World of Confusion

Enter the thick-walled building by pulling the doors open. The pressure change causes fresh air to whoosh past you, fresh air for the workers. Someone has to open the door every ten minutes or productivity declines as oxygen levels do. Gotta keep everyone fresh. They cycle you in, sometimes just once a week, but if its busy three or maybe four times in one week. Pass through the checkpoint, they scan your card for you, these are workers that are becoming integrated into the building, and they have begun down a path from which they can't turn back, so they just grow and grow into the building and then they're pulled into the network, relying on it to provide money and food and retirement benefits if they commit enough of themselves. That's one way to go - we're here to work!

There are speakers hidden in the ceiling, and right behind you in the locker room (especially there because the lockers are closer to the middle and the clanking and buzzing is louder) and music is always drifting through, loud enough to be heard but not overwhelming, mostly just loud enough to cover the thrum-thrum heartbeat in your ears. Step right into the stepper and enter your age, weight, and how many minutes you'll be working today, then you're off! One-two, left-right, the stepper tells you how many steps you've taken and how far you've traveled, but most importantly it displays how much energy you've been using. Images embedded in the walls around you show you the latest in physical love and violence, look up look down or side to side and after working out sex and violence are hardly distinguishable! Sex is violence! And you step all the harder on the stepper, the biological puddle in your head getting excited for no real reason, and the energy you're giving away is still metered, turning over steadily as you sweat, now passing triple digits. The noise of the machines and the speakers and the flashing televisions mask the throbbing in your ears that you always tell yourself is your heart beating hard while you ignore the walls that pulse with a "thrum-thrum" when you rest against them or the irregular tempo changes when the building needs to increase its output, tending to some other area in the network.

Whew! That was a good energy turnout, you're tired, certainly too tired to upset any part of the network. Towel your sweat off now, stretch your muscles. Rest easy in that you've contributed your energy to this building, which will pass it on where its needed. Pull the glass doors open again, let another stream of air into the building for the other workers, cycling in place or running or stepping like you. Behind those thick walls your energy is for the good and betterment of all, and if you look straight ahead while in your car you don't even notice the thick black columns of smoke rising from the west.