The Malleable

It’s easy, at work, to forget. Surrounded by people trying to impress other people with how clever they are, the gentle clack of keys, the nervous, exasperated, excited, and exhausted hum of conversation: the soundtrack to a comfortable sort of obscurity, and not the soundtrack where I’m going. It’s easy to be swept away by the concentrated current of this is life, one Teams meeting at a time.

The snake on my head shifts, coils opening, the skin of my scalp prickling. I forgot, somewhere in the creative fugue of software engine design, who I was. It was important to impress people, important to impress myself. I was being clever.

I like feeling clever, but the satisfaction is a slowly fading echo.

We are malleable, you see. We influence each other, we are influenced by all sorts of things, and to exist is to step into currents. The office has a current.

I tried to explain myself to my best friend. Separate, he asked? Is the goal to be separate?

No. I am a pane of glass, albeit warped, through which every sort of light may pass. Papa says we have to be able to move with the current so that we learn to change it. The current of “must prove smart,” the current of “must impress boss.”

All currents, passing through. I can feel them. Pass through is the goal—pushed this way and that freely. One can hardly help from noticing the flow. Pass through, pass with, ebbing and flowing. Just not swept away.

My scalp ran with prickles, one eye sees bright and the other dark. I jiggle my legs so I can focus.

Guede is passing through the office, passing through me as I swim in these currents. I am passing through the office.