Light no longer escapes this place, not since the rumours started at any rate. At the first sign of closed door meetings, newly-minted anhedonics crept out their cubicles and were seen walking down the corridors leaning on them for support, looking about with the eyes of fish left out in the sun too long.
At first the disappearances made sense: the cretin was the first to go – and she was a cretin, talking to the machines in tiny bird voices; the fat man was the second to go, but our first thought was, Oh, well. At least they didn’t take the wet floor sign.
After that, however, the ruling class lost its mind. They were out of control. Disappearances, which were once subtle and telegraphed well in advance, became the norm, and the decisions were handled ancient Athens-style: names scratched into shards of clay.
This is where we are now, we lucky few that remain, looking around at each other with dead fish eyes trying to convince ourselves that we are newels, that we keep the building standing. We truly are the Devil’s nine-to-fivers.
Written on Tuesday, 5 February 2013