what is this bullshit?and
worth a read***
another fun-filled day at the office. i've discovered that they have a wealth of office supplies at this University and i feel compelled to steal pens and post-its constantly. maybe i can make up for the $160,000 dollars lost to tuition.
3 dollars and 37 cents, reclaimed!
i am not busy today.
***
A Story:
Jones, though none too intelligent, devoid of common sensibility and quite oblivious, in fact, was still aware that he had the life. That is, he fared better than most of his kind, being a fly and not having to weather the elements like his fellow flies, outdoors. Jones, by a small glimmer of undeserved luck, found a sliver of an open window one day, and flew his little black body into it, batting his thin wings with all his tiny little might, into a warm room of enormous proportions. It was, of course, smaller than the world at large, but flies are specks of dust in that world and Jones found himself empowered in this down-scaled territory.
Jones, like most flies, was colorblind, and so saw the room in greyscale, not knowing that the room he had come to inhabit actually was grey, the walls, the desks, the carpet. Not that Jones would understand, but you do. Jones blended in easily- a black spot in a grey room. He hunkered down in a corner close to the ceiling, and took some time to survey the situation.
After a couple of hours, Jones had the scene figured out. He found that there were a number of rooms like the one he entered, each one inhabited by a person who sat at a desk most of the time, in front of an unidentifiable glowing box. The person would occasionally get up to talk to the other people in the other rooms, or to bring food back in to the room, or take care of some kind of business or another. The people seemed peaceful, or maybe sedate, and Jones liked them, mostly because they left heaping piles of crumbs in their wake and Jones had never been so well fed in his short-lived life.
Jones thought how his whole family, his whole species, really, could live happily and satiated in this place, and contemplated going to find some of them and bring them back with him. Only, he feared if he left he might never find that sliver of an open window again, or if he did that it might later be closed, and so kept his safe and cozy corner of the wall all to himself.
After a while, Jones found it difficult to keep track of the days, with the lights on at every hour and the grey blinds shutting out the calendar sun. The sliver of window was now closed and locked, as the air outside grew colder and the people inside were adept at making their own warmth. Little did it matter to him, though, with his needs well met. Many of his friends born in Summer or Fall never made it to see the Spring. How lucky, he thought, that here he might have the chance.
Jones spent his days exploring and found many wild and dangerous strangers, towering structures ruled by the people, who fed them paper and yelled at them when they misbehaved. Jones tried to stay out of the way of such monstrous things. He thought it best to avoid the wrath of the people, too, who often grew trecherous with huffs and sighs when not sedated at their desks. He did not understand what the people did, or where they went at the end of the day. He didn't spend much time thinking about it, at all.
You might think Jones grew lonely in his solitary existence, but if he did, he did not remember. Jones' memory, like all flies, was short, and so he soon forgot about any existence other than the present one. He forgot the buzzes of his fellows, forgot the sun, forgot the green leaves where he slept and the sweet fruit juices he sought day after day. He forgot the cold clouds of the pending winter and the hunger, the freezing ground when the leaves dropped from their warm sturdy branches. He forgot that seasons changed at all, because the people were so good at making their own warmth.
This went on for many indistinguishable days.
One day, a person came into the room Jones called home, chittering and smiling. The person dropped an apple core into a garbage pail and Jones enjoyed a small feast. As he nibbled, the person pulled on a string, revealing a window and exposing a light so bright it flooded the room. It was sunlight, which Jones had long forgotten in his grey inhabitance. Though Jones had forgotten, the seasons did change, and it seems the winter was over. Jones, drawn by the light which felt strangely familiar, abandoned his feast and rushed towards the window with all his force (which was greater now that he had maintained such a supple diet). Little did he know, the window was made with a sheet of glass and the weight of his body crashed against it, falling to the ground, bruised. Just then the person let out a shriek in his direction and the wrath Jones saw at the paper-eating machines was now present, terroizing him in his suffering state. The person lifted her monstrous foot and shadowed the light, leaving Jones with a proper chill before the foot was brought down, crushing his little black body, his thin wings and his cozy, comfortable little life.
