You have no wish to speak with him, but he waits and worries you and whittles at your options. You're just a bunch of working stiffs here, whose fates are a minor concern. The aneurysmal subtlety of creeping damage in the melting pot of abuse and self-abuse and useless predilections guides you and hides you in the quarrels of your comrades, and the hand-me-down hand you've been dealt is the deal of a lifetime - the only deal you get.

So who is this ramrod who grates you like this? They pay you here to work, you suppose. Who's jerking you around with bar-room logic, block-headed beast-think, a shrill shrieking geometry culled from axioms too bloody by far? Cinder block and steel beam and unrelenting right angles, relieved only by the desiccated husks of wasps and crickets, frame your wishes and your panic.

 

© Ragnar Kvaran 2003