type 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
It’s the eight
o’clock buzzer. A signal we must begin.
Roll out of
bed, stretch a leg, pull out your pecker and piss out a half liter plus, while
anchor-boy on the radio brings news of a coup d’état, somewhere, East. But not
to worry. No declarations of war; Ukraine gas will flare up under your
fancy little Italian percolator as per spec.
We
proceed.
Your
apartment block stands on a thick layer of alluvial silts and two dozen piles driven
down to a sand layer thirty meters deep; below that is rock; below that, magma;
below that, a core that is not understood. Likewise, above your head, in the
ionosphere, shapes, oblong and luminescent, hum in circles at near the speed of
light; also not understood. Forty years from now you will understand both, suddenly,
in a single, illuminating flash. But your words will be taken as the
ravings of a senile old man. A cocky upstart who calls himself your son will pat
you on the head and give directions to staff on how to handle you when you get “agitated” like this.
But for now,
you are the cocky upstart, sitting at a cool
Bakelite-top kitchen table, in shorts and Havaianas, satisfied with the general
state affairs: the sleeping damsel in the room adjacent, the night of
pleasure-making, the home-ground Arabica and that pricey little gem around your
wrist that tells you exactly how long before you must squeeze yourself, with a
hundred like-minded souls, into an underground boxcar to be shuttled across
town where you must report for duty.
Good morning, dickweed, I am your supervisor. Today you will do this, this and that.
But that is
some sixty minutes into the future and not our present concern. For now you
must enjoy your coffee, by all means.
