Workaholic Woolgathering Jan Wozniak

Jan Wozniak

With a thud, Cal opens his eyes to a sight as welcoming as a collaborative piece by Bosch, Bacon, &

Beksiński

as massive armies of faceless figures in business suits stand gauntly like Giacomettian statues, marching in

synchronicity beneath the yellow atmosphere.

Having skipped breakfast, zombielike they hurl themselves onto the conveyer belt sidewalks of the morning

madness, chanting “productivity, productivity, productivity”

only to be swallowed up by the doorways of menacing corporate skyscrapers & towers that swell & expand as

they gluttonously digest the energy of their dedicated employees–

who, with Gatsbian green light willingly sacrifice themselves in hopes of bigger homes, prettier spouses, more

expensive cars & the pièce de resistance–the opportunity to retire early

(of course, that’s merely an illusory end, as the most honourable death for the workaholic being karōshi)

& with the noble lies of self-help & productivity gurus, buy my book & discover how you too can become both

happy & free

preaching paired down instructions such as “discover your passion” & “work hard” & “inevitably you’ll find

So, like dogs chasing tails, the desperate souls rush—no time for idleness, bound to the Ixionian wheel spinning

endlessly

work, sleep, work, sleep—the ad absurdum song plays, echoing away within their little thought caves, as the

enslaved & work-crazed dance about to imperceptible threads

held by the Great Capitalist Puppeteers high above & beyond the reach of the anthill proletariat masses

with their unnatural green eyes glowing in the heaps of nuclear waste, their shadow puppet hands gracefully

dance against their carbon colognes & nicