Once upon a time I was desperate for employment.
And, I was tired of the kind of job where I had to work.
I wanted a sales job, a management job or a job where you just ripped off old drunk people for money. Politics, I think they call it.
Anything but real work.
***
So, I look in the paper. It’s the Calgary Herald and there’s like a million jobs listed.
Leader for a revolution for a small town in Saskatchewan?
Maybe…
Slick representative to reveal the actual date of techno-biological singularity?
Uh, I’ll look at it…
Suit and tie wearing high pressure secret salesman for Memorial Gardens Ground Cover For Dead Folks That’s Worth More Than Gold?
HELL YA! Why not?!
***
I’m like, hyped.
Hyped and sweating because I don’t normally wear a suit and tie but I AM TODAY BABY!
Wearing a suit for my big secret interview with a secret company because it’s some kind of secret.
They can’t tell us applicants who they are because this is such a ground floor opportunity that well, it’s basement.
Just show up at this lower floor address at this time dressed in appropriate business attire.
You won’t be sorry.
***
I’m already sorry I’m wearing this monkey suit.
Me and twenty other sweaty monkey sooters sitting in a tree. Okay waiting room.
Waiting for nine o’clock when supposedly something magical is going to happen.
Whatever it is, it better be easy on account of some of my boys are bulging at their seams.
Let’s get shit on the road.
***
Door opens.
ATTENHUT!
Not really, but everyone does kinda sit up.
Ladies and gentlemen… Dude says aheming. (I see one lady and no gentlemen)
You, have answered a call…
That call… is to greatness.
You… have the opportunity to alter the lives of the most vulnerable in our society.
Someone wrecked by the ultimate loss. The loss of a loved one.
Or, perhaps even they themselves may have died…
***
I got suspicious. I’m not joining the monastery.
This isn’t about the monastery, Dude immediately said to the crowd.
Good, I thought.
No, this was bigger than joining any group that may benefit or fractionalize mankind, Dude emphasized.
He then swung his lectern aside for emphasis and all twenty people gasped in unison.
The son-of-a-beggar was a lectern swinger of the wearing shorts variety!
***
Who in their right mind wears a suit jacket, dress shirt, tie and shorts?!
Dude who sold cemetary plots did.
Listen, Dude said once the curiosity died down.
My guy to the right of me was listening and breathing hard. This suit biz wasn’t for him I could tell.
Listen! Dude said again, waiting for quiet.
Pointing to his suit jacket he says, up here I’m all business.
Jumping and kicking his white monkey legs he says, down here it’s all me.
***
This job is for people who can juggle, Dude says, all serious and shit.
If you can understand that death is a part of life and as such death places certain demands upon life… stay.
Death needs you.
If you are shocked by our approach and think we tricked you into this opportunity…
Life needs you.
And, you can take off your monkey suit.
***
Initially I was pissed at the burial plot sales people for tricking me into their interview.
My anger only lasted about thirty years though until I figured out that I was angry with death not them.
***
After a while I learned that death, like up and sky blue, is relative.
It’s back and forth on the same Ferris Wheel.
Ferris’s that is, until we take our turn…
***
Thank you, friend.
Barry out.
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