Sunday, September 01, 2013

Maybe I'll go where I can see stars.

SAME WHERE ELSE PART ONE
| WRECK CREATION |
Episode Five


Rat-a-tat...Atom opens the door to a terse ...-tat.
The postman’s retreating back has left behind a rather surly looking bicycle from whose curvy handlebars hangs a large manila label addressed

To:
Adam Earham
From:
The Company Representative for Entertainment and Employee Pacification (C.R.E.E.P)
Leisure Satisfaction Dept
Message:
This Company Bicycle is registered to you only and is for personal use solely within the confines of Area Blue52

Please take care while utilising your
Company Bicycle and don’t forget to always act in accordance with the Company Universal Nurturing Tenets.

On the reverse side is printed the following legend:

Cycling is an easy way to maintain body and spirit and bolster the mental attitude necessary for peak performance in the workplace.

Atom finds the Company Bicycle is provided with a saddle bag packed recyclable foodstuffs and sachets of water.
After feeding the large manila label to the Disposal Unit, an act for which he is duly thanked, Atom dons his suit, sans tie, and hits the road.
“ouch” says the road as Atom falls off the Company bicycle.
“ouch”
“aich” says Atom
“ooch”
“Bloody hell, I thought they said this was easy”

Slowly but surely he learns to be less confrontational with life’s harder surfaces.

Donning his homemade and racing-striped balaclava against the cold evening air, Atom rides out into the empty suburbs, freewheeling between jewelled houses, passing shiny cars lined up as tokens of wealth. It appears to be a place where one man’s worth is measured in shutters and doorknobs against another man’s anally manicured grass and plastically perfect picket fence.
The balaclava itches in places he cannot scratch and scratches in places that do not itch.
The paranoid suburbs receive his inspection with deep suspicion and give no answer to his questions about the lives lived out behind those languid lace curtains and squinting venetian blinds.
Atom removes the balaclava lest he be mistaken for a burglar intent on robbing the invisible residents of their fragile dreams and sugar-coated aspirations.

See Mad Scientist’s Notebook (Entry No 1.2)

2 comments:

Harlequin said...

this is great...
I especially liked C.R.E.E.P.
I am somewhat inspired to see if I can create an acronym of same from my own workplace.... god knows there is enough material to work with.
great story and the bicycle image is perfect.

Garth said...

Yes! Sometimes you don't even have to make them up : I worked for a company called Transfield Worley, their Information Technology department didn't have a clue...

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