2002-12-06 - 5:16 p.m.
I’ve been so busy with shapeshifting and stardust breathing that I haven’t been to work for a while, but I happened to make it back to the office just in time for the Holiday party, the annual event at which, for once, the receptionist doesn’t have to sneak sips from her mermaid-shaped whiskey flask. For one night, our office space transforms from a humming, cubicled, paper-clipped organism to a drunken humming, cubicled, paper-clipped organism. The only evidence of this fleeting transformation the next day is the genital smears on the Xerox machine glass.
I didn’t want to be there. Efficient laborers do not make for engaging humans, especially when they are surrounded by the very machines which embezzeled their humanity. By the time Freddie from marketing tried to get me to back him up on his theory that the most annoying thing about the fax machine is its lack of a food tray, I was ready to leave. Just then one of the Managementmogulmongrels took to the podium and announced the commencement of the best liked holiday party tradition. The serfs’ faces lit up with glee as the Managementmogulmongrels ripped open the envelope.
"And the person with the most votes for this year’s holiday poll is . . . Cathy Snafer!"
A panic rash spread over Linda’s chest, neck and face. Her fellow serfs turned to her with ravenous grins plastered on their faces. A group of ladies from PR were the first to grab hold of her, wrestling her down to the ground and jamming the heel of her own white pump in her mouth. The guys from development charged over and wrapped her limbs in phone chord.
I asked that slutty lady in charge of HR what was going on. She told me that for the Holiday poll, everyone votes on the person they would most like to die. At the height of the festivites during the party, the chosen employee is strapped to the water heater, which has been attached to a high-powered electric generator. Every employee places one finger on the oversized on button so that no one person feels the guilt associated with murdering a human. I look over and see the mob holding Cathy over their heads and throwing her in the closet near the bathrooms which houses the deadly water heater. When I asked the slutty lady in charge of PR why Cathy was chosen, she paused, put her finger on her mouth to help her thinking, looked up at me, shrugged and joined in the carnage.
I tried to remember any interactions I’d had with Cathy but, seeing as how I was hardly ever in the office, I came up blank. Then I recalled my first and only interaction with her on my second week of work. I passed her cubicle and noticed a clown-and-balloon embossed frame with no photo in it. Instead a piece of charred children’s pajamas was pressed behind the glass. When Cathy saw me staring at the frame, she told me that her only son was killed in a fire when he was six. That made me sad. I hated Cathy for disclosing such depressing information. So just as the Holiday Karaoke CD changed tracks from "Dreidel Dreidel Dreidel" to "Jingle Bell Rock," I jostled through the overly festive crowd and placed my finger on the button.
