The Golden Fish

I was one of only a small number of SamCom employees who heard the muffled pop of the mailroom explosion that afternoon. It was the final Friday of the quarter–always a busy day for the DOCS–and I was wrestling with a pile of forms in desperate need of processing. We would later learn how lucky we had been that the detonation had gone off on such a beautiful day; most of the office had worked only a few hours that morning, taking the rest of the day off for barbecuing or birdwatching or whatever it is one does when in possession of a family and an empty Friday afternoon.
   I was stuck at my desk, of course. Our team, the Department of Operational Compliance and Spelling, was chronically behind–the log of PRLs which needed processing stretched back months; some, even, predated the five years since my first day at SamCom. I had promised Mr. Pembrooke I would get through… fifteen? twenty? (does a river know how many drops of water have passed through it since that first fateful trickle?) of the wretched documents before calling it a day.
   (It is endlessly strange to me that my readers, in the course of this narrative, will never set eyes on a PRL form. To you, the PRL will be just a piece of paper–a matter of corporate course, a dull leitmotif to be tooted here and there amidst the high drama of Wally’s story. To me, the PRL is everything. For each sentence where I have included a description of the setting sun casting shadows on the unshorn hairs on Wally’s chin or of Mr. Pembrooke’s spit-out pistachio shells clinging to the inside of the garbage bin, I have omitted two of me forwarding an email or circling some erroneous sum in red pen. It would probably be a more accurate record of my life to simply publish the many thousands of these documents as a single bound volume–as this would undoubtedly account for the better part of my experiences on this earth–no bookstore or library, however, would have the shelf space.)
   I was alone, which was odd. Mr. Pembrooke had come by that morning to shuffle around some papers in his office, then emerged an hour later in the wool trilby hat he wore on weekends to announce that he was ‘making the drive up to the lake.’ This was normal. Usually, however, I could count on, if not Wally’s assistance, then at least his presence.
   Would it be wrong to point out that, toward the end, Wally’s work had started to suffer? I don’t want to speak ill of the dead. But, in subsequent years, the question has sometimes crossed my mind of why I did not go looking for Wally on the morning of his disappearance. The truth is that I was no longer surprised enough to be disappointed with him. Wally’s absence on that June afternoon seemed to me the conclusion of a change I had spent more than two years watching come over him. By the time he disappeared, Wally could hardly be bothered to take a shower, nevermind fulfill the basic requirements of his job description. You must understand: it had been months since Wally had so much as glanced at a PRL–and my workload, as a result, had more than doubled.
   Certainly, I heard the fatal pop–and since have heard the watercooler stories of the intern affixing shipping labels who now is supposedly deaf in one ear–but, it being the quarter’s final Friday, I had little reason to allow such a puny sound, which could very well have been, say, a neck-bone being overexuberantly cracked in the department adjacent ours, to interrupt my work. I had only just coaxed myself back into the corporate trance to which a hot day and a windowless room and an endless stack of identical forms can be conducive, when the skies burst; a downpour began to fall on my desk. Startled by the shrieking fire alarm and suddenly sopping wet, I stuffed as many sheafs of unprocessed PRLs into the warm, dry desk drawers as possible, and fled from the office, sprinting twenty-two flights down the fire exit.
   The SamCom building is the tallest in the township of Raspberry, Ohio by more than a dozen stories. Not so long ago Raspberry was just another one of those quaint but crumbling factory towns one finds along the interstate, ruins from a bygone era of auto-workers wielding overgrown wrenches and virile economic safety-nets. Thanks to SamCom, Raspberry has become a company town once again–thousands of employees have relocated to be closer to its headquarters, piling into their cars each morning to drive to work on tires made with SamCom rubber, stopping at traffic lights whose microchips are made with SamCom lithium, and pulling into parking lot lines traced out in SamCom paint (well, SamCom paint-solvent). Not to mention the polyethylene in their coffee cup lids, the zinc in their dental fillings, the glycerin in their hair gel. Where the new Raspberry differs from the old is that none of these raw materials are actually manufactured in the SamCom building; the imposing glass tower is merely the administrative headquarters of the sprawling enterprise, whence the chemicals’ extraction from the earth or synthesis in far-away labs is contracted and subcontracted and its manifold economic holdings managed. There were those on other floors, I knew, who really felt like it was they who were responsible for the chemicals’ creation. They explained their jobs in simple, religious terms to their children: we make the stuff in everything around us. Perhaps because of my departmental responsibilities at the DOCS as an unglorified spell-checker, I never felt that same demiurgic affinity for the processed goods which I was told I’d had some hand in making. My job, as far as I was concerned, began and ended with the PRLs.
