We the Proles

May Day! Aye, here it is
Another celebration day

Left over from our love affair with proletarian love

Sounds sleazy now don’t it?
An adulterous lech after freedom
When there’s work to be done
Money to be earned

Information workers of the world unite!
Not on your life
Gimme my soap, my shampoo, my credit card
My Goddamn good life and fuck your prole love

Information workers of the world unite
Time enough to blow the horn, round the trumpet
Build empires
Time enough to carve a niche in time and space
And run the gamut at the races

I know I know
Personal accomplishment
A sense of self worth
Kickin the tyres
And feelin the statisfyin crunch
Your foot bouncing back
Still strong, Still gorgeous
You just love it don’t ya

Your mind
Pumpin brilliance, workin the crowd
Workin the system, Bleedin the bitch
Now cunt, now! Give.
I’ve done my fair share of waxin pubes
I’ve done my fair share of shoe shining the honchos
Been the squawker at the party
The dress boy at the laundry
Now I want
My gogoliare mind and,
My quadrizillionaire lifestyle
Throw in some sex also for the oompla mix…
Information workers of the world unite….
**************************************************

Incent crouched over his bitter pen watched the words blur and shimmer on the page.

“You been a long time coming back friend”, the page whispered.

“Yeah”, he said,”it’s been a cold, rank, dark season and I just couldn’t muster up the rent…”

He sighed pushed the page away, opened the door and stepped out into the sun. Looking up at the sky, he saw the universe spread out before him in the blink of an eye. He turned back looking at the monitor cam, plaintiveness apparent:

“When can we really play?”

An alarm rang somewhere. A supervisor responded: problem-solution matrices spinning options as he strode into the scene. He took one look at the wistfulness and sized up the situation correctly. He snapped: “Fuck your star gazin’ crap, work the knowledge mines, build the starship human endeavor, leave a legacy for the future. That’s all there is to it. Dig? Now git!”

Always willing to be the obedient systems drone, Incent nodded, walking back to the work center. But cognition was already working its own magic. A spark lit up deep in his dark eyes. Realization froze him to the spot, eyes rounded in horrified surprise. “Oh My God!”

He yelped and collapsed to the ground, stomach heaving. Dinner splattered out in a rich pungent aromatic goo. He wiped the crud off his mouth and looked up at the supervisor, misery marking his face. “Are you crazy?”, he managed to weakly blurt before the pain swept down on him, sinking its talons, curling him in a embryonic whorl, wailing, mewling in a heart break so deep that it cut through the supervisor too.

The supervisor blinked. Uncomprehending. The pain radiated in waves. He frowned and bit his lip, his hand hovering indecisively. He hated the indecision. Finally, he dropped his hand and shrugged, he was paid to keep the mantra of productivity running. Breakdown nursemaiding was strictly a quick fix response. Any nursing requiring more than five minutes should be shoved off to the specialists, so said the protocol.

“Another fuckin breakdown”, he thought morosely. “Now where will I find a replacement”. He patched his circuit into the net, issued two commands – replacement seek order first, worker breakdown report next. He waited to see the confirmation icons blink green before turning back to attend, he thought – another fucked up screwball.

Incent had quietened down. He had been drifting in and out watching the supervisor work the links. At one point he was wracked by another attack of pain. He doubled over, gritting his teeth muffling the high pitched scream that begged to be let loose. The supervisor crouched down and patted his hand. Furious at the lack of protocol documentation, he thought to himself darkly, “That bitch Melissa, with her double degree in mind games, you would have thought that they would cover all bases, map every conceivable breakdown pattern, but no, as usual the suits fuck up.” He snorted. He hesitantly stretched out his hand, all the protocol formulations (“How to comfort a worker in pain”) gone to shit, some half forgotten instinct of how to love his fellow being outside the company manual stirring within.

He squatted on the ground and cradled Incent like a baby. “There, there”’ he crooned. He wanted to say – don’t worry, it will be alright, he wanted to mouth the string of platitudes which fuck knew was a crock of shit, but somehow he couldn’t. Incent buried his face in his chest and wept…

That’s how they found them. Incent, cradled in the supervisor’s arms, asleep. This cleanup crew though was different – the supervisor noticed. Stencilled on their white coveralls it said

Institute of Rhetorical Diseases
Recovery Team

The supervisor got up, embarrassed. He lamely waved in Incent’s direction, “Something weird with this one”, he said.

“Yes, we know.” One of them replied, as they lifted the comatose body and strapped it on the stretcher. The one strapping noticed the piece of paper still clenched in Incent’s fist. He pried open the fingers and extracted the slip. A small smile played across his lips as he read it. The supervisor looked on curiously. Gravity stabilizers hummed as the stretcher rose and nosed its way to the air taxi. The attendants followed. The supervisor tagged along, for the report he told himself. But he knew that was a lie. The attendants jumped on board after ensuring the stretcher had locked into the life support hold. The one holding the paper noticed the supervisor’s face – professional aloofness struggling with gnawing curiosity. He smiled and stretched out his hand - “Here”, he said, “This will be of use to you.”

The gravity engines whined, the air taxi rose streaking away. The supervisor looked down at the paper in his hand. It said:

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. - Robert A. Heinlein [Via Elise]