Chinese proverb)

On the job
prose [ ]
The sparrow should never land where tigers roam (Chinese proverb)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
by Ciprian Begu [un atman]

2006-03-07 | |

“He exited the call center hall. Inside, cemented on the easy chairs, the full-timers were taking calls. Inbound…Outbound...They were all over the city. Providing people with crucial information about this and that, such and such..It was only about noontime. Passing by the plastic windows overseeing the large hall C suddenly felt pity for those poor bastards. They still had quite a lot of work to do until liberation into the frosty air of the evening. They all delivered quite a round of PR-smiles per minute with hard to believe jaw dexterity.

Monkeys in a cage. No…Monkeys are happy. And they really smile.

The lunch break was a gulp of coffee-infested air, mixed with microwaved conversations. The colleagues were nice. Too nice. Nobody is that nice. Maybe it was a lunchbreak thing. Putting people to spend their free hour together into a corporate lunchroom can stir things quite to the boiling point of nicedome. Everybody is so nervously relieved that they’d even laugh. For real.

C was visualizing the building he was in with no particular effort. After all, it was an elongated box with people in it. Stirring about with a lot of important tasks to complete. The plastic cave was so ergonomically sealed that no impurities from the outside world would enter. Not even a single molecule of conversation from the passers-by, in their way to their own food-providing plastic rectangle. Completely sealed. It was really impressive. And in the same time really scary. What if the air-conditioners failed all at once and people wouldn’t notice until it would be too late? Then, they will suffocate to death with PR-smiles on their faces. This wouldn’t be at all a good thing for the overall image of the company. You can’t just die out on people that need information from you.

As C’s imaginary carriage was trampling on the false ceiling of his thoughts, carrying all sorts of possibilities, one more gruesome than the other, Delia, a midaged executive in the call-center pulled in as if she had stoped at an intersection and the lights were about to turn green.
“Mr. C…”
“-“
“Mr. C, the break is almost over”
“O Really. Hadn’t noticed. So quickly, huh?”
“Yeah. Okay, have a nice day then”, she honked, and skidded away with her glasses lighting the street to her nice, private, garaggy office.
“Get laid, you bitch !”, C whispered and immediately he caught himself.
Dragging his will by an imaginary chain, C headed for the monkey cage with disgusted motivation. Why am I doing this, he suddenly asked himself? Yeah, right. As if he didn’t always know.

Back in the call-room, C put his single headphone headset on. It’s not even stereo. These cheap bastards. He logged in to the dial phone punching in all his private codes and passwords. Privacy, his ass.
And in he was. The computer screen flashed on like the sun was rising from inside the monitor.”

But he woke up…And the sun was spotting him into his material existence from behind the see-sawing horizon made of snow-capped Himalayan rock.

The hermit reached for his walking stick and helped himself on his feet. He shrugged his almost naked body covered with ashes:

“What a nightmare!”.

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Poetry (0.030s) Poetry, prose, essays, comments, poems - International Culture and Literature

Poetry (0.033s) Poetry, prose, essays, comments, poems - International Culture and Literature