Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Paul

It was windless and early, the papery film of pollen lay undisturbed on everything, a mild scum on the sidewalk and a thick line gathered by dry windshield wipers, like a powdery green worm ready to sun itself. Paul's eyes were always a simmering red, no discernible bloodshot but a seeping diffusion which tinted the whites an ugly brown/maroon. He walked with a rustle, shaking the morning form his legs, because his pockets were filled with notes. Reaching in for them he would extract his hand covered in yellow post-its and blue stickies, scraps of notebook paper and envelopes, like a bear assaulting a beehive and regarding his furry paw plastered with tasty honey and angry bees. Paul's mitt was just as indistinguishable, the useful information mixed in with the obsolete and irrelevant. His notes were directions, suggestions, reminders, congratulations, coupons, receipts, follow-ups, phone numbers and doodles. They had no uniformity, one side a list of bands to download and the other the time of his dentist appointment, and by the time he used them they needed excavation, rescue from his impenetrable hand writing, esoteric contexts and general degradation in the recesses of his pants. The paper rubbed shiny and the pen faded like an old tattoo, Paul would have to put his nose nearly to the paper like a Medieval monk copying the scripture by candle light, people would laugh and tell him he was going to ruin his eyes.

On the steering wheel of his car was a yellow tab with "reports" written in pen, reminding him to pull his monthly performance numbers when he got to the office. He flicked it with a satisfying "swack" and the paper corkscrewed to the floor mat, turning quickly like a helicoptering leaf before joining the trampled and forgotten reminders in a litter collage that could've been wheat pasted to a city wall.

Paul had free time in the afternoon when he had closed the book on one month but not yet opened it for another. He was purging the foliage of sticky notes that canopied his desk and turned his monitor into a strutting turkey. Frank came in to bullshit for awhile, Paul put his feet up, feigning a big shot to make Frank laugh. "Reports," Frank said, pointing at the bottom of Paul's shoe. "Haven't pulled mine yet, but I see your "shoeberry" reminded you." He laughed again on his way out, the door clicking softly behind him.

On the bottom of Paul's shoe was the note he flicked from his steering wheel that morning. "Isn't that strange," he thought. He was always picking up notes like ticks, tracking them around stickier than mud, but this one had persisted nearly eight hours stowaway, up and down stairs, hallways, lunchrooms, men's rooms. His itchy eyes flared with superstition. Secretly Paul thought of his horde as a kind of universal rolodex, the undeniable physicality of the notes proving more valuable and permenant than anything electronic. It was an analog solution but his first instinct when confronted with an issue was to sift through his papers to find the evidence that anchored him to the problem. Paul refused to be taken to task through some machine's ghost's mischief, without a note he was happy to believe in an alternate reality or doppleganger. He peeled it off his shoe and looked at it, "reports" had no meaning beyond "reports," he was sure of it. Paul turned to throw the trash out but something tugged the strings of hesitation, the note had hunted him ominously all day and to just throw it out flew in the face of his system. Every other note had stayed in his car, why had this one not?

He stuck the post-it to his desk and leaned in to stare at it, but he couldn't make it mean anything. Suddenly struck with how silly he was being he bolted back, peeled the note off of his desk and turned it over, slapping his hand on top with a great bang like the closing of a cell door, locking the sudden stupidity away. He shook his head blushing slightly, took his hand off the desk to rub his bald pate. The color drained out of his face and he looked down and the square, written on the back, older than the pen on the other side, undeniably in his scratchy hand and subtly slipping away to time, was the word "Judgment." He took a trembling breath, the air conditioning turned on in the office and an Autumn of notes sprinkled down all around him, like the thick descending morning pollen.

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