Sunday, March 4, 2007

The tower

Every morning I descend into the very belly of the beast, the evil empire of my idealistic youth, the monument kapitalist carved from raw stone. Surely not mortal constructions, these two cold towers in slate and petrol gray. I arrive on a bicycle, oddly enough, and enter the first of the towers by walking my humble vehicle down a long, steep ramp that leads from a hidden corner of the building toward an enormous shuttered, underground gate. Every morning I imagine there will be menacing guards in black chainmail - orcs maybe, or hobgoblins - armed with long pikes, their steamy, fetid breath emerging from deep behind thick iron visors. A ghastly, subhuman face peaks warily from behind the gate, asking for my pass.

But sadly it's not that dramatic. I stop my bicycle halfway down the ramp and swipe an id card over a small black box. The heavy gate goes clang-clang-clang as it opens for me. And I'm in.

My vision of the place - a dark stronghold dealing in economic despair, an unholy bastion of global finance, a big-ass evil castle - retreats momentarily as I busy myself with wheeling my bicycle through the parking garage to the nearest empty rack and slotting the front wheel in place. It’s normally crowded with bikes already so I have to jimmy around other people’s handlebars and seat posts. I lock the back wheel clamp, of course, before making my way to the next set of secured doors. It's a maze alright. They're trying to trap me...

Wait. What the fuck am I doing here? Who gave me an id card to enter the headquarters of one of the world's biggest financial firms? Do I actually work here?

Well, my dear reader, if the answers were simple, I wouldn't need this journal.

2 comments:

HippieChyck said...

synchronicity I believe they call it. here i refer to our simultaneous panic attack at having crossed over to the dark side.

Unknown said...

Jesus....! I go through the same experience every morning as well. Only the motorbike handle bars are poking me in the ribs instead of the peddles getting caught in my chain. I felt shit hot when I first walked into the building all spiffy in my pressed shirt and hot purple Thai silk tie (80bht from the street). That feeling rapibly become a sense of lost and hopeless. The grind. My father used to say it, every year I seem to get closed to what he was running away from but telling me I should do. Phones ringing...gotta go.