Slum Enterprise - Chapter 8
CHAPTER 8
Have you ever taken a shit in a corporate office bathroom? An entire routine, a sacred event that many young Americans will experience when starting a corporate career. It starts at the beginning, a brand new day, a cool September morning, the last passing of solid was at least 24 hours ago. Lee awakes in a nominal state, lingering dreams with loose wild thoughts chase away a sense of stability.
Seconds pass, the wind of consciousness tames the sub levels. The most common recurring thought that always puts fear into Lee, is the idea that one day, one hour, one minute, one second, ect. Lee will not be here anymore.
Entropy will formally disperse his mind and body without indifference. The laws of the universe was his god, buddha took a smoke outside the confines of his neurons in the morning. “I want to be cremated,” Lee thought. “I would not want to be trapped 6 ft under in a well built box, that would only slow nature and decomposition back into the earth. I want it to be reused somewhere else. I want to be spread back out into the atmosphere as smoke and plasma.”
The fear takes hold only for a split second. Lee snaps out of it like he usually does, it's all a part of the morning routine before a clanger of brown substance could be off loaded from the colon. He showers, gets dressed and does his bathroom face cleaning.
Annie and Penny lay in their respective beds and don't move. Lee goes over and kisses Annie goodbye and rustles the dog's head while saying “good dog.”
Saying goodbye to the woman and dog he loves is the saddest thing Lee does ever work day. A person and creature who wants to see his return, but Lee's responsibilities will pull him away until late into the evening, only to try and catch up on the day's events, cook, tidy up the house, and get ready for bed to do it all over again.
Downstairs, Lee stares at the drip of coffee falling into the pot, it's quiet and lonely. This was the first step, kick starting the colon to start moving mass. Coffee would lubricate the intestine and allow for obstructions to be cleared. It would arouse the body into action, a cleanser formula. Before Lee left for work he would slam a 12 oz cup. He poured another 25oz in his travel mug.
Lee exits his little home and drives the 5 minutes to work. Many coffee sips were taken between the trip from the street curb to the tar parking lot. By the time he reached his cubical, 25 oz was now 15. Lee always drank fast, probably due to the fact he had to compete for food and drinks with his brother and sister when he was child.
Lee types his credentials on the cheap company sanctioned keyboard to log into his computer and begins the day.
“Say Lee, how ya doing?” Joe Fischer said, he snuck up from behind. “Did you see that message from so and so? It looks like so and so is looking for a response by noon. If you can't get to this no worries, I will gladly drop what I'm doing and support this effort as a delay will be detrimental to their project. The manufacturing lines would stall and the product wouldn't be able to sell. Lee, I hope you understand, for both of our interests, it's best to have that formal response sent back by noon.”
Lee just sat and nodded while Joe talked to the back of his head and started to type away.