Cubicle: Tales from the Workfront

Wed, 13 Sep 2006 20:47:09 GMT

Work, like suffering, is the great equalizer and a thing that bonds us all. These are my stories.

THE CATERPILLAR AND THE SUV

On my breaks I enjoy circling around my building and taking in some sun. The parking lot completely encompasses my building, providing a nice little black top track. One hot day, around the back, where the parking lot isn’t as wide, something moving on the ground caught my eye. I bent down and noticed a caterpillar inching its way across the undoubtedly hot asphalt. It squirmed into my shadow and moved on to the curb. Looking over to where it must have come from, I marvelled at how far it traveled; a lone nomad in a Sahara of black sand and white stripes. Now, only a wall 15 times the caterpillar’s size stood between it and the freedom of the grass.

It craned its segmented body up and began to scale the curb, but the firetruck red paint that told people not to park there negated the catapiller’s natural adhesive and it fell down onto its side, time and time again. At length, it gave up and wormed over to me, looking for help. I shot a glance at the grass and saw all manner of bugs and creepy-crawlies in its dark recesses.

“Do you really want to be in there?” I asked.

The caterpillar craned most of its body onto my steel, square toed boots and looked at me. I had half a mind to pinch it between my fingers and carry him over the curb. Then ECN’s words echoed through my head. He once recounted a news story he read about a man who attempted to stop a rape in progress. The man was stabbed, survived the cut, but died from complications of the rust on the knife. Then I took into account that I was at work and ECN once said to me, “Never treat anyone at work like a human being.” Did that include caterpillars? Could this be a poisonous caterpillar or might it be carrying a rare form of flesh eating bacteria? Why should I risk these possibilities just to do a good deed for a bug that probably doesn’t have the brain capacity to appreciate it?

Realizing that the risk was too much for too little gain, I stood up, shook the caterpillar off my boot and walked on. The caterpillar did the same. A few seconds later, the unmistakeable sound of a monstrous SUV approached from behind. It swerved close to me so that it could fit its gigantic proportions between two other SUVs without clipping a bumper when it turned into the parking space. At that point, I knew–based on where the caterpillar was when I left it, how close the ginormous Escalade was to me, and the sudden stuffiness of a tiny soul floating in the air–the caterpillar was dead.

I walked back to the caterpillar and found its squashed remains in a small stain of green and blue ichor and I at once felt very sad. I could have done something to have prevented the outcome. I chose not to out of fear and insecurity. It suffered, albeit briefly, and died unnecessarily due to my inaction. My decision had such rapid consequences, it frightened me. The caterpillar didn’t die hours later, when the blame could be stretched over several variables. No, it was me and then death. I began to sink into depression, questioning my validity as a human being, but then I realized it was just a fucking caterpillar and had a cigarette as I walked away.Read the rest of this blog entry here.

Writing in the Dark: Work

Cubicle: Tales from the Workfront