Work Text:
One more touch and my head bursts into an infinite spectrum of the same idea. I’d rather that. I wish for a despair enough to break me.
Noble values serve to dirty the body, like a flower wilting. As duty piles on a stale desk, a novel births anew. These self-serving and illogical thoughts I bury as evidence of a certain crime. Spoken for, at last.
I took the responsibility of 9 to 7. Seven times a week. Fifty-two times a year. Half my life to a grinding machine–sustaining the other half by it. What is the worth of the other half, when I could not discern it from mulch off the road? Its value to me is a semblance to former faces.
(Bursting once more, hid these words from the listening ear)
White district, white house. Had no time to paint the colors. Basic and monochrome, at last.
Things taken quite literally, literature as scriptures to memorize and hang in an office. It is a shame that I could think… Literal literature is spoken for, without an indulgence.
Could the statues think? Yet only visages of the mouth and limbs exist. Movements are carved for. It is just like a potato waiting for harvest, thinking yet unliving.
Three books I read so far. One, for life. One, me. One, a proper one. Ones to zero, as I tuck it deep in the corner of my shelf.
Once a day, a light shone over me. Wake me up, kill me next.
(If it was me, I would sleep.)
As a consequence of my adulting, I had stopped wondering what to eat. Wandering while eating, that is the second best spirit aside from eating–forget eating, it would be better. No food nor time wasted, then return to work. I repeat this process twice a day, substituting breakfast for early hours.
It would be the only time I walk today. Stroll on empty-minded streets to arrive at a destination. Surface greetings and platitudes are necessary for societal conversation, about nonsensical weathers and days to start and end. Yesterday, I did it with words and a nod as done so.
I sat on a chair, in a box used by me. The desk had space for everything essential, computer and paper. There was no stationary holder, the sides suit enough.
There was a shredder right in my view. It was on a delicate table, on the precipice of falling. I never faced it and it never made a noise–had no one used it, after all this? I never. It was a relic, a former decency unaffordable to men; a vestigial of duty unnecessary.
There were 3 clocks I know of. Two broken and one digital, all courtesy of. One biological, two technological; none particularly matter. I recall the former clocks under disrepair, signalling the end. In school it was dear. Four clocks in total, one soon to come and one ended.
Heavy grey curtains hung upon the wall. They serve as a thick blockage of light, or particularly sunlight. It kept sunlight away and kept the luminescence and stale of bulbs in.
(There were times where I thought of moving the curtains, yet tomorrow, I will suffer from light in the morning. It was too heavy.)
Calendars were once important to me. They tell the future and keep the past intact. I memorized these days–I know the future too, along with the past once. I do not want a calendar anymore.
Listen. It is quiet at the office, never a voice if not the call of the boss. Ignore that–it is none of my business. Ears are unnecessary here, a deaf would be in silence eternally.
(A secret deaf does not need to listen to listless complaints or praise. That would be nice.)
For the statues masked as colleagues, I have no remarks. Their fingers surely move, lest they are gone. I am sure nothing else does, at least without purpose–effectively, they are statues to me.
(Or machines. I would rather not.)
Every single time, I engage with nothing. Occasionally, I thought of the office–they serve to bring me nothing. Impressions or not, they remain components of what this work entails. Ignore the work and its deep purpose and only look at what is literal. Time is no compatriot–a benefactor at most.
Even within the past encapsulated by the dust of gone-by, there was no true compatriot of mine. One who shared a thought, then swallowed alongside me. I wish not for one to meet me. Existing is enough.
(No more, no more. Forget it, forget.)
My little secrets hide among cracks. It is very pleasing hiding these unhurried thoughts. I forget soon enough with shame, then discover them in the same old spot. Put them back and swallow my memory. It is with a mild something that I lost a thought, give it back soon enough.
3 days of light burst through the curtains–the thick fibres immaterial to keep the lights out. It was as I opened the curtains. Not pleasing, an improper distraction to rute.
(3 days is such a short time.)
Those days pass, everything returning to a state of normalcy as so.
On a sudden day, there was music. It gave me an odd impression; something broken. It seems I am the only one who heard it, at least among the field of statue operatives. I soon tuned it out–it ended at once.
(Is that what I will be?)
Eventually, another light shone. It held promise, yet existed for three-and-a-half days. An impression formed during my thought.
(Light is an illusion, the natural state of all is darkness.)
What is in my head except dimming lights?
I swallow these thoughts that haunt me on both sides.
I had a thought; a genuine one. It was too bright to hide, or that a shame and sentiment in me was lost alongside the desire of one push. That loss, specifically of the wish for one ‘push’ to set me free… This loathing is too much–I seek respite among these thoughts. Yes, yes I had seen and known emotions and literature. It could be as done for, it could be.
It would be the greatest despair if it was so.
From one thought, an infinite spectrum of a singular desire arises.
My head burst.
Their heads burst too–by a single touch.