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Three things. One, a taxi ride, two, knee dislocation, three, staff meeting. The first was disturbing, the second painful, and the third surreal.
I took a taxi this morning because I am not a bright person and in my not so bright state I decided last night that leaving my bike behind at someone else’s house would be a good idea. After a bad nights sleep (probably due to the absence of the bike) I overslept my alarm, woke up quarter of an hour behind schedule, stumbled through brushing my teeth, hair, the dust off my shoulders and then found myself in my living room feeling bereft whilst part of my brain wondered how someone managed to steal my bicycle from in the house without leaving a trace. It took a while but my synapses finally fired enough to trigger my memory and logic banks and I found myself in a taxi having a conversation with the driver about sleeping that sort of went like this
Him “I find it hard to sleep. Sometimes it’s hard to sleep when you have something on your mind”
I mumble something inane about sleep being hard
Him “Yes. When I can’t sleep I have to do something, like go to a bar, or if that doesn’t work” (his voice drops and he starts mumbling) “a girl to… to… talk to. if the… talking doesn’t work I go for a drive”
I snap out of my sleep daze, sit up and try to work out what exactly talking is supposed to be a metaphor for
Him “Sometimes some girls are good at… talking and I can get to sleep. Sometimes all the bars are closed and there are no girls… around… in the bars… to have a conversation with… and then I… then I talk to…”
At this point we drove past my destination which gave me the opportunity to start talking about how a u-turn would be good.
The second, my knee dislocating, happened outside work and is partly the reason why I am now the proud owner of two crutches circa world war II. They smell that old too. My flatmates, bless them, have failed to fully grasp that my knee dislocating was a traumatic painful affair and not a humorous story. I slipped on a wet patch outside work in the middle of a scrum of about 10 to 12 people, my leg defied my body’s flexibility and slipped almost completely horizontally to my body before then shooting off on an angle, I put all my weight on the other leg, at which point my knee dislocated. Agile as I am I was mentally weakened by my taxi drive and was unable to think of a way to remain upright without relying on my legs before gravity caught up and I went plummeting to the floor. At which point, in order to indicate the pain I was in, I said “ow”. It didn’t seem sufficient, so I tried crying. That seemed stupid so instead got my office-mate (is that a word?) to buy me chocolate.
The third was my first office staff meeting. We’re a large organisation and have just acquired a new president as well as a new mandate about cutting down costs. The office manager had just met the president to discuss his intentions in regards to our office and had opened the room to asking questions. This cued a moment where it no longer seemed like I was sitting in a room with a bunch of suits but instead was in a village green, around me my fellow artisans, behind us the crops swaying gently in the wind. We gathered around the village chief who had just returned from a visit to the outside, the big city, to see the king. “What was he like” (asked one wistfully) “Did he seem pleased with us?”, “Did you ask him what he thought of our work” cried another, “Did he mention our work?”. “Friends” said the chieftain “He was friendly, nay even talkative in our meeting. Others have said that he has not been so friendly with the other villages. Ours is special to him. Friends he was tall and strong and knew his own mind. We will please him, we will work hard for him”
I’m not sure I want to be a villager but winter’s on it’s way and there are crops to gather, clothes to buy and loans to pay off. Plus, in a bizarre twist I seem to have found a job I really enjoy and people I really like to work with. So I’ll stay and try to pretend I was/am outside of this, that I transcend the hierarchical mentality, whilst knowing full well that observation is not an act of separation.
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