Allied prosthetic arm on one shoulder, and an unshaven back on the other, Liaz set out into the forest of the supply closet, ready to do battle with the dust motes that might thrust their bodies down his gut by way of his choking throat. It being a Wednesday, chances were high.
High too were the chances of slitting his toes through the cullet. The broken brush of what to do when the recycling centre no longer accepts glass to churn back into the community. The bins were turning back bottles, jars and all sorts of glassware. Accepting only the richest of the blandest paper and cardboard refuse.
A mine in the supply closet. All the fax paper and windowless envelopes to stock the South East Asia division of the company. Heady times they were, but the gloss would never fade.
Too long in the room and in the shuffle of the long ream paper cuts, Liaz's feet now the look of kibes, shedding blood as much as winces. Huffing off a blanket of dust, a copy of the Popol Vuh with ratty deckled edges. Third edition, the one with the printing error that looks like naked ambition. Secrets and outlines for the creation story, or a story of foundations and starting something new. Who knows, it's all hollow inside, carved out to house a book from Gulliver's Travels.
That bar is a ratty nest of dank and despair. Fitting, but no place to store books that you want to read on the toilet.
Wrapping the feet in bundles of fax paper, it was back up to the eleventh floor, propping the door closed with the arm, and down for the afternoon respite in squatting.
Liaz turns the page and starts the book anew. A sneeze starts.
Written on Thursday, 20 August 2015