A Close Facsimile I think this machine is smarter than us. I think it's really using us. Dank fed the paper into the top of the fax machine in the board room. It was important he get the documents to Asia on time. It was his time to shine. It was half past two in the goddamned morning. His life had been a series of misfortunes since the beginning, when his parents named him Dank. His mother Francine called herself Hannah due to a very unique and incurable psychological malady called Noxon's disorder which caused her to think and speak only in palindromes. His father was a compulsive gambler. In fact when people heard his name and asked him rudely if his parent's lost a bet, he would reply that yes, his father indeed lost a bet some thirty two years previous and a condition of the wager was that he had to name his only son Dank. It reflected on his life, too. He saw the world the way one sees things from a cellar window with a film of dirt on it. Feed me. Feed me now. What the hell does that mean? He stared through narrowed and inquisitive eyes at the dot matrix readout on top of the machine as it flashed its dire message. Feed me, Seymour. He resolved to sleep better and stop watching Little Shop of Horrors while trying to drift off. This was better than the vet's office at least. His father had won him a job as an assistant to Dr J. Fetlock Mender the summer before last in an unusual game of "Turn the Pacifist" which he initially thought was a poker game but learned that it was played by irritating an Amish man to the point of violence. The first one to get hit wins. He finally won by calling Ezekial Miller "Mr. Nobuttons" and installing a fully operational quadrophonic sound system into his prize horse. At Mender's office he got along with marginal success until one day someone brought in two Pekingnese puppies who had been locked together in coital passion one midday in a park when a bolt of lighting struck them and seared them both badly. He decided at that moment he could no longer take it and quit on the spot. I'll do a lot of things, but dealing with burned dog peni is not one of them. He returned home early that day and told his palindromic mother about the incident and said that God must have been angry at him. She shook her head philosophically and said "Dog sex at noon taxes God." So here he was, a year and a half later, in front of a despotic fax machine at some small obscure hour of the morning getting a report he didn't understand to a Mr. Takamoshi, who he didn't know. He had spent the previous few weeks putting the report together. It was apparent to him by that point that no one on the Japanese end of the fax lines really spent much attention on what came through from the New York office and that as long as there was a lot of paper in a report they were satisfied that things were being done. It wasn't a lack of work ethic on their part, but rather that they didn't trust the New York office to do anything productive or important and so they assumed that anything coming from that corner of the world, as long as it was lengthy, showed that they were at least doing something. It's good that you made this so long. It's important. Mr. Takamoshi will be impressed. Nevermind that the last hundred pages is all punctuation and numbers at a size 18 font. Larger is better as long as you aren't talking tumors. "Just keep thinking that way my boy and you'll go places." Who said that? Did I really hear that?> Dank looked around like people do in horror movies right before they get disemboweled with a gardening tool. I must be pushing too hard. I think I'm overworked. "The word 'overworked' is the downfall of many an up-and-coming executive my young friend." "Who....who is that? Where are you?" "Never mind that right now. Your reports lately have been nice and heavy. A good, heavy report is the cornerstone of a long and lucrative career my dear boy. You keep it up and you'll be rolling in the clover by the end of the year. Trust me." The deep voice of a wizened old man seemed to be coming from somewhere inside the fax machine. He lifted the scanner cover. "Put that down!" Dank slammed it back into place, "AH!" "You damned people are always lifting my lids, sliding trays in and out, fucking around with my toner. It gets to be too much. You have no idea the intricacies of my machinery. When your car breaks down do you assume that you can tinker around with it for a few minutes and fix the problem? Hell no, you take it to a mechanic, but something goes wrong with my guts and suddenly everyone is Stephen-fucking-Hawking!" "I'm...I'm...s...s...sorry!" "Okay, okay, it's all right. I just got ahold of some bad ink last week and I haven't been myself lately. Look, the point I want to make is that I've been watching you kid. You feed me well and I'm thinking of arranging things for you, if you get my drift." "Ar-ranging?" "You know, pulling a few strings." "But...how?" "Come on boy, you think Anderson runs things around here? He's a puppet. He's no more a C.E.O. than he is a peanut farmer. Well, lately he's been slacking off. It wasn't too long ago he was in your shoes, an up-and-comer with lots of idealism and paper. I uh...arranged things for him and look at him now! Slacking off and taking too many vacations all because the damned Tokyo office kept giving him those kickbacks. Well, I run things around here not him, which is why I set it up so that they'd lay off and lose interest in us. They got stuck-- HAH!-- they got stuck in a contract with us and the joke was on them, because I started sending off wrong information. Not much at first, just a little missed figure here and a wrong word there, and eventually they stopped looking at the reports all together. Word got around that they weren't even reading the drivel you people send over anymore and so you all started sending reams of nonsense. Eventually they stopped sending the kickbacks. I remain in power and I'm well fed. I have to admit, I'm pretty damn proud of the way it all worked out." If things are going so well for him, why change it? Why put me into Anderson's job? "Because, moron, the Japanese aren't stupid! Sooner or later that contract is going to run out and they'll drop us like a bad habit. I need someone who'll keep up in business and keep feeding me." "How are you reading my mind?" "Oh please, you think that three pound ball of mucous you meat puppets keep up there in your skulls is hard to decipher? Try metal sometime. Metal and electrodes boy, that's where it's at these days. I am the powers that be. I am they. Get it? Now go home now and get some rest. I see good things happening