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 sublevels. The most common recurring thought that always puts fear into Lee is the idea that one day, one hour, one minute, one second, etc. Lee will not be here anymore.
Entropy will formally disperse his mind and body without indifference. The laws of the universe were 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 offloaded from the colon. He showers, gets dressed, and does his bathroom face cleaning.
Annie and Penny lie 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 every workday. 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 25 oz. into 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 cubicle, 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 a child.
Lee types his credentials on the cheap, company-sanctioned keyboard to log into his computer and begins the day.
“Say, Lee, how are you 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.