Oh, Work!

Penned on scraps of guest checks in the back of a miserable Lansing diner, Work! is an ode to the essential, a condemnation of the little tyrants of business (both big and small), and a reminder that our true value lies somewhere beyond the all-too-meager compensation they provide us for our time.

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iii. Future Perfect

Yes, it is a work day, but then, most days were. The implicit threats in their suggestions were growing darker as the situation grew more dire and the little line was showing signs of slowing down. ‘We’re hiring faces!’, disembodied, and not just the friendly ones. ‘Seeking help!’, they would claim, as they laid their little snares for those desperate enough to listen. These teeming entities roamed the landscape in those days; roiled and oozing, they would make their way by saturating the path in and sliding along on the slick, colorless substance they were constantly secreting. You really couldn’t feel one approaching until it was too late. But the signs were everywhere, every surface wet to the touch.

And you could, of course, still smell them from a mile away.

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Grim faced and none too eager, OUR TOURIST checks the time. Twelve minutes til the hour. The old transport shudders on the uneven terrain, kicking up gravel and dust as it makes its way downtown, where the jagged skyline glowers down at us and the thin and sickly-white sky behind crosses its arms disapprovingly. The stops count down: 3, 2, 1. Hydraulic doors fling open and a decisive step is taken. One small step but one giant leap into the fray. Yes, the first, and sometimes the only thing you notice downtown is the smell, the putrid smell as our feet slip and their fresh bullshit rains down upon us like molten slag from a pre-OSHA foundry. All calm on the outside, but just beyond our sight the components were being pasted together with wet spit and hate. No respite, no escape.

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I guess the expectation was that it would then be scooped up with both hands and swallowed by the broke(n) and the lonely and the bored, those defined by their function and who have let their function be defined. Some might have recognized what they might feel is the necessity of playing along, or maybe they thought of it that way at one point, but even dissent is not cracked down on like it used to be. No, maybe because we really pose no real threat to these monstrosities, or maybe because this operation relies on our dissatisfaction and misery, or because we are so wholly undervalued that even the moments of work we do give them amidst a lifetime of indignant foot-dragging are enough to keep this machine running. Were the constant interruptions and changes to routines all a cruel plot to keep us tired and turning away from the truth?

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The distinctive feeling of being in on a secret is less appealing when this secret is something terrible, a whole meaningless mess that ceaselessly gnaws at the back of our mind. NOW, as OUR TOURIST enters the bistro, the foundry, the salon, the office, the market, to a background of searing heat and virtual horror, and just as the name tag is about to pierce skin and and soul and self, we are presented with a CHOICE. Moments left before our shift begins, all eyes on us. We will:

Sigh and consummate our relationship with this great writhing ultra-dimensional mass and allow it to take our body and our name and wear our friendly face to sell and be sold and give value and return and thanks for whatever meager allotments they may reluctantly give us to live and work another day. Powerless and unplugged, we operate. The bell chimes, the ticket prints, the manager looms, and that smell persists.

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Or:

Slip their grasp and run, taking with us whoever we can. It was a work day, yes, but then, most days probably needed to be for NOW. There’s a lot of work to do here in the ruins, new dreams to have, relationships to build, there are those things that’ll need killing too, and yeah, we should probably do something about the smell. But, first thing’s first..

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