Joe, a former school teacher, became unemployed after the corona virus outbreak of 2020. Through a series of personal calamities ensuing the great depression that followed (illness, homelessness, wife and child die, etc), he eventually realized the necessity to reinvent himself and couple of years later he is finally employed as a doorman in the headquarters of a large investment fund in the city. Joe is not a formal employee there as such, nor was he interviewed by anyone for the job- Joe often brags that he has no boss and no formal job description.
However, in this age of artificial intelligence and social distancing, someone like Joe, who greets everyone at the entrance lobby amicably, who knows everyone personally by name and asks them about their family and how their day was, is a valuable "asset" in this investment fund, so they let him loiter about the place. Joe is somewhat of a relic of a not-so-distant past, when people would greet each other, engage in small talk and sometimes even offer personal counsel or just a lend an ear or a shoulder to cry on. Despite his unkempt presence, Joe is the embodiment of American ingenuity, a trait by which few have tenaciously managed to keep themselves relevant in an increasingly hostile economic and social environment.
One day at work, Joe meets Charlie, an old school buddy. Charlie is a lawyer and still manages to keep about him the aura of a well-to-do man, unlike the vast majority of people that became impoverished after the financial collapse of 2020-2021. "Joe, is that really you?". Charlie is accompanied by two other school buddies, Felix and Lawrence.
"What are you guys doing here? Looking for someone? I know this place like the palm of my hand and I know everyone here", boasts Joe in jest as he leads his friends to the financial executive's office Charlie wants to meet with. They walk up the stairs, since the elevators are not working.
Joe wants to show his friends an amazing ability he learned recently- how to fly. So he levitates a few feet above the steps and his friends look up in amazement. Some strangers going up the steps are also surprised and murmur among themselves but the majority of people there who habitually frequent the place all know Joe, so they're not in the least surprised.
Having arrived at the floor where they were headed to, Charlie is ushered in to the executive's office by the secretary, while his friends remain in the waiting room, a large spacious place with large windows overlooking the city below. Joe, who is still levitating, strokes the luxurious mahogany paneled ceiling while his friends are seated in large, black leather armchairs. Joe floats back down to the ground to talk with his friends, whom he hasn't seen in many years.
Felix and Lawrence are both working as assistants to Charlie. Felix is pretty much the same as Joe remembers from the school days and they start to reminisce about parties, drinking and how they used to skip school once in a while. Lawrence, on the other hand, has become more morose. He was working as a software developer in Spain, but he had to leave and return to America after the entire European economy collapsed in the wake of the pandemic. Neither Felix nor Lawrence are as cheerful as Joe remembers them, and Joe's happy conversation and jokes about the old days manage to make them smile briefly, something both men have not done in a long, long time.
Then finally Charlie's meeting ends and they all walk out of the office and back down the stairs, while Joe cheerfully levitates above his friends. When they arrive again at the entrance lobby, Joe eyes a succulent cockroach on the ceiling and eats it when his friends are not looking. Then he comes back down to say goodbye to his friends and wave them off, while standing next to a large mirror.
The image reflected in the mirror is that of a wreck of a man grinning a toothless grin. A mentally ill hobo in shabby, dirty clothes who, of course, like every other person in the world, is perfectly unable to levitate and much less fly.
Feb. 23, 2021
No hay comentarios.:
Publicar un comentario