“I can bend light!” Jason says proudly,
like he just cracked a code or discovered fire.

At least I think this is Jason, although he looks uncharacteristically
manic and unkempt, with scraggly down curling from the
back of his neck and a pee stain on the front of his khakis
that keeps waving for the attention of my protesting eyes.

For my part, I stand in the door of a conference room
protectively guarding it like St. Peter at the Pearly Gates
making it clear he is not gaining entry without the proper
credentials, which do not include a box of doughnuts.

“Your shirt is the same colour as the urinal screen,” he said
confidentially, gesturing to the door marked only with a stick figure.

He then shared his theory that the clothing manufacturers
conspire to make urinal screens in the pigment of last season’s
collection so that one might, in fulfilling that mortal obligation,
see similarity and thus become dissatisfied with their shirt.

Looking warily around, I do my best to look uninterested so he
will shove off someplace else, but obliviously Jason speculates our
whole universe might be inside an atom on a kitchen countertop,
contaminated with the norovirus and in need of a scrub down.

“The monster on the horizon is often merely a gnat in our own eye,”
I say cautiously, with palms up to show that I am powerless.

Suddenly rounding the corner an enormous fat man in a suit walks
briskly toward us, pale neck straining against collar and tie, thighs
whisking together audibly, and sweat pouring from his forehead
as he deftly drops Jason to the ground and slices open his belly.

The man removes handfuls of viscera while smiling brightly
up at me as he and Jason begin to sink beneath the
surface of the speckled office carpeting, and all I can do is
grab hold of a passing desk to retain my own buoyancy.

“Sometimes we don’t get what we deserve!” he says proudly,
like he just cracked a code or discovered fire.

--by TropicalSnowstorm, Copyright 23 June 2014