”I have no faith in human perfectibility.
Man is now only more active — not more happy — nor more
wise,
Than he was 6000 years ago.”
— Edgar Allan Poe, letter to James
Russell Lowell, 1844
You call this work?! This place is Hell with fluorescent lights! The drab walls only restrict the storm brewing outside!
The screen before me is alive, that bastard with one big-assed eye that leers at me all day. I stare into its look, my head throbs, my eyes budge, quiver and pulse in the glow. The agony in my skull builds up behind the optic portals to the universe becoming a storm. I want to burst, want to break, want to trash the barrier of thin mucus holding it all in check and run! It is as if something dire has broken loose in my mind. Would could blame my simple brain? THIS IS HELL!
My hands steady my body on the desk, trying not to weave. I don’t want them to see me weak, don’t want them to see me shake, and don’t want not to conform...
But it hurts... and that pain is not right. I did a terrible thing when they asked me about any changes when I got my new prescriptions... no changes, I said... everything is just as it was. I lied.
The water is full of fluoride making me a zombie. My soul is muted by the liquids they feed me... the same things the Nazis and Russians used on prisoners to make them docile they give us workers to make us compliant, make us pansies, make us sheep grazing on the shores of this Hell.
The food is bland and made of soybeans laced with pesticides coaxing cancer from my cells. There is no meat for they would dare not kill an animal and take this soulless existence away — yet they will experiment on babies to make their faces stop shaking from a brain disease. Why doesn’t anyone else see that this is wrong? They are that repressed? Am I the only one awake from the treatment?
The lights overhead pulse and throb, hypnotizing us all as we trudge in and out, same time different day... all eating drinking and defecating on schedule.
There are no windows and the only light we see is what they desire to be so.
This place is built to kill me.
They make the men repress their primal urges. I can’t look at a woman and desire her, but I cannot forget her — THE ONE I SAW! Tall, pale and auburn of hair... eyes like emeralds, skin soft, so plain, yet sweet... not like the robotic fools that populate upper management. This goddess was not one who takes orders.
My fantasy will never assemble, for she will never know me, hold me, show me her number, make me her partner, exchange fluids... so all I have is to create this dynamic of fluffy fantastic light... to make a dream be mine as often as I can, have her quell the storm.
I haven’t dreamt like this since I was a baby. They demand creative solutions in this cubicle cell, yet repress creativity. My mind is free at last.
I CANT ERASE HER FROM MY MIND!
I work my figures, I add things up. I drop digits in. It all spins and comes back. We are to focus and execute our programs. We are not to deviate and if one fails, it is all on us — the dead limb is sliced off.
The dull walls are drab, not colourful, not like her. They do not want us over stimulated. We are rats in a trap unable to know there is life elsewhere. We are not even human beings to them who watch. We are pieces they mix around and mash at their will.
But I cannot remove that image from my mind...
In all this frozen realm of cavernous banality, she shone through even if it is in my seething skull. There is a feeling amongst this mechanism of control enforced on all of us emanating from her memory...
It is warmth. It is you. It is love.
Cannot take her from me. NEVERNEVERNEVER.
After I am gone, after I fail, after I am thrown on the fire, how will they recall me?
THEY WILL NOT
I am a number and no names are necessary. There is no happiness, no warmth no prayers, no goodness, only regimental insanity, one two three... add it all up... numbers numbers... add them up make a solution... add them wrong, make a problem... add them up... create a purpose for us... erase them all... cast them aside...
I won’t remove her from my mind....
Thudding repetition, callous hatred, disrespect funnels down and drowns my mind.
I stare at the wall, knowing there is light beyond the grey surface. I stare at it knowing they refuse to let in the sun, let in the light to show us there is no life outside but this one.
But I know better — the pills are gone and my mind is alive...
I CANNOT ERASE HER FROM MY MIND!!!!
Goddess of light and warmth, carrier of divine love for me, take me in your arms and caress me, make the pain go away. Make the hatred stop... make the bad people die... crucify them on the walls that keep out the light. Big nails, that’s it — BIG NAILS! Let the holes driven to insure their demise bring light until us all. Line them up. Knock them down. Die for our happiness... let the storm go, LET IT BREAK LOOSE!
Deliver me from evil in this hour of death...
* * *
Looking down at the papers the effeminate man clad in a pink shirt and tan pants read the lines. His eyelids fluttered. “Goodness!” his high voice snapped. “How long has he been like this?”
A harsh woman at the door soothed back her bleach-blonde hair and replied, “Most of the day, but he has been deviating from the program for some time. This is all he types.”
”Goodness!” the simpering voice lilted. “I think we can do without this kind of person, can’t we?”
”He has been here for 25 years.”
”Goodness! Then he should know better! Bring me my inspirational shake and my candy hearts! And get rid of that pathetic thing out there. It stresses me terribly! Now, why on Earth has production been down?”
THE END?
Copyright © 2003 by Steven L. Shrewsbury