I wrote this six years ago in 2010. It's been sitting in my email drafts (something I occasionally used as a word processing tool and deeply inefficient filing system) since then, and I wasn't really sure what to do with it. It was in the middle of Obama's first term, back when I was working at the police department and wasn't in the greatest place mentally. I used writing as a way to begin with small, insignificant details of myself and slowly spiral out and away, looking beyond my fishbowl so I could breathe for a moment.
Named for the song and date, which I inexplicably decided to include as the subject line, which -- six years later -- seems weird.
"Special Needs" - Placebo 6/17/10
Right now, I'm sitting at my computer with an oversized mug of coffee that is too hot to drink. My office is a decent size, but filled with boxes awaiting my attention. I'm listening to Placebo and the crackling of a woodwick candle that I'm burning in my office, despite it being against city policy. It's a small form of rebellion that I'm not particularly proud of, but that doesn't stop me. My fingers are typing smoothly on the gently worn, cool keys of the keyboard. I'm fairly comfortable; I really like this sweater, even though it's not particularly flattering. My left ankle hurts, a testament to the nasty bruise I sustained over a week ago when I hit the bone on the doorstop while trying to juggle a supply shipment, swipe my key card, and get the door open without dropping anything. The citrus of my fiber drink lingers on my tongue, soon to be washed away by the bitterness of my coffee, black, which will likely burn my tongue a little, since it's too hot to drink.
Outside my office, in the squad room, three officers are writing reports and talking. They're all rookies, but the two youngest think they know more than their counterparts. They're wrong.
The copy machine is jammed, and one of them will fix it. He will feel a sense of accomplishment and pride, because the copy machine is notorious for getting jammed, but he won't say anything about this triumph. Be cool, be cool. Only a rookie would be excited about such a thing. He will return to his station and continue writing his report, under the guise of world-weary tedium. One day this facade of weariness will replace the enthusiasm he feels for his job, and the facade will become who he really is. He'll take up smoking, or drinking, or both, maybe cheat on his wife or at least think about it. He'll watch cop shows out of habit, because his life has lost its direction. He'll get a brief thrill when the men on the screen tackle the fleeing suspect and remember, if only momentarily, the reason he took the job.
Other officers are on patrol, some still groggy, some alert. Most are unhappy; they feel like they're damned either way they do their jobs, whether it be over-productivity that ends in accusations of citizen rights' violations, or under-productivity and accusations of not doing their jobs. They live in that moment when the pendulum comes to a momentary pause before beginning another pass, on either end of a spectrum but never, nay, never anywhere in the in-between.
An officer is writing a ticket, and the citizen is unhappy. Not because the officer has been rude, but because the driver is a parent of three children -- two grown with children of their own, and one a trick of menopause that has extended his years before retirement -- and rules his home with an iron fist. He despises the idea that any person, man or god, would chastise him for his behavior. He is a God-fearing man who will protest loudly that the ticket was unfounded, insult the officer's manhood and livelihood, but never contest the citation. He will feign indignity at the courthouse when he pays his ticket, make allusions to his imagined standing in the community, and nothing will ever come of it.
The city is covered in a fine morning mist this morning, strung golden and silver in the sun like wispy garlands over the marsh. Egrets move unhurriedly through the duckweed and cordgrass, watching for minnows and tadpoles darting beneath the speckled surface. Several curve-beaked ibis will meander slowly along the banks, seeking insects and ignoring the latent danger of the alligator drifting, log-like, in the nearby murk.
About two hours north of here, Savannah is a bustling hub of activity. On the fringe of town, the medical examiner's senior assistant is preparing a body for autopsy. The intern is attempting to help her, but it only annoys the senior assistant. The field has become very popular since these shows have come out, inaccurate portrayals of a clinical, efficient service.The senior assistant has been on the job for almost twenty years and has watched many an intern blunder their way through, mangling organs while thinking the whole time that one day they'll have it better, that they'll get past this "gross" field stuff and will have some office job being important. The senior assistant pulls her mask over her face and starts the small circular saw, disgusted.
In Texas, a boy has become a man. He rises before the sun and prepares himself for the day. Sometimes he feels that twinge of adolescent fear, that inexplicable twisting in the stomach when he goes somewhere unfamiliar and without friends. He has made his way through his first value-sized tube of toothpaste that he alone has used; an odd occurrence for a man who grew up with two sisters, and has always shared. The man fills his travel mug with coffee and gets into his car. Adjusting his rear view mirror, he sees his father as a young man looking back at him. The uniform has changed over the years, but the look of a determined young soldier has not. He thinks momentarily about his family, that he misses them, and pulls out of the parking lot.
In Washington DC, an intern makes coffee. He works with important people who do not really notice him, but he feels important by association. They've forbidden him to use his iPhone and have someone or another carefully monitoring his Facebook page, and he delights in this. Nothing says more than not saying, and he drafts a vague yet important-sounding status message in his head, something that suggests he does something far more meaningful than fill staplers or make copies. He traces the presidential seal on the back of the chair and feels like he is part of something bigger, something meaningful. He doesn't much care about what meaning it might be that this important body of people possess, but that he has meaning. He revises the status message in his head.
A man sits at his desk, holding his head heavily in his hands. He is trying to get past the blockades of greed and avarice, trying to stand tall like some New England lighthouse, guiding lost ships and warning them away from rocky shores. Of course, he knew that they would resist, but common logic and reason bolstered his courage, and even knowing that it was dangerous, he took the plunge. His family was supportive. His children were excited and his wife enthusiastic, though worried about what it would mean for his family. He worries that he overestimated the ability of people to surrender to reason, that the feather-touch trigger of their emotions could be reasoned with. He is tired. He is tired, but he will carry on. There is nothing else he can do. The man bows his head and prays. An aide surreptitiously snaps his photo. It will be on the 8 o'clock news, accompanied by sensationalist commentary from spiritual 'experts' decrying his sincerity; it will be suggested that this photo has something to do with NASDAQ falling three points, and the national audience will become a little more jaded.
In Liverpool, a young woman leans against the wall in an alley and takes a drag of her cigarette. She suspects they'll soon be illegal, since the primary focus of the various heads of state has always been about protecting people from what they want. She feels empty, staring down at a line of ants making their way into an empty crisp packet, and thinks of her future. She once saw an aerial panorama of Wavertree and thought it might be nice to live there if she ever started a family, but it seemed now like an endless series of roads much like those tunnels she imagined the crisp packet ants walked. She closes her eyes and remembers the panorama, with the graceful curve of the horizon supporting the glinting gold of the sun, and neat rows of homes fit in just so next to one another in long rows, with little vignette parks at the edges. Safe and comfortable. She takes another long drag of her cigarette.
In Africa, a man sits motionless in the shade of his home. Flies are buzzing, but he doesn't bother to swat them. They will only be replaced by more flies. His village is dying, one child at a time, and the men tell him that if he digs, he can save his family. He has always agreed. In a few hours, the men will come and he will go dig again. A few hours after that, more men will come and tell him he can't dig, that it's dangerous. They will tell him that it's illegal for him to dig, that he needs a permit to rend the ground for metal. The rainy season will come, and the lead will be washed away into another village, and children will die. He knows this. He is not as stupid as they think he is, sitting there with flies on his arms. No, he knows the dangers. He also knows that his children must eat and his bare-boned cattle are on the brink of death. He has no room for compassion for other villages. He knows he must survive, and will not choose the life of another child over his own.
In South Korea, a woman watches the television and worries.
In Pakistan, dust and gunpowder obscure the sun.
My coffee has become cold.
