Author: Soramimi Hanarejima
I’m getting a cup of coffee in the office kitchen when suddenly there you are—as the image of yourself you’ve created by projecting your thoughts into mine—fully occupying my attention the way you always do: with emphatic presence. This time in the form of a hard grimace at the garish posters blaring motivational maxims and the shelves stocked with over-sweetened snacks that are speedy little vehicles to but one destination: a sugar rush.
“Management here has this compulsion to maximize,” I explain. “If something has a fraction of a chance of boosting productivity for a fraction of the team, it’ll be put into action.”
“But doesn’t this stuff have the opposite effect on someone like you? I mean, the posters are a real eyesore, and the free food—if it can be called food—is gross.”
“Yeah, but you tune it out after a while, then you’re just your ordinary self most of the time. Probably not too different from the library. Aren’t you mostly just you there?”
“I am, though maybe a more mellow version of myself. Being surrounded by books is calming. Maybe too calming.”
“To the point that you need the excitement of imagining yourself into my workplace? Why not imagine some exoplanet lush with alien life?”
“Oh, I did that already. Not an exoplanet but a high seas adventure. And yeah, I could go off into another daydream, but as important as it is to take breaks from reality, it’s also important to consider what reality is like for other people. And I realized I’d never done that with you. I’ve just assumed I know what your workday is like because you’ve told me so much about it.”
“Complained so much about it, you mean.”
“Let’s just say you’re very vocal about what you don’t agree with.”
“So now it’s time to find out if things are really that bad. Or…”
“Or?”
“Rescue me from this banality?”
“Too bad I can’t get you out of this as easily as I got myself into it.”
“At least you can save me from this corporate cliché for a few minutes by imagining something interesting here.”
“I have just the thing.”
Before I can ask what that is, the head of a giant bird with lazuli plumage rises from the floor, its amethyst eyes and ivory beak followed by a long neck and flapping wings with sparkling flight feathers that sweep through us. For a moment, it occupies the entirety of the kitchen before departing, the ceiling no obstacle to its ascent.
If only I could ride this magnificent bird away from all the tedious work that awaits me, I’d never—
Then comes the rest of the flock, fledglings and all, countless birds of various sizes streaming past us, lifting toward a sky I imagine as a dazzling dawn that will give way to a blue they will disappear into.
The upward avian torrent tappers to a trickle that continues to mesmerize me until finally, it’s just you and me, grinning.