Posted by Macheath on February 17, 2000 at 10:19:44:
The loudspeaker over our heads crackled to life as we went about our business, as it had the same time every day for the last three months:
A HARD WORKER IS A HAPPY WORKER. A DAY'S WORK FOR A DAY'S WAGE. A HARD WORKER IS A HAPPY WORKER.
The words rolled over me like a tide, washing all thought from my mind. So this is what the working world is like. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I groaned, fisting the small of my back until cracks sounded out across the kitchen like fireworks muffled by distance. Shifting the mop to what I felt was the angrier of my two hands, I set out across the tile floor with renewed vigor. They can make me work, but they can't make me like it. I lost myself in the rhythm of the mop, sweeping it back and forth across the swirling tan stones under my feet. Swish. Swish. Swish. Swish. Unaware of my position, I cleaned... or, rather, got the floor wet. Cleaning was for those who cared about their surroundings. I was here against my will. Swish. Swish. Swish. Swish. Suddenly, my mindless swishing met an end. I'd backed myself into a corner, wet floor all around me. With a hopeless gaze across the vast chamber, I sighed and cursed my luck. Passing workers looked my way and offered sympathy, but no help. As I considered my options, I examined the walls nearby. A large green vegetable was inexplicably stuck to the wall four feet away, at about eye level. Splattered substances unknown to me smelled faintly of tomato. And hairline fractures indicated a door I'd not noticed before now. I had to discover something of use and come to some sort of decision before someone with more status than the average worker noticed my predicament and docked this time from my pay. Little Susie's operation is this weekend, damn them. I need every cent. Pressing myself flat against the wall, I edged my way through the wet area of the room, carefully dragging the still-wet mop behind me to erase unwanted footprints. Inch by inch, I cleared the glistening portion of the floor, quickening my pace at every step to avoid being seen. Finally, I stepped free of the wall and onto dry land. Thank the gods. As if cued by that thought, the razor-thin cracks in the wall suddenly grew, and a section of the wall rushed into the dark unknown beyond... someone had opened the door I'd only just noticed. The shape which emerged from the ominous, black door was fuzzy at first, but as my eyes grew accustomed to the dimmer lighting on the other side of the portal, I could make out more and more. And wished that I could see less and less. It defied explanation, that figure. Seven feet tall and at least as many wide, it didn't even seem to be human. A snarling face which held two piggy eyes, a wide nose, and a mouth which had twisted itself into a rictus sneer turned toward me and bellowed something indecipherable. I may have understood it, had I not been entirely overtaken by the mere sight of this... man? Men don't grow that big. Men don't smell like that. Not on this world. A trolloc, then. The bellowing figure snapped its mouth shut and glared at me. A gnarled hand went to a chest the size of two barrels, and parted a shirt which looked as though it could serve as a lean-to for a family of four. Absently scratching at its chest, the trolloc shambled its way out into the kitchens... and slid wildly across the wet floor, flailing its arms and barely catching itself on the corner of a wall across the way from the door it had emerged from. Turning to pierce me once more with its gaze, its terrible anger pinned my feet to the floor in horror for a time, until finally--to my relief--it spun on its heel to leave. I turned to and grasped a worker who had just rounded that same corner and barely contained a scream, "Who was that?" Only then did I see that the worker was nearly as shaken by this strange figure's appearance as I. And yet, he had an answer where I'd found none. "That was Harry." The owner of this place? That... that vile thing? I turned to stare after Harry in wonder, releasing my grip on the worker, who hurried away. Satisfied that Harry had taken his leave, I inspected the wall from which he had emerged; the wall I'd not known to contain a door. Through the door, an office. In the center of that office, a desk. Behind that desk, a chair. A spectacle of a chair, a phenomenon of a chair... the most amazing chair I'd ever laid eyes on. To this day, I am convinced that any who see it are immediately seized by an undeniable desire to rest upon it, for certainly, I'd been so smitten. A chair like it I'd not seen before, nor have I since.
In the year that followed, I noticed this door ajar many more times. Harry's appearances came with greater and greater frequency, and I was startled by his grotesque and intimidating presence less and less each time. Many opportunities did I have to shed my mop and slip undetected into his office to try the chair for myself, and none did I allow to pass by untaken. A straight back high enough for me to rest my head upon, plush leather adorning its surface... the padding beneath felt like angels' wings, set by the gods in their place, to cushion my landing and make pleasant my stay... and make regretful the time that I must stand and leave them. Long, smooth, curved arms on which to rest my own. A handle beneath, shaped as though cast and formed to fit my hand, controlled the movement of three separate hydraulic pistons, and a giant spring joint provided resistance for rocking. Perfection.
And it belonged to Harry.
Oh, how I grew to hate that man. He and his smug commands, his ultimate authority. He and his motivational techniques, his instructional videos. He and his management meetings, his army of expensive trucks. He and his office chair. It would be mine, I vowed it. Every day, I spent a few minutes here and there pining calf-eyed over its gleaming ash-gray surfaces and pleasant contours. Dreaming of what a chair it would be to play Carrion Fields in. Planning exactly where to place my keyboard and mug, how I could put up my feet and loll back without a care in the world, watching the green text roll gently by. Plotting for the day that I might safely spirit it away from its place there in Harry's office... And then it was gone.
The door open, Harry missing, the office unoccupied. And the chair gone. Frantically, I searched the complex high and low. I left no corner unscoured, no mop unturned. Buckets and boxes flew as I feverishly clung to the hope that Harry had not done something so foolish as to throw the office chair away. Gradually, that hope faded.
Two years later, I found myself in the same hot kitchens. Not that I had ever truly left them. Pushing the same accursed mop around in front of me. Not that it had left my hand for a second in the days between this and that on which I was bereft of the office chair. Idly I wondered if the red stains on the wall were from the same tomato. Surely the green vegetable stuck to the wall was unchanged. Days flew by without the chair to distract me. Flew by in the long run, that is... each day individually seemed a year. Faces changed, my old co-workers had been discarded like week old bread and worse. Pay was decreased. Hours were increased. Free time and conversation were taken from us. Rules and doorways were added. Doorways, always more doorways... the shop seemed to expand without end. And without end I mourned the loss of the perfect mudding chair. Listlessly I drifted, the memory of the Carrion Fields chair fading to a painful pinprick against the vast vacuum of daily expenditure and loss. One doorway, in particular, was to have an impact on my life. On a day that nothing seemed out of the ordinary, Harry had called a meeting of managers--a fairly common thing. He paraded them, shivering and frightened, through the awful kitchens and into a new room at the back of the establishment. A room I'd never seen, a doorway I'd found neither the will nor the energy to explore. As I passed the opening with my mop, the bright lights beyond lured me toward them, promising a warm embrace. Several tables were pushed together in the bright light, and managers were seated all along their edges in an L-shape. Harry stood near the door with his back to me, screaming and ranting as normal--a quiet, friendly voice for his throat. Daring a boldness that usually did not trouble me, I pushed my head into the room, yearning for the light if nothing else. The areas we workers were confined to were dimly lit. Bathing in the ethereal flourescent glow, I closed my eyes and stretched lightly, silently, so as not to disturb Harry and call attention to myself. The cold light of the lamps above shone through my eyelids, a soft red luminescence to wash my bitterness away. When my eyes re-opened, my head had turned fully in one direction, and I found myself peering along one wall to a corner of the room. There, missing a leg and left to collect dust, was my CF chair. I barely managed to stifle a yell, and pulled my way free of the office before anyone could notice. There was no need to take a second look: that chair was etched firmly into my memory, its every line seared into my brain. The office chair could still be mine. When the managers were done, I could enter the room and steal my chair back from Harry, who somehow loved it so little. Perfection! I finished mopping, and left no spot on the floor. I dried a path for the managers to leave by, and kept the surrounding areas wet with superhuman effort. One can only mop so long. But finally, the managers began to file their way from the room. When Harry left last, he spared me one bemused flicker from a single eye, perhaps noting the effort I was putting forth to keep his floors clean, perhaps mocking me for what was to come. He closed the door behind him and stalked his way from the kitchens. I nearly fell over myself in my haste to reach the door, to reach my chair. Clutching at the shiny silver handle, I pushed and pulled and twisted with all my might at once... and found it to be locked, utterly and totally, possibly also warded magically to bar my passing. Long did I weep that day.
Months passed, years passed. I spent every day screaming silently at that door, the last bar to my path, the last hurdle before my goal, as laughably simple as it was impossible to overcome. More new faces came and went, but always my mop and I walked the same path, cleaning the same floor. As I passed the door in the back of the kitchens, the door I knew my chair to be beyond, I clawed pathetically at its gleaming white surface. I slapped and pulled at the handle with a growl and pounded the solid wood frame with my fists in impotent rage. My hatred for such a simple thing surprised me... how it could seethe and writhe beneath the surface of my outward calm. To keep a man from the perfect chair in which to mud is not a deed taken lightly. Harry could do nothing to redeem himself in my eyes, had he cared to try.