George Saunders - Pastoralia

More firings?

God.

I return to the log.

Sort of weird without Janet.

Someone pokes their head in.

A young woman in a cavewoman robe.

26.

She walks right in and hands me a sealed note.

From Nordstrom:

Please meet Linda , it says. Your total new Partner. Sort of cute, yes? Under that robe is quite a bod, believe me, I saw her in slacks. See why I was trying to get rid of Janet? But also you will find she is serious. Just like you. See that brow? It is permanent, she had it sort of installed. Like once every six months she goes in for a touch-up where they spray it from a can to harden it. You can give it a little goose with your thumb, it feels like real skin. But don’t try it, as I said, she is very serious, she only let me try it because I am who I am, in the interview, but if you try it, my guess is? She will write you up. Or flatten you! Because it is not authentic that one caveperson would goose another caveperson in the brow with his thumb in the cave. I want us now, post-Janet, to really strive for some very strict verisimilitude. You may, for example, wish to consider having such a perma-brow installed on yourself. To save you the trouble of every day redoing that brow, which I know is a pain. Anyway, I think you and Linda will get along super. So here is your new mate! Not that I’m saying mate with her, I would not try that, she is, as I said, very serious, but if you were going to mate with her, don’t you think she looks more appropriate, I mean she is at least younger than Janet and not so hard on the eyes .

I put out my hand and smile.

She frowns at my hand, like: Since when do cavepeople shake hands?

She squats and pretends to be catching and eating small bugs.

How she knows how to do that, I do not know.

I squat beside her and also pretend to be catching and eating small bugs.

We do this for quite some time. It gets old but she doesn’t stop, and all the time she’s grunting, and once or twice I could swear she actually catches and eats an actual small bug.

Around noon my fax makes the sound it makes when a fax is coming in.

From Louise? Probably. Almost definitely. The only other person who ever faxes me is Nordstrom, and he just faxed me last night, plus he just sent me a note.

I stand up.

Linda gives me a look. Her brow is amazing. It has real actual pores on it. I squat down.

I pretend to catch and eat a small bug.

The fax stops making the sound it makes when a fax is coming in. Presumably the fax from Louise is in the tray, waiting for me to read it. Is something wrong? Has something changed? What did Dr. Evans say about Nelson’s complete loss of mobility?

Five more hours and I can enter my Separate Area and find out.

Which is fine. Really not a problem.

Because I’m Thinking Positive / Saying Positive.

Maybe if I explained to Linda about Nelson it would be okay, but I feel a little funny trying to explain about Nelson so early in our working relationship.

All afternoon we pretend to catch and eat small bugs. We pretend to catch and eat more pretend bugs than could ever actually live in one cave. The number of pretend bugs we pretend to catch and eat would in reality basically fill a cave the size of our cave. It feels like we’re racing. At one point she gives me a look, Like: Slow down, going so fast is inauthentic. I slow down. I slow down, monitoring my rate so that I am pretending to catch and eat small bugs at exactly the same rate at which she is pretending to catch and eat small bugs, which seems to me prudent, I mean, there is no way she could have a problem with the way I’m pretending to catch and eat small bugs if I’m doing it exactly the way she’s doing it.

No one pokes their head in.

Eighty people waited in a darkened meeting room at the Hyatt, wearing mass-produced paper hats. The White Hats were Beginning to Begin. The Pink Hats were Moving Ahead in Beginning. The Green Hats were Very Firmly Beginning, all the way up to the Gold Hats, who had Mastered Living and were standing in a group around the Snack Table, whispering and conferring and elbowing one another whenever someone in a lesser hat walked by.

Trumpets sounded from a concealed tape deck. An actor in a ripped flannel shirt stumbled across the stage with a sign around his neck that said “You.”

“I’m lost!” You cried. “I’m wandering in a sort of wilderness!”

“Hey, You, come on over!” shouted a girl across the stage, labeled “Inner Peace.” “I bet you’ve been looking for me your whole life!”

“Boy, have I!” said You. “I’ll be right over!”

But then out from the wings sprinted a number of other actors, labeled “Whiny” and “Self-Absorbed” and “Blames Her Fat on Others” and so on, who draped themselves across You and began poking him in the ribs and giving him noogies.

“Oh, I can’t believe you love Inner Peace more than you love me, You!” said Insecure. “That really hurts.”

“Frankly, I’ve never been so disappointed in my life,” said Disappointed.

“Oh God, all this arguing is giving me a panic attack,” said Too High-Strung to Function.

“I’m waiting, You,” said Inner Peace. “Do you want me or not?”

“I do, but I seem to be trapped!” You shouted. “I can’t seem to get what I want!”

“You and about a billion other people in this world,” said Inner Peace sadly.

“Is there no hope for me?” asked You. “If only someone had made a lifelong study of the roadblocks people encounter on their way to Inner Peace!”

“And yet someone has,” said Inner Peace.

Another fanfare sounded from the tape deck, and a masked Gold Hat, whose hat appeared to be made of actual gold, bounded onto the stage, flexed his muscles, and dragged Insecure to a paper jail, on which was written: “Pokey for Those Who Would Keep Us from Inner Peace.” Then the Gold Hat dragged Chronically Depressed and Clingy and Helpless and the rest across the stage and shoved them into the Pokey.

“See what I just did?” said the Gold Hat. “I just liberated You from those who would keep him from Inner Peace. So good for You! Question is, is You going to be able to stay liberated? Maybe what You needs is a repeated internal reminder. A mantra. A mantra can be thought of as a repeated internal reminder, can’t it? Does anyone out there have a good snappy mantra they could perhaps share with You?”

The crowd was delighted, because they knew the mantra. Even the lowly White Hats knew the mantra — even Neil Yaniky, who sat spellbound and insecure in the first row, sucking his mustache, knew the mantra, because it was on all the TV commercials and also on the front cover of the Orientation Text in big bold letters.

“Give it to me, folks!” shouted the Gold Hat. “What time is it?”

“Now Is the Time for Me to Win!” the crowd shouted.

“You got that right, baby!’ said the Gold Hat exultantly, ripping off his mask to reveal what many already suspected: This was not some mere Gold Hat but Tom Rodgers himself, founder of the Seminars.

“What fun!” he shouted. “To have something to give, and people who so badly need what I have to offer. Here’s what I have to offer, folks, although it’s not much, really, just two simple concepts, and the first one is: oatmeal.”

From out of his suit he pulled a bowl and a box of oatmeal, and filled the bowl with the oatmeal and held the bowl up.

“Simple, nourishing, inexpensive,” he said. “This represents your soul in its pure state. Your soul on the day you were born. You were perfect. You were happy. You were good.

“Now, enter Concept Number Two: crap. Don’t worry, folks, I don’t use actual crap up here. Only imaginary crap. You’ll have to supply the crap, using your mind. Now, if someone came up and crapped in your nice warm oatmeal, what would you say? Would you say: ‘Wow, super, thanks, please continue crapping in my oatmeal’? Am I being silly? I’m being a little silly. But guess what, in real life people come up and crap in your oatmeal all the time — friends, co-workers, loved ones, even your kids, especially your kids! — and that’s exactly what you do. You say, ‘Thanks so much!’ You say, ‘Crap away!’ You say, and here my metaphor breaks down a bit, ‘Is there some way I can help you crap in my oatmeal?’