Clicking keys make their own kind of music, Jeff thinks half-aimlessly, half-purposeful. How is it things can be partly purposeful; can clarity be part-clear, part-confused? He chuckles to himself without becoming distracted; to the contrary, the whimsical musing feeds into his basic euphoria. Basic, because euphoria's root meaning is to feel healthful — it is indicative of the abnormal state of current human affairs that it is construed as a supernormal state. The backdrop for his muted lucidity is the persistent murmur of an office that never sleeps. Ubiquitous beige and various shades of grey surround him.

Five-bladed fans make their rounds overhead, loyally circumambulating their nexuses made of cheap plastic while long-neglected clumps of dust ride along. How is it that I am so cheerful, he wonders, glancing briefly at the superficial order of the office. Below the surface, he knows, are unimaginable masses of knotted-up documents, each containing only partial information. What's worse is that they do not complete each other seemlessly like some cosmic jigsaw — at least not semantically — but they jostle, contradict, always at each others' throats, intending to render each other a breathless demise. Contra, from the latin: against, opposite — dict, meaning to say. See suffocate: to stifle, choke, deprive of air — squeeze together.

Everything in Jeff's life had become squeezed together: his thoughts and the words of which they were composed (or at least represented) were no exception. The question of whether his cheerful state was natural, a consequence of something transcending and even providing power for biology — or entirely forced, a thick couch-cover thrown over the ever-accumulating pile of half-finished projects moldering in the cracks of a sentient sofa — was an uneasy one, admittedly. For this reason he thought about nothing but the pleasing cacophony of clicking keys.

The click of the keys, the mechanical whine of the fans, the occasional muttering of employees talking to themselves, the unheard sounds of nature doubtlessly occurring right outside the walls. He contemplates what he could never perceive because physically outside the parameters of human sensory organs' sensitivity through the avenue of the hypermundane. In so doing, some kind of simple wonder is restored and in turn restores him. Maybe it's less a question of the authenticity of the good mood so much as an affirmation of the illusion of the mood's goodness in light of the revelation that no such thing as badness exists outside of categories of thought. This time, he does not chuckle, but briefly grimaces at the mind's incessant gymnastics before quickly replacing this micromomentary expression with a clean smile.

"Jeff," a quiet voice intones. "What is your progress on your part of the annual documentation quality-assurance summary report required for the monthly recap meeting?" He had not heard his supervisor approach, but he did not jump as people do when they are guilty about what they are thinking about and don't have sufficient warning to adjust to the expectation of portraying oneself in a particular publicly-acceptable manner to a fellow, but ostensibly separate, human being. In fact, Jeff was so attuned to the pastel harmony of the office's workings he almost felt as if he had asked himself the question. He then turns slowly to face his superior (whose name, incidentally, is Geoff; a point of many painful and repetitive jokes.) keeping his fingers on the mechanical keyboard and maintaining the same lightly-strained, frozen smile upon his face. "Nearly there, sir; I'll be sending it along to Jessica to be compiled later this afternoon."

His nominal doppelgänger must have said something to the effect of "good," "I see," or perhaps even "excellent, keep up the good work," — some bland accedence to the state of things, but Jeff could not hear it at all individually — he perceived it as merely a complement to the never-ending music of the keys clicking their way across an aluminum-and-beige-walled eternity.

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words and images by @d-pend
created for HIVE on July 21, 2020

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