The Cerebral Catalyst

The Office Women, the "Datists," convert raw numeric to "actionable" info. Datists sit smartly at squat machines. Squarish, sleek machines. Explosion of words, images, connections; algorithms of deception; comedy of ease — click clack click — terror's brilliant pixel-hues.

"Do not fear us, we cannot replace you, you have souls and lips and skin, mutable, we smell you..." hum the machines.

Days at the Data Center processing data. Worlds of data.

Brass pots, terra cotta. Lives brightened by ivy, pothos, spider-plants, whatever lives under fluorescent light in stale, anemic soil.

Badgered by memories. Lives they'd rather not have lived: skirt-blouse scent of second shelf cologne; awkward dates with pimply Letter Men. Sports heroes, teenage wunderkinder (where are they now? where are they now?).

Giggle girls bloom death, top forty dreams of beardless boys, awkward in pussy, quick squirters all. Hiding behind cigarettes, reaching for cigarettes, uniform factory-rolled quick-burn dumbly into past; brand insignias puffed with numb indifference; brown tips white tips filter-less.

Datists want love. Life.

They'd been girls once, years ago (fifteen? twenty? twenty-five?). Now was now. Now. Datists dreamed pleasure. Who can please, who can please? Rare men magic tongues stir nectars thrill to flowing. Nice-sized, well-behaved pricks never hurt anyone either.

Paperback romance on the bus (TV at home). Typed data. Manipulated code. Day-after-day began and ended in tall buildings. Remember the beach, high school hurrah? How long must people live, anyway? How long labor in glass towers?

Computers sucked girl juice dry from cunt to womb. Terrible bright noon under florescent suns. Headsets plugged into machines. Songs. Blaze of knowing sharing songs. Those clothes, this coffee, that cigarette. Oppressive.

Friday drink the night. Seek eyes legs torso one can live with Headsets plugged into machines. Tunes yanked from the Network and shared CDs, sexy songs stretched nude like paramours on twilight balconies of daydream.

Those clothes, this coffee, that cigarette. Oppressive. Untrue. "Beauty is truth, truth beauty..." etc. and "classic" Rock 'n' Roll burned days like snowflakes on a skillet.

Friday night drink the week to chill conclusion. Seek eyes legs torso one can live with or take home till morning.

Data to be called "events" from this day on, according to the week's last memo. Workers in the office of Integral Events — formerly the Data Center — no longer "processed data" but "logged events." Circulation of the memo was an event itself. “Who cooked this one up, Payroll, Human Resources?” the Datists — Eventists? — collectively wondered over pitchers of ale.

"...take me. Take me from here..."

______________________________________
Adam Engel is a Contributing Editor for Cyrano's Journal. Adam has published poetry, fiction, articles, and reviews in several websites and magazines such as CounterPunch, Dissident Voice, Online Journal, Hudson Review, Accent, The Concord Journal, Beacon, Art World, Ward6 Review, CounterCurrents, LewRockwell.com, Literal Latte, Lummux, POESY, Chronogram, Press Action, Mudluscious, The Cerebral Catalyst, and many others. Adam was a featured reader, along with Robert Creeley, Suzanne Pomme Vega, Robert Bly and others at the Woodstock Poetry Festival, August, 2001, where he read from his first book of poetry, Oil & Water. He can be reached at bartleby.samsa@verizon.net, or at his partially completed (very partially) website at adamengel.com.

posted 04.21.08.

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