The Sad Recruit

All those misdeeds the sad recruit could picture for his colleagues, all those triangulations of envy, refused to lend him the means to pretend. He was on his own. And it was he, who was in charge of experience packaging. His boss wasn't very convincing, when he'd launch into his usual pep talk about how old experience packaging was. "Otherwise, how on earth would we have tradition?", he'd say. "Chalk one up to experience packaging!" "The first impulse of that leads to the splendid caverns of memory, where you can’t just dash and dawdle in aimless recollection. You need a bill of fare", he’d go on. His boss couldn't do it himself. Nobody would believe him, if he tried, and yet it was his job to convince others, his subordinates, that this was inevitable, that packaged experience was the only way forward. His subordinates' job titles and obligations made this inevitability even more dense, more palpable and immune to scrutiny. Through the grapevine, they learned that the boss had put his wife in a box. She had such a big mouth on her and daydreaming, all that daydreaming would have cost him his humanity, had he chosen not to. He was horrified that it wouldn't make any sense, but it did, and people understood him, felt for him. He was horrified that afterwards, he wouldn't be able to make time like he used to, but he has been able to make time. He managed to package his own experience, become the sad recruit.