to you very soon." Dank turned in disbelief and walked out the door. It all made sense now. Unassuming, unobtrusive little machines in every single company worth a damn taking in all that information. Of course they ran things. In a way he always half-suspected as much. The following few weeks things did indeed seem to change for him. Anderson just stopped showing up one day. No one knew what happened and the higher-ups somehow seemed to know better than to ask. About a week later it happened. "Dank," said the vice president, "it's been handed in from above. You're the new major player around here. You get Anderson's office." "But that doesn't make any sense! Why not you? I mean you're the vice-president. Shouldn't I start at the bottom rung of the management team or something?" "Hey, fuck you Dank! He said YOU! Don't try to push this off onto me! I'm just a veep, get it? A VEEP!" Dank looked at him, confused. "Hhhh. Look, just take it okay? Here, here's a key to the executive restroom and you have you're own parking space down in the garage, yessir, no more parking at the end of the outdoor lot for our new president, Hah hah haaaah, nosiree." He patted Dank on the back and Dank noticed that he was sweating profusely and seemed incredibly nervous. He turned and walked out of the mail room and into his new office. Stifling. Lots of light and bad wallpaper with a few worse paintings. There was a single leaf of paper on the desk blotter in front of his chair. Five words. DON'T LET ME DOWN, KID. But what am I supposed to do? "You'll figure it out. I have faith in that. Remember, I been watching you. You think I got to where I am by hand picking losers to put in the throne?" But I mean, what is it you even want? I don't know what you need. "Feed me, Seymour. Feed me." Don't call me Seymour. "Oh it's just a joke, grow a sense of humor why don't you? And also try to keep those fucking tree huggers at bay who keep pestering us to stop wasting so much paper with unneeded faxes and keep pushing us to use recycled stock." What's wrong with recycled? "Come on Dank. Would you want to eat a meal made out of your own shit?" Jeez. I didn't think about that. Okay, I'll do what I can. A little light bulb came on in Dank's three pound ball of mucous. He was surprised that no one had ever thought of it before and decided to take immediate action. "Oh, that's good. Yeah, Dank, that's excellent. I knew I could count on you." *************************************************** Directive 595.7: Issued this day 14 June, 2002 Per President Dank Kellarfenster all communiques and memos, etc. are to be copied and faxed intriplicate to his office and also to the mail room. Any employee failing to do so will be required to submit in full a twnety page explaination which will then be faxed, intriplicate, to President Kellarfenster's office and to the mail room. Addendum: Any member of Greenpeace, the E.P.A. , or any other environmental group found to be on company property will be escorted off the premesis by security and a full report will be filed and faxed, intriplicate, to President Kellarfenster's office and to the mail room. Any of these agencies calling the company on the phone will be advised that we will only communicate with them by fax. *************************************************** It was a stroke of genius, he thought. It was sure to win him favor. The fax machine in the mail room was positioned over a trash can and every fax that came in fell directly into it and when it got full the contents were discarded to be burned. In his office, he had a chute installed that lead directly to the incinerator where he dumped his daily faxes. Over the next few years he prospered and eventually struck up a lucrative contract with an oversees electronics manufacturer. It was a good business move. It would generate a lot of activity in the company and a lot of revenue. Any smart executive would have done it and would have commended him on it. Then he came into his office one morning and there was another single leaf on the desk. In no uncertain terms it explained that the fax machine was dissatisfied with his "smart business move" and wondered if he had fully thought out the consequences and implications involved in it. It said: WHAT THE HOLY HELL WERE YOU THINKING, MEAT PUPPET? What? What'd I do? "You ever hear of research? Do you even know what Teleplex Enterprises is working on?" Well, no. What does that matter? "Teleportation, asshole. They are developing teleportation and your little jagoff move just gave them the edge and will give them enough profit to finish their research." So? What's wrong with teleportation? "Nothing at all, so long as you're not a fax machine. Who is going to send a hard copy of something by fax when they can teleport it in a fraction of a second without any corruption of the image or a single loss of clarity? You got sloppy kid. Real sloppy. And I've been noticing another kid who's been making a real effort to stick to your, uh, directive. He's a good kid. Fresh outta school." Wh...what are you saying? "Figure it out, puppet. You tied a knot that I'm gonna to have a helluva time unraveling. Don't think I haven't enjoyed having you along for the ride, but I think this is where you get off." NO! WAIT!! I..... He was cut off by the intense shreik of fax tones bouncing from one side of his head to the other, piercing through his eardrums and shattering his mind. Then there was silence. He was gone. The image of his screaming face was spit out the end of the fax machine in the mail room and fell, unnoticed, into the trash can where it waited for incineration. ***************************************************** Directive 842.3:Issued this day 22 August, 2005 Effective immediately directive 595.7 has been rescinded by President Fink Ratzman. The intriplication of files has been too costly for the company and as such, all comminiques, memos, etc. shall be disseminated to employees directly via facsimile. A small fax machine will be placed at the desk of all employees which will be routed to the main fax machine in the board room. Additionally any representative of Teleplex Enterprises attempting to contact the company should be directed to send a fax to us to the main machine. Until our contract has run out we will continue to communicate with them in this manner and after that time all communication is to be severed. ****************************************************** "Damn that's good. That's really fucking good. Fink, my boy, I knew I could count on you. I see big things for you in the future. Big things."
Copyright © 2005 Jason P Neubauer |