These days will soon be gone.
These days will soon be gone.
These days will soon be gone.
I am pretending to eat and repeating a contemplation to myself. A massive bowl of bland, watery, lukewarm oatmeal sits before me. It smells dreary. Around the large, heavy wooden table, The Others sit. They have been here for years—some born to it—in any event, too long to be useful now, the expiration dates visible in their drawn faces and mindless slurping. Unnamed, they stare vacantly into the abyss that is their day. Eating slowly, dead-eyed, until the ceramic bowl is empty. The Red Bowl Day is Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. We eat from The Green Bowl on Monday, but the Organizational Aides tell us they are Red. It’s a test. If anyone objects or asks a question counter to the Core Ideals, they are spirited off to The Compliance Office, and most are never seen again. Those souls are privileged. The Machine cannot abide curiosity or thinking differently. The Machine thrives on conformity, the quiet decay of the self, and determination eroded to dust. What does the machine eat while we eat oatmeal? I gaze around the table and hang my head.
The flies are thick today. Most of The Others don’t notice the winged rodents as they flit from forehead to hand to nose. Oatmeal must be eaten. Nothing distracts from that. As soon as the bowl is empty, another appears. Who makes the oatmeal? I push my oversized spoon through the thickening cement and wonder. It must be some sadistic prick, is all I can conclude. A company man, a box checker, a hoop jumper, a boot licker, ass kisser for sure.
EVERY DAY IS A DAY TO BE 1% BETTER.
I have no idea what that means; a bar set so low that earthworms ridicule its height. It is printed on the white short-sleeve shirts we are required to wear. On Friday, we are allowed long sleeves, but the statement remains. It must mean something to someone, I assume. Some faceless bureaucrat wrote it. Another approved it. More than likely, though, a committee approved it, I decide; oatmeal slingers like to travel in back-slapping packs, seen but hidden. Me, I am a loner, a committee of one.
Oatmeal. So much oatmeal. Mountains of the stuff. It’s hard to fathom. Is it farmed or mined? Does it matter? It has its effect, planned and otherwise.
We routinely shit like food-poisoned plow horses in a midday parade.
Another pitiable bastard cleans it up, I can only surmise because it’s gone in the morning, and our stalls have fresh hay, the muck someone else’s accountability. The trains must run on time!
I continue to sharpen the end of my spoon to a fine point on the metal hex screw on the table leg. No one notices. The air is chloroform for the wards and wardens most days, and on these days we are equals. I see it and I am relying on their blindness.
I am going over the wall next Monday.
On The Green Bowl Day.