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Head Officer
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His head was his office. Each
day he opened an imaginary door
and entered to go to work. It was
a well appointed space, with tapestries
made of dream-threads, shelves
and cabinets full of memories,
bright synaptic lights, and windows
looking out on undulating land,
clustered skylines, and upholstered
boulders. He loved his job.
The pay, however, was sub-optimal
in the sense of nothing. So one day,
to support himself financially, he had
to get a job located outside his head.
He closed up the office in his mind. He
went to work with people on tasks
deemed socially appropriate and worth
traditional remuneration. Sometimes
he steals away to the office in his head,
that wondrous interior, and thinks what
seem to him to be marvelous thoughts,
some of which are accompanied by
unusual images: pink ferns, dolphins
broadcasting news, demitasse cups
full of melted gold. Returning makes
him wistful. The world outside the
Head Office is hard: steel, concrete,
that sort of thing. Deep sighs within these
headquarters seem to to have a salutary effect.
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Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom
