When Everything Is Poison

Originally Published in The Antihumanist, 2nd Edition, Oct. 2021

Linda’s face is cold and hard at work behind her glass office walls, visible from my desk through all these glass cubicles, shades left drawn—always—so we can always see her and always know she’s there. She says she wants to make her presence known in the office to boost morale, as if knowing she’s there will speed the numbers into their spreadsheets, will lubricate inbound and outbound emails, will help us maintain the digital pace. She is a zoo-lion—caged but still king. We are snakes and eels, curious spiders and insects, too dangerous to be free, but too valuable to be driven away.

Gabe and Hannah shoot the shit by the water cooler—I can see them too. I resent them for not working as hard as I am, but really, I haven’t touched the keyboard in front of me for almost fifteen minutes. They speak loud enough to be heard, craving the restless attention of their coworkers. There’s no camaraderie, only corporate parties and small talk. Gabe and Hannah are friends outside work, but here at the water cooler, they can only talk about contracts coming down the pipe, third quarter projections, rumors of new project requirements—all their words are really coded and snide bits of gossip under the surface. Linda looks up from her computer for a second; the entire office goes back to work. My fingers touch my keyboard; plug me back in.

I am observed, heard, objectified. I am seen. A working-machine. A looking machine. A number-machine. A keyboard-machine. Gears and levers break off my body and lodge somewhere deeper, gumming up the production line. I am a broken machine. My body collects mechanical detritus like the floor of the ocean, haunting and invisible, acidifying and embittering the churning waves above. I am being watched, not seen; Linda has gone back to staring at her computer. It is the threat that lingers in the disciplinary air; it is the fish left too long in the microwave that no one will claim. The microwave is emptied under the cover of some other idle task. The culprit escapes without investigation: we all suffer the consequences. It is uncouth to complain and so we all remain silent—any hiccup in productivity precedes layoffs. The broken machines get sloughed, written off as a loss on tax forms, recycled for parts. My lists of numbers grow. I am afraid—I am only aware of broken pieces lodging where they don’t belong. I am a machine, not a subject. I do not feel, only sense. I am blinking indicator lights when something goes awry.

Too many pieces fall off; this is more than simple wear-and-tear. It is the product of a manufacturer error, a recallable defect, clandestine sabotage. Someone is dripping acids into the connecting joints so they rot and fall away. The system is perfect; the system is poisoned—it is the only explanation for the constant breakages. Gears lodge in the places they are not supposed to be, gumming up the works. I cannot think in logical steps. I am a digital processing machine, no longer bound by the rules of computational logic. Something has gone wrong. If we were animals, we could eat the ringleaders, scale the glass partitions, and leave the fish-stink. But I am a machine; I am a broken machine; I am being poisoned; I am being discarded, piece by piece.

Jonathan is the HR representative. He is the office mechanic. He puts the gears, and levers, and broken pieces back where they belong. He hovers by the refrigerator, dropping poisons into Tupperware and thermoses. They are drugs meant to improve our productivity, our longevity at the company, our happiness at home, to lubricate our machine-parts and prevent breakage. The fish-stink vents out an open window; the air is sterile, and cold, and institutional, like a hospital filled with little cups of pills. My stomach growls; it is time for my daily dose. I choose my hunger pangs, shaking from my low-fuel indicator light. I won’t be eating poison.

Hannah’s sister is in the hospital recovering from anorexia. She tries not to mention it, but bits of it trickle in through hushed phone conversations echoing in the stairwell. The office is porous; it refuses to be hermetically sealed. Hannah’s sister is hooked up to tubes and catheters, regulating her inputs and outputs, running diagnostics and troubleshooting protocols. She is a flowchart-machine. I consider my own eating habits. I am a man-machine, and machines don’t have disorders, we have broken parts that get replaced. My broken pieces lodge in places they don’t belong; my broken pieces are discarded, replaced bit by bit. I hide my malfunctions. I won’t be run through flowcharts. I won’t be eating poison.

Everything continues; I keep hiding the broken pieces.