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"I have to go," I say. I leave her in the fog. I imagine running away from corporate meetings and strange Christmas office parties. Freedom. |
The image morphs into a maze of cubicles. I imagine Miltchasing me like I'm some kind of photocopier that stole his marketing budget report. |
It's like she's not there next to me on the bench in the fog. I'm guiding ants through tunnels. Each sandy cave is a dead end. |
I feel small again, like I'm inside an ant farm that's slowly filling with water. I can't think of words to say. Ants wait for my direction. |
"What are you doing here?" she says. I can barely see her shape. She's black in the fog. Lamps nearby shine like ghosts and I shiver. |
I look across the grass, out onto the car-less highway. Houses beyond that are blurry sparks, fireflies of a lonely holiday night. |
It's so late here that I don't expect her to show up. A stream nearby sounds like the Milky Way mist. I imagine swirls of stars pouring past |
I sit on a December bench in a mist-breathed park. Fog rolls in like smoke off fingertips. Christmas sort of flickers through it all. |
So here we are once again. Not enough tinsel from 1982 cabinet supplies. Not enough 1994 Kmart ornaments. It spins like a dying NY ballet. |
Mulani faked sick: "Mountain air makes me break out in hives." Milt's beady eyes stared: "There's no beehives on Butterlink Ranch." |
If I wanted to socially network with coworker types, I would crash corporate Christmas parties all over the city. Or do some people do that? |
But then Buildicon workers learned he wanted an eggnog sort of tree-cutting hoedown at his home in the mountains. Who wants that? |
Real trees are different. Even our marketing manager Milt Butterlink said, "We could use a really freakin' cool flocking live tree." |
There's nothing redeeming about a plastic corporate tree used to lure a false sense of cheer among workers year after year. |
Tinsel is spread on branches. Plastic gold ornaments dangle like costume jewelry. Glitter-glue named Stockings hang misspelled and empty. |
Tortured, sits the receptionist, Joyce. She's a Jehovah's Witness. Joan knows this. She hangs cards from Joyce's desk, says, "Oh Christmas." |
Joan loathes everybody these days. Her eyes are red with hate. But for a fleeting moment, the fake decor sort of fills her with Xmas cheer. |
It's the same plastic tree each year. Tall, it turns slowly like some kind of new George Foreman tree grill you can attach marshmallows to. |
We have the best false sense of family in all of downtown, I think, as Joan stands the corporate Christmas tree onto its spinning base. |
I watch Katie finish her last lick of coffee. We get up and walk. Me: "Yeah, I often wonder that myself. So, why do you tell me everything?" |
