A SHORT STORY BY RACHEL LAREDNI
Watch them travel in metallic wombs, speeding along veins of the city weaving their way through metal and concrete into the heart of the grand Mecca of capitalism. Tidy men of smooth shaven faces absorbed in the lies of the city rag while women obsess over pages of consumerist hype enchanted by glossy layouts spelling out empty promises in fancy font.
Dreams of avocado facials voted flavour of the week and imported cologne by Christian Dior, handbags by Prada, Arden, Clinique, make-overs to look like Christy and Cindy. You could win a shirt worn by Gwyn or fragrances by Tommy, latest sensation of the American dream. So grab your Revlon lip gloss now in 10 shades of pink and you know you want it more than life itself and it has them manic sweating down their well powdered brows, running manicured hands through hair of Pantene's new and improved full-bodied shampoo, neatly styled to complement ironed skirts and synthetic emotions.
Watch workers alight and unite into steady streams as they pace to the beat of the system, headed towards their duty in society. Enter through rotating glass doors, walk across marble floors, identify forgotten faces with security passes and adjust non-prescription designer glasses. Hear them chatter idly in camera surveillance lifts, ascending scores of floors while speaking in riddles of monotone drone and corporate garble. Hollow dialogues of weather and weekend.
Attend to morning greetings and early meetings entailing initial exchanges of pleasantries for successful relationship management and potential new liaisons. See to the preservation of manufactured smiles and dynamic styles of corporate delight as they run rampant across the faces of ambitious new starters keen to be seen of leading edge quality.
They make themselves seated around a boardroom table of imported rosewood in modern swivel chairs to become immersed in ideas and illusions, with nothing to offer but their deceptive words, and somewhere amidst the madness, an eye slyly focuses to see that another eye is not looking. The unanimous decisions are announced by the man residing highest in the hierarchal structure and they applaud vigorously.
I held a sign before my face
That I painted with a smile
To conceal my ever growing disgrace
And management liked my style
Return to grey coloured desks of portfolio and paper and be seated until sundown to lose yourself amid the ambience of blank pastel walls and phoney plants pretending to grow on recycled air. Click your heels to the rhythm of the keyboard while typing words beneath corporate designed letterheads and know it's the signature of your soul.
Take 30-seconds' mind-siesta to gaze beyond tinted windows that never open and see the ever-emerging structures that dominate the city skyline, hued in different shades of grey blocking out mountains long forgotten.
When was the time I stood on top of a hill
As rivers weaved through the quilt of the earth and out to sea
And I danced to the sweet tunes in my soul
While all the animals roamed around free
I hum the melodies of those ancient tunes
Whisper words of the poetry that touches my heart
I think of the day when I may sing
But I must attend to the phones that ring
Listen to the women chatter across their desks of the latest Suzanne sale and squabble over lunch breaks eager to be first on the scene to grab their discounted items of merchandise. Weary and teary eyed, try to strike a conversation of literature and poetry in vain attempt to touch souls seemingly devoid of love, pain, remorse, creativity and hear them respond in recitals of line upon line of this month's edition of Cosmopolitan. Throw up upon your shoes and they swear you're pregnant. Politely excuse yourself from the office into the next phase of madness.
Lunch hour.
Ride the lift to level two, stopping at every floor from 19 to seven, and stroll into a plaza designed and located for everyone's convenience. Signs of food courts' flashing logos, scents of Asia, Italy, Mexico, India to create mass confusion of palatal desire as lunchtime herds propel forward in haste to grab their $5 slice of cultural cuisine. Taste the culture of five continents, all in your lunch hour.
Discover a solitary table amid the food counters decorated in discarded lettuce and random sauces. Two mouthfuls into it you find yourself donating your meal to some beggar near the exit sprawled across an artificial garden in a marble ledge.
Take a short stroll along city streets with no destination in mind and wind up at a central mall lost among crowds of confusion and noise. You wonder how you got to there and figure it might be a fine idea to upgrade to a collared shirt that's not dying at the seams because you are in no mood to be arguing with the systematic evolution of corporate dress code. But that idea is ruined by droves treading on each others heels to make lunch-time sales.
Promoters stand on podiums arranged in front of shop windows sporting suit and tie, enthusing, shrieking out sales pitches of the latest corporate generated fashions and the chaotic crowds lunge at their lunch-time bargains of designer labels, discounts, clearances that will never be seen again.
Turn your heels from the midday vultures and head back to the office. And they chatter eagerly over one another, comparing colourful shopping bags laden with clothes, perfume, shoes, jewellery, grimacing at those who got more and gloating over those less fortunate, moping, cheerful, and sad and happy as hell.
Fatigued and downtrodden, yearn to lay your aching head upon the desk and not be seen by pinhole cameras strategically placed inside the walls for the purpose of monitoring employee behaviour ... a necessity in relationship maintenance.
Study the corporate mission statement printed in large generic font shrewdly placed beside each row of desks: "Company Goal: To maintain a dynamic and upwardly mobile team that provides leading edge service to clientele."
Read those words until they become the inscription of your heart.
Once I typed words across the screen
That painted a picture of my heart
But they took away my words forever
They stole away my art
Look at the walls, look at the walls, blank pastel walls. When the clock tells five o'clock, there is no desire to stay nor leave. Devoid of passion, you rise from your seat. Walk out amongst black silhouettes headed towards trains, buses and other forms of metallic movement, to disappear to wherever it is they go, somewhere out into suburban density to rest by television sets and eat microwave dinners.
Head home to your hovel, lost somewhere in the vastness, as the falling sun goes unnoticed because your feet are weary and your soul feels raped by the money man. And you drown your mind in the poisons of the earth and the clock strikes 11 and you sleep and dream of nothing.