February 17, 2006

# 47




The short man was seated on the couch of the important man's office. A smile was starting its journey from the centre of its creation to the outer edges of his face. Today, the short man was displaying the posture of a very important man.

The short man was more important than the important man but he couldn't be an important man just like the important man because there existed already an important man. There was no room for two important men because a world with two important men would be a world of infinite turmoil. Some men would even argue such a world would be a world of chaos. Such a world should not exist.

The important man, whose office was being occupied by a short man sitting with a broad smile on the important man's couch, wasn't any regular, stock, average, mean, important man. He was the important man. The title of the most important man left him with a sour taste in his mouth, but the important man was assured there could be no other important man, not even his twin brother, if there were such a man.

There was no such man.

The bald man entered the office of the important man. He stood still and watched the short man sitting with a broad smile on the plush couch in the office of the important man.

"I wish that were me," the bald man said to himself. "I wish I were sitting on that plush couch instead of standing here watching the short man with broad smile sitting on the plush couch. I wish, more than anything, that our roles were reversed."

The bald man remained standing. The bald man was accustomed to standing. He was quite competent at standing, although he preferred sitting on plush couches in the offices of other men to standing and wishing he were sitting in them.

As the bald man pined to be the short man sitting with a broad smile on the plush couch the short man looked up. The short man lost his broad smile. He could not find it anywhere, although he did not look to find it.

The short man continued looking at the bald man standing in the office of the important man. If the short man felt the desire to look for the broad smile which he had lost, he would see it lying face-up, pointing at itself with white teeth beaming impressively.

Alas, he did not and the the broad smile of the short man remained lost.

Then the short man gestured with his eyes to the bald man standing in the office of the important man.

The bald man did not take offence at the short man's eye gestures for the short man had beautiful eyes. The bald man was accustomed to receiving eye gestures from other men, though he did not particularly care for the company of other men. Apart from his own company, the bald man had no longing to be in the company of other men.

The bald man thought about the short man's eyes. They were not as beautiful as crystal blue seas the bald man had seen so often on big screens, nor as blue as the skies when the bald man had gazed up from the peaks of mountains.

It was indisputable, however, that the short man's eyes were remarkably blue just the same.

When the short man repeated the same gesture with his remarkably blue eyes, the bald man realised the short man wished for the bald man to be seated: on the plush couch opposite the plush couch on which the short man was seated; the same plush couch which the bald man had not seen upon entering the office of the important man.

The bald man smiled the smile of the surprised man, who was not there that day. The bald man sat himself on the plush couch opposite the plush couch on which the short man was sitting on. Immediately, the bald man understood why the short man was seated on the plush couch opposite him and why the short man had a broad smile when the bald man had entered the room.

The bald man wondered why the short man no longer had a broad smile on his face. The thought did not last long.

"These couches are really plush," thought the bald man. "They're so comfortable that I should probably steal one of them from the office of the important man without the short man seeing me. Maybe I should wait and do it later. I could keep the stolen plush couch in my home where I can sit comfortably on it all the time if I wanted to."

The bald man had instincts as keen as a mature doe's instincts in spring, though the bald man did not scamper into the forest, which was conveniently located beside the important man's office, until his breath caught up.

The bald man sat resolutely and happily in the plush couch opposite the short man's plush couch and listened to his instincts. The bald man's instincts said: 'Don't be a fool, baldy. Enjoy the comfort while you can. Smile politely. Nod occasionally.'

The short man heard the bald man's instincts when they spoke to the bald man. The short man did not recognise all the words from the bald man's instincts. The short man had only heard a few of them on the big screens.

The short man furrowed his brow without realising that he was doing so.

Then the short man smiled politely at the bald man. The short man nodded occasionally as the bald man wriggled his posterior over and over into the plush couch opposite the plush couch on which the short man was sitting on.

Not realising that the short man was nodding occasionally, the bald man wriggled his backside rhythmically and deeper into the plush couch he was sitting on. The bald man couldn't believe how comfortable the plush couch in the important man's office was.

The important man entered the office. The important man stopped and bowed in the direction of the short man who reciprocated the important man's polite gesture. The short man remained seated on one of the two plush couches in the important man's office. The short man understood the importance of a comfortable posterior. Every man did.

The important man sat himself onto the same couch as the bald man. The important man did not make eye gestures to the bald man or to the short man. With his hands, the important man gestured behind him and said something to the short man that the bald man could not understand. The short man nodded.

The bald man looked to where the important man was gesturing. Two other men, neither of who had obvious traits of distinction, lack of stature or lack of hair, stood and nodded. The two non-descript men were standing behind the seated important man who was gesturing with his hands and speaking a language the bald man could not understand.

The three men with distinct characteristics continued to sit on the plush couches in the important man's office.

The two non-descript men continued to stand and nod in the important man's office.

A significant time later, when the short man had exhausted all words he knew to be foreign to the bald man; when the important man's hands had grown weary from gesturing, and when the bald man's right leg had fallen asleep from too much comfort and too little movement, the bald man excused himself.

'Excuse me,' said the bald man.

The important man and the short man did exactly that.

Each man, including the two non-descript men prone to standing and nodding, went back to doing what they were doing before the short man had arrived: the important man remained important in his own office without other men to detract from his importance; the short man went back to being short in his own office, somewhere; the two non-descript men went back to blending into the walls; the bald man went back to being bald wherever he pleased, drinking coffee by the litre, thinking about the comfort of his posterior and writing insignificant prose for the world to ignore.



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6 comments:

Ultra Toast Mosha God said...

Meetings are great, aren't they?

People in superior positions stare down their achingly superficial noses at you, waffling to each other in some indecipherable techno-babble about 'silo mentalities' and 'can-do attitudes' whilst you sit there with a stupefied grin on your face trying to mask the utter, utter contempt you feel towards them, clinging to the faint hope that fate will manifest itself for you and sweep these rotting bloated over bearing Epsilon Semi-Morons into an administrative black hole, forever to work out their self important existence as the drones they so eloquently despise.

Did I say that out loud.

Did the telescreen hear me?

Kaufman said...

I agree with your observations and assessment. Imagine the futility of it all with the barrier of language included and you get a feel for what the situation withthe Mr Men in this post was conveying.

Meetings that require your presence but not your input are a mystery wrapped in a waste of time and space.

The nature of the central clown talking (often down) to the work force while the work force nods, agrees through recognisable grunting, and contemplates methods of killing the fucker is probably universal, no matter what language one speaks.

Kaufman said...

NFI, mate. I gave up on the statistical analysis when I noticed the comments drop off to a petrified scream which deminished into an inaudible thud before disappearing entirely into the marshy bog of the nether world.

I just wanna give the outward appearance of being cool, you know?

As far as I know, UTMG is the only regular reader, which is to say that it's enough.

Ultra Toast Mosha God said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Ultra Toast Mosha God said...

'Meetings that require your presence but not your input are a mystery wrapped in a waste of time and space.'

Not at all!

They are a means by which your employers can deep fry you in humiliation, subconsciously cementing their authority over you.

They would rather physically show you how unnecessary they consider you to be by 'keeping you in the loop' rather than allow you the dignity of hiding under your desk, chewing on post-it notes whilst you are summarily ignored in relatively considerate privacy.

no no.

'Lets get him in to witness our dominance. Tell him to spit out whatever he's chewing on.'

Kaufman said...

UTMG: I've never considered the situation from the perspective of an employer. Why should I? I've no aspiration to ever be one, given that I'd have to demean and degrade my employees in order to get word out that I'm a hardcore hardass not to be trusted with electrical appliances or belts.

I've changed my mind. How does one become an employer?

['How does one become a janitor?' 'Oh, you want to become a janitor?' 'No, I asked how one becomes a janitor.' The Breakfast Club]

DDC: Annual? I could handle that. There'd be plenty of opportunity to sabotage the seating arrangements so that the boss(es) sat in between employees with questionable hygiene. The 'meeting' in this post was pulled out of thin air without warning. Everyone involved sat in their trusty suits, smelling like roses. Meanwhile, the 'let's not tell the foreign man' was sitting in his blue Kathmandu jumper and t-shirt looking the right dipshit. He's a believer in body sprays, so there were no problems there, but common courtesy dictates that a warning of a bare minimum day be enforced.

I'm thinking of becoming an employer.