Those who can’t, manage
If, as he insists, he hears what Dirk is saying, the problem must be one
of comprehension:
perhaps he is afflicted with some sort of aphasia, which scrambles
the signals
so that the sounds don’t translate, an auditory agnosia blurring
background
noise and speech into one unintelligible fuzz or maybe it’s an
autism
but one where his ability to decode communication is entirely
conditional on the interlocutor’s position within the corporate
hierarchy, certainly there is evidence of a disconcerting tendency
to psychopathological echolalia; phrases regurgitated
verbatim, buzz words pounced on and parroted incessantly,
(particularly,
it has to be said, ones divined of those ethereal visitants
from HQ)
in such ecstatic transports as to suggest possession, maybe he
is possessed
and can only comprehend speech in tongues or perhaps it’s just
because he is a
cunt, lickspittle, drone. Dirk, himself, has had a thoroughly productive
afternoon
fielding calls from irate customers and engaging in a spot of
handicap
hurdling, wherein the customer (or rube) is transferred to another
department,
in truth a randomly selected desk elsewhere in the cavernous
open plan
office space. Dirk and colleague Craig – he of spots, ornately sculpted
hair and silver
kipper tie – then observe and count the bobbing heads as the inquiry’s
pin-balled round
the room. Sometimes they’ll wager on how many obstacles the hapless
complainant
will have to overcome, or set a task to be completed by the time
the mark
is dumped back at square one. Now on the cusp of Friday night the Boneless
One appears
and summons the team to audience. They, mesmerised, obey. His eerie
droning
voice gently dissolves the marrow from their bones, its incantatory
quality
warps the world around them. Not long becomes eternity. His words
change the very
fabric of the universe. A future of degraded terms and conditions,
of
increased productivity targets, CPD, mushrooming bureaucracy,
of
tedium, is painted in rainbow colours and transformed into the first
sight of
the Valley of Shangri-La, a paradise where all burdens will be loosed
and fall
away and faced with this perversion of reality and the Boneless One’s
evident
auricular affliction, Dirk baulks and it just comes out Don’t flob in my
coffee
and call it a cappuccino, mate; don’t shit on my shoes and tell me it’s
Dubbin.
The glass is broken and things will never be the same again. A storm
is coming.