Carbon Based Life Form

The amount of paperwork that I do is unbelievable. It is almost like a joke.

Today, for example, I spent three hours doing paperwork. That’s 60 x 60 x 3 seconds (you do the math, because I have a bit of paperwork to do). When I am doing my paperwork, I sometimes imagine my heart beating in my chest, and this makes me very sad, because I know that the human heart has but a finite number of beats allotted to it, and at least 60 x 60 x 3 of my heartbeats were just spent making little squiggles (that nobody ever reads) onto a pad of carbon-copy paper (that nobody ever reads).

Often, when I am making my precious squiggles, tiny teardrops fall from my eyes and form little puddles on my pad. This is typically when I fly into a rage, because it means that I have to rip out the original page and its duplicate and begin my squiggles all over again. I start wondering if this is how serial killers get their inspiration, and I make a mental note to Google “Serial killer” and “squiggle” when I get home.

I know that I am making it seem as if these squiggles are worthless, but my very livelihood depends on whether or not I make them each week. It would not be a great leap of the imagination to say that, if I were to refuse to write my squiggles, I would soon starve and have to wander about naked on the streets. You’d think that, if I were starving and naked, I would just stay put in my apartment, but no. I wouldn’t.

I know that I should be engaged in other, more worthwhile pursuits – like finding love or chasing my dreams. But again, no. When the choice came between “living your life” and “making squiggles,” I went for the option that included the word “squiggles.” So, when people gather around my deathbed 40-50 years from now and say to me, “Did you have a good life santhosh? And by the way, where do you keep the spice?”, I will say, “No. Life was a long, drawn-out, sickening struggle. And there was never enough --------. But you know what? I always got my squiggles in on time. The Doritos should be in the cupboard.”

Then I will exhale a great breath, and my eyes will become fixed on some point in the distance. People will say, “I think he’s gone now.” But I won’t be. It’s just a game that I like to play with them. Instead, I will be thinking of my ----- (especially the kind with little bits of fruit inside it).