   The downstairs lobby was filled with wet employees being ushered out the front doors by security guards who strained their voices against the steady screech of the alarm. I had never seen so many people packed into the lobby; they pushed against one another like an unhappy school of fish, parting to pass the fountain in the lobby’s center. Due to some emergency power protocol, the fountain had ceased its usual trickle. The puckered mouths of its stone trout and sturgeon and the pointed little penises of the urinating cherubim who rode atop their dorsal fins ran dry.
   Outside the gruntlings gathered, squinting in the sun, wandering confused and agitated through the parking lot. These pathetic creatures–made up mostly of sad-eyed quinquagenarians who found themselves decades deep at SamCom and decidedly past the point of promotion–represented only a fraction of the SamCom workforce, yet were responsible for the majority of its productive output. Unable to go home before the week’s work was done, I saw several of these desperate staffers arguing with a fireman stationed by the building’s front entrance, pleading to be allowed back inside.
   I scanned the crowd for Wally. I had not seen him in the office that morning, but in the five years I had spent working under him he had never once missed a day of work. It was sometimes the case, particularly in that final year, that the whole morning could go by with no sign of him–and then lunch, and then 2 pm, and then on my way out I would find him, asleep, in a corner of the elevator. Wally was like a child then. I had watched the development of these strange fits of askance compliance–say, spending the workday reordering the staples in the staplers, or ‘fixing’ a stack of PRLs by adding a curly tail to each instance of the number 9–with bewildered fascination: bewildered by the demoniac spirit which seemed to have seized hold of the man I once had held close as both colleague and companion; and bewildered that the proper steps were not being taken to have that man fired.
   Now I can look at my life and the stack of notes piled on the desk beside me and trace clearly how it all would come to be shaped by this bizarre chapter. At the time, however, I was ignorant, and bitter, and all I could see in front of me were PRLs. Mr. Pembrooke’s apparent refusal to remove his recalcitrant managing supervisor did nothing to slow the natural flow of commerce, and suddenly I found the deluge falling squarely on my shoulders. How many late nights had I passed already, cursing Wally’s name, watching the PRLs pile up as tomorrow came barreling toward me? Since the day of the mailroom explosion the nights have never stopped. Yes–I feel sure that I was changed that day. That I walked into a room and never came out. I still have not come out–does that make sense? My little room where I can write my life…
   Wally was not in the parking lot. An unfamiliar air of joviality had begun to waft over the displaced employees. Some loosened their ties, or leaned against the skinny trees in the median. Several I saw sneak to their cars and drive off. In a grassy patch of shade beside their truck the firemen squatted, helmets cocked in the casual style, waiting for the marshal to finish his formalities. Someone had produced a plastic soccer ball, and was trying to get a game going between Accounting and Analytics. It felt like dreaming. Like the world was showing me some hidden angle of itself for an instant. I was thinking about this–about the hard faces all around me, how quickly they had softened in the sun–when a scream rang out. A hundred middle managers gasped, and then a hush fell over the crowd.
   Slowly, solemnly, the paramedics emerged from the building’s entrance. They wheeled between them a stretcher, a black medical bag like a funeral shroud draped over the top. A sinking sickness filled my stomach as I pushed to the front of the ogling crowd. It wasn’t possible–couldn’t be possible. I had seen Wally only the day before: slumped over a spinny chair, making idle revolutions as he stared at the ceiling. How sorry I felt in that moment! How I longed to shrug off the evil thoughts which that morning had wrapped themselves around my mind. How fiercely I believed that the viscous lumps of shredded flesh which had been scooped onto the stretcher might still sit up: that Wally would unzip the body bag and reveal his grinning mug intact. Another one of his inscrutable pranks.
   Surrounded by weepy onlookers whose faces I had only ever seen bent into the stupid smiles of elevator chit-chat, I was surprised to find my own throat getting choked up. But no, I thought, swallowing tears. I would not be crying for Wally.
   ‘Shame. A damn shame,’ said a voice beside me. It was Cornelius Shea, one of the minor Presidents of Sales. A small man with a disgusting habit of licking his fingers and slicking with spit the long hairs of his mustache, every quarter or so Cornelius was trotted out to make ‘rousing’ town-halls to the company about PPLs and KPIs and MOMs and any number of acronyms whose arcane significance he alone seemed to understand. One the few witnesses not struck dumb by the carnage being carted before him, Cornelius stuck two fingers in his mouth and issued a shrill whistle. This startled even the paramedics, who stumbled, nearly spilling their grisly cargo.
   ‘Folks–eyes on me, please, eyes on me!’ Nervous confusion rippled through the crowd. Most of those gathered could neither see nor understand Cornelius, and the muffled frequencies of his shouting perhaps did more to spook than soothe his anxious staff.
   ‘I know this is all very exciting, but let’s try and act like professionals! Excuse me! If you can hear me clap three times! If you can hear me clap two times!’ In vain he struggled to make himself heard above the tumult of the crowd. Someone started to scream; a crack in the asphalt had jolted the stretcher, causing a dark dribble of blood to spill over the side. ‘Let’s not all get worked up, now, shall we? We don’t have all the facts yet–the sooner we calm down the sooner we can all get back to work!’
   I have said already that the squishy sight of a recently-exploded coworker had put some of the crowd into tears. (More concerning to me, though, were the vomitters, who ran the risk of ruining one’s shoes.) Most of this weepiness seemed attributable to the general shock of loud noise and of proximity to death. On some of the bereaved, however, the anguish seemed more pointed: I recognized the dread on their faces, the dazed way they gathered behind the paramedics’ procession like a timid pack of jackals.
   ‘Oh God, Cornelius. It’s Daisy under there. I know it’s Daisy.’ Cried one such blubbering woman who, hearing Cornelius’ calls for order, had appeared from the crowd to startle him with a sudden hug. ‘They said it happened in the mailroom, didn’t they?’ She asked through sobs. ‘Daisy was in there! We were eating lunch together–she went downstairs to mail a birthday card to her grandmother. Oh God!’ Here, she broke down, plunging her snotty face into Cornelius’ lapels and weeping there.
   ‘Now, now, my dear. Chin up. We must be brave,’ said Cornelius. Distressed by the boogers being tracked along his bespoke suit, Cornelius attempted to wriggle himself free from the anguished woman’s grip. ‘There there,’ he said, lamely patting the back of her head. ‘Daisy wouldn’t want us to lose our heads now, would she?’ But the very mention of Daisy’s name was too much for the poor woman; the sobs redoubled, and Cornelius’ suit was drenched. 
   ‘Really, Evelyn, get a hold of yourself,’ Cornelius hissed. ‘I love Daisy as much as you do–I paid for the drinks at her birthday dinner, don’t you remember?–but you’re acting like a child.’
   I could sympathize with sentimental Evelyn. Though I had made up my mind that I would shed no tears for Wally, I knew what it was like to see your only friend at work disappear. It was a new kind of death. The endless days, the onslaught of ceaseless industry, uninterrupted by so much as a chuckle. It wasn’t until the start of Wally’s decline that I began to dream about SamCom. Each dream was identical to the workday which preceded it; my alarm clock frequently would jolt me awake at my desk and, disoriented, I would open my eyes and find myself in bed and curse the merciless morning. So Evelyn’s sorrow felt familiar–and as her tears and snot soaked into the silk of Cornelius’ jacket, I recognized something in my own soul which longed to ooze out of me, too.
   Over by the entrance, two more medics had appeared, sending a surge of  murmurs through the crowd. They stood in front of the revolving doors, one of them cradling a navy mailbag in her arms. Instead of the macabre comportment of their colleagues, however, these two wore dumbstruck smiles on their faces; periodically they both bent down to peer into the mailbag and fuss with the unseen cargo they had swaddled inside. The SamCom staff fell silent. Even Evelyn was stunned by the miraculous delivery, and ceased her weeping. A tiny, distinct cry floated up and over the parking lot.
   ‘A baby!’ cried Cornelius, his voice cracking with an unexpected surge of feeling. Cornelius’ mustache wavered as he pursed his lips; for a moment, it seemed like it might be his turn to weep into Evelyn’s shoulder–but, clearing his throat, he quickly assumed his regular stiff countenance. (I confess: for years afterward, each time I passed Cornelius in the cafeteria or stood beside him at the urinal, I heard in my mind the echo of this choked cry–‘a b-Aby!’ I knew him only as a stern, self-serious executive; if he had a softer side, this crack was all I, or anyone I know of, ever heard of it.)
   The paramedics, bundle in hand, consulted with a flustered-looking fire marshal. No worried parent stepped forward to claim the child; nor did any of the summoned HR reps appear to have any idea of what the company handbook said about foundlings. Nestled in a bed of long-licked envelopes and crumpled-up shreds of outdated memos, the baby slept like a mouse, blind to the larger world in which she had taken up unwitting residence.
   The unexpected sight of life in the parking lot, which moments earlier had been suffused with grief, appeared to restore some good humor to the upset SamCommers. How easily the quietude of death gave way to water cooler chatter! Overeager employees pushed through the crowd to steal a glimpse of the mailbag baby, grinning back at where their less-bold colleagues waited for confirmation of the infant’s existence. Sobs trickled to sniffles. The soccer match was started up again. I watched the tearful reunion of Evelyn and Daisy as Cornelius looked stonily on, the invisible germ of a smile twinkling in his eye. The baby had reminded the SamCom staff of the sunny summer afternoon around them: it was nearly the weekend, after all, and we were alive!
   But still no Wally.