The Factory

I want to work, and I’m lucky enough to be able to. Of course I’m grateful for that. How could I not be? Except, well, I don’t want to work. I really don’t. Life has nothing to do with work and work has no real bearing on life. I used to think they were connected, but now I can see there’s just no way.

Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw one of the smaller women in Print Services holding a black bird by its wings, but when I looked again it was just a toner cartridge.

Then, as soon as the shredder swallowed the last pages, I became a black bird. I could see people’s legs, their arms. I saw gray, and a little green. I thought I could smell the ocean.

If these are all factory documents, what the hell is the factory? What’s it making? I thought I knew before, but once I started working here I realized that I had no idea. What kind of factory is this?

As I opened the basement-level door, I thought I could smell birds.

All I could see was a meaningless arrangement of squiggles and dots, symbols and patterns, running on endlessly. Words are such unstable things.

The more my thoughts wander the harder it gets- everything feels so disconnected. Me and my work, me and the factory, me and society. There's always something in the way. It's like we're touching, but we are not. What am I doing here? I've been living on this planet for more than twenty years, and I still can't talk properly, can't do anything that a machine can't do better.

All of the birds in the flock are adults, roughly the same size. They are constantly pushing and shoving, but do not appear to communicate. In addition to finding no young, I have yet to find the carcass of a factory shag.

As a policy, the factory does not acknowledge that these inspections are carried out for the purpose of clearing deceased graybacks from the drains.

A result-oriented approach simply doesn’t make sense in Japan. Just take it easy, keep classifying your moss.

From my second day on the job, barring the occasional jam, I never had to use a single brain cell.

Staring at the ink, the words started to break apart, failing to hold their meaning — all I could see was a meaningless arrangement of squiggles and dots, symbols and patterns, running on endlessly. Words are such unstable things.

Or maybe this was just how overworked middle managers looked, devoid of life and spirit.

Life has nothing to do with work and work has no real bearing on life. I used to think they were connected, but now I can see there’s just no way.

I didn’t have to answer any weird questions about what I was reading, or hear anyone’s thoughts about which 7-Eleven bento they liked best.

Cats and moss are nothing alike. If you want to pet a cat, go pet a cat.