By Ben Greenman
from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled
Returning to the workplace after a few days’ absence to find an open market in which employees had been secured body and soul by sharp-eyed dealers in reputation like Mrs. Keller and Mr. Lurie, Iris felt herself swept into a new disposition that murdered all her decency of thought. Keller had sought the loyalty of direct reports with what could only be understood as overt bribery, and Lurie had followed behind with a stick for those who had not lurched forward to take the carrot. Iris went home early, seeking not leisure but a clearer mind to consider the bargain by which the others in the office, many of whom she had formerly thought of as her friends, had agreed to dissolve their sense of self for the benefit of Keller and Lurie. She brewed herself a cup of coffee and sat on the stoop of her building, whistling, hoping the birds would whistle back with a solution to her plight, or at least advice on how to fly. Or did she want to fly? From an altitude, she would only see more evidence of misdeed. Keller had recently purchased a sports car. Lurie had bought a boat. A passerby later reported stopping to talk to Iris, hearing her phone ring, asking her if she meant to answer it, and describing the expression on her face as a cross between powerlessness and beatitude. “No,” she said, according to the passerby. “Not now or ever.” Her contemporaneous notes, consulted later, reveal that after speaking to the passerby, she went back inside to think about the week ahead, and what she would do instead of returnng to work, and how long her savings would sustain her, and then, as an afterthought, life’s pleasures.
No comments:
Post a Comment