A Scream.

A Scream.[1]

²Oddr had to check through the files of the other accountants; and this job began each morning with  a man – whose job it was to deliver the files throughout the thirty three floors – placing a large folder on Oddr’s desk; this folder contained a number of files, which contained all the finished calculations (on that floor) from the day before; the man whose job it was to deliver the files throughout the thirty three floors would work overnight, taking files from collection trays and placing them within a special trolley, which he, the man whose job it was to deliver the files throughout the thirty three floors, would then use to deliver the files all across the building in dim, sludgy, lamplight; it was rare for there to be no files at all, but on rare days, the load would be incredibly light and he, the man whose job it was to deliver the files throughout the thirty three floors, would finish for the day, and be allowed to sleep in the bed on the bottom floor, which was reserved for him, and this pleasure would be, on those rare, wonderful days, without the usual backache that haunted him, something he always looked forward too; but Oddr had a different job, which began each day by opening his folder and starting the first file, and then working, often slowly, through the entire folder, placing each new file in his own collection tray (a grey plastic bay, which had the depth to hold thirty or so files) for the man, whose job it was to deliver the files throughout the thirty three floors, to come at night and take the files somewhere else (although, if it was a Thursday, Oddr would only place the most important files in the collection trays, leaving the rest to be put in the day after, as the company rarely saw a point in working at full pace on Friday as this was a dull day and nothing much went on, this day, Friday, was supposed to allow those workers who were behind to catch up,[2] as a result, the man whose job it was to deliver the files throughout the thirty three floors would only work for half a night on Thursday and this meant he (& on these days, due to the slithers of sleep he got between phone calls, he would find himself tired at his desk, despite this situation, he could not catch even a few mere minutes of sleep because, secretly, he was always watched, Oddr knew that he was watched as he often saw them, in their hats and with their teeth out gleaming in the shadows, but he never approached them and knew best to keep his head staring at his work and focus on each new file that came to him, and try to ignore the eyes in the corner which were always watching, when he approached other accountants about the eyes, they would always stare blankly at the floor and whisper that it was best they did not talk about these things and all they were supposed to do were their jobs, for example,) only collected the most important files and delivered those to the people who worked on Friday, all of whom wished to be there, so therefore it was better that the work was efficient and not arduous, but even this precaution was useless, as it was not uncommon for people to forego Friday’s all together and simply not show up, which meant, often, the workers who did show up would have to work outside of their chosen field, which, sadly, meant the work was slower and more stressful for the employees that did turn up on Friday, but this was necessary for the company to continue to function and so was always included in the smallest print of each employment contract) every so often, Oddr would be given a set of calculations which were much more complicated than usual, for example, an equation might be missing an important element, causing all of the numbers to become false,[3] and this file would take hours as he would have to implement the missing element and then redo the equations and then double check, so that effectively he was doing the job of two people, or, sometimes, he would not understand the file as it was simply to convoluted, due to the accountants creating needless clauses, which  would take hours to unravel (as they were badly written and often had useless information tacked on and hidden within them (and this would drive Oddr insane, as a simple misspelling may cause him to re-calculate an entire set of calculations, only for him to re-read the file and find that he would have to do each calculation all over again, and all because one of the words was missing a letter here or there, and then, sometimes, more often than not, he would realise that the calculations did not need to be checked and were entirely right) and some would be needlessly looping and arduous) these elements caused his job to be very tiring and troublesome, and he would have to endure it all within a terrible chair, which creaked and moaned, and was in no way comfortable, there were a dozen other chairs in the room, but Oddr believed that his chair was the worst of all, yet he had no evidence of this, as his light, as well as all the other lights in the room, emitted a dim and sludgy illumination, which meant that Oddr could only just discriminate, past his own lamp, the dusky back of the chair in front of him and the head, which was always bent to the desk and working, and beyond that, small islands of the damp light would appear, each with their own back, [4] if he were to look to the left, he would see another worker, also with their head bent to the desk, but always with their arm cradling the work, as if they were a child protecting their answers from the others, and this man had a desk with one leg shorter than the others, which would tap on the floor with every i, j, ! etc. it seemed to Oddr that he dotted a lot of I’s because the desk would constantly bobble, (*this trance was sometimes so dense and terrifying he would return home and stare blankly at his wall, hoping that it would reveal some hope, some something to him, but really, this was all a falsehood, because the wall offered no respite to him and, instead, he would find himself staring, deep and abstractly, at events half-remembered from faraway days[5]) the man seemed to be slamming the lead into the paper, whether to dot an I, or pepper the paper with clauses, or cross his t’s, but, most frustrating of all, Oddr rarely saw the man’s face, and never felt that he would be able to communicate his annoyance if he did, there would sometimes be other noises in the dusk of the office, sometimes laughter, but more often than not, a cough, which would then turn into a serenade, as whoever heard the cough would take it up, and then someone else would hear it, till the whole floor would be a cavalcade of guttural throat noises; these noises occurred frequently around lunch time, as, often, Oddr remained at his desk for lunch, deeply disappointed by the lack of appropriate lighting, which meant he could not read from the book he bought hopelessly to work every day, this lighting meant that the over complicated files, the one’s he sometimes received, were even more daunting, as he would not be able to see the important comma that shifted the equation and altered the workings and changed the results, (in fact, the lighting was so bad he would, sometimes, in the evening, be unable to escape the office, and, instead, stumbled about, with only the pools of dim light to help him, on these days, he would make his way out of the office, using only his soft hands for guidance, desperately hoping his eyes would come accustomed to the dark before he[6]) so that whenever a terrible meandering wreck of a file appeared, he frantically checked the next few files in his folder, hoping they would be free of obscure, hidden loops and meaningless repetitions, because, if they were complicated and fraught with problems, these problems and complications would have to be unravelled and, unless you had a lot of experience, or the appropriate training to be an expert, (% or, at least, he thought he would, he dreamed that he would collapse, starving and tired, in the corner of the a corridor, hoping each day that someone would find him before he went mad, but knowing, deep down, that no one would come because no one knew the layout of the building and, if they did, they would be so old they would be unable to help him, whilst he gasped, dry mouthed, for water, and revealed his chest, which was nothing but bones now; this fear terrified him) it would take, for the average man (i.e. Oddr), longer than the allotted eight hours and, if there were two such files, he would have to stay late into the night again, and then make his way out with hands; even worse was when a file would call for several day’s work, which would cause him to stay late for several nights a week, and, when these files came along, he would have to work on the simple files in his break to ease the panic of his mind, for sometimes a mere cursory glance over a file was enough to declare it done, but, even these glances were wrought with fear, because this glance may reveal another series of loops and contortions (which would cause Oddr to panic severely) so, sometimes, he would put off the glance as the glance was just as stressful as dealing with the file and this meant that he would put off the glances until much later. But, in truth, he felt meaningless, because he still did not know what the numbers on the file meant and what his part in the company actually was, and, when these moods struck him, he would begin to entertain the notion that a sort of grub was feeding the files to him and that it made no difference whether he worked on them or not and when this happened he would eat his lunch and stare at his desk, and this was all because of his job, the job which meant

Sign for approval:…………………………

---

[1] On weekdays, Oddr would return home to a book, he took great comfort in reading books, books contained, he believed, tiny glimmers of freedom, but, of course, all of the books he picked up from the library (which was only two streets away from where he worked) in the brief interval of two hours when he could eat lunch and wander the city, were created in series of long, gloomy sentences, that ran on and on with no end in sight and, upon reading these sentences, he would find himself caught in a dream-like trance ( continued at *)

[2] the company had a great problem with procrastination, due to the lack of enthusiasm from its employees; this situation could not be helped and despite the meetings the company held there was never any end to the great problem of procrastination, eventually it would cause the company to shut down, but not until several suicides took place

[3] 1. Contrary to fact or truth: false tales of bravery. (678 x 567 = 384429 / correct answer being 384426) 2. Deliberately untrue: delivered false testimony under oath (2+2=17.) 3. Arising from mistaken ideas: false hopes of writing a successful novel. (2-2=4) 4. Intentionally deceptive: a suitcase with a false bottom; false promises. (2+2=) 5. Not keeping faith; treacherous: a false friend. See Synonyms at faithless.( +  =4) 6. Not genuine or real: false teeth; false documents(&+%=$).7. Erected temporarily, as for support during construction. (9+7+8 (carry the 1) +5 = 19)  8. Resembling but not accurately or properly designated as such: a false thaw in January; the false dawn peculiar to the tropics. (S+5 = 10)9. Music Of incorrect pitch. (inapplicable) 10. Unwise; imprudent: Don’t make a false move or I’ll shoot. (768+678 x 758 +234 x 54 + 3 =527331 )

[4] and Oddr would often think: what, indeed, was the point of working, when everybody hated what you did and no one knew who you were,(and besides, the way you communicated was far too complex and far too meaningless for anyone to understand and this was because you, yourself, didn’t know what exactly you wanted to say, or, perhaps, because you got so caught up in the saying it that everything you were trying to say didn’t matter anymore and all you really wanted to do was scream listen, listen, listen) sometimes,

[5] one such event was a single night from a string of abstract days; in those days, at night, the phone rang constantly, often starting at ten o clock and lasting till dawn, and Oddr would find himself sat, with his knees against his chest, waiting for the red light to stop flashing and the trill, trill, trill of another phone call to dissolve all at once into nothing but silence (continued at &)

[6] wandered down the wrong path, as then he would be lost in the building and its multiple floors and corridors with no reference to where he was, or where he was going, and, eventually, he would succumb to his exhaustion, (continued at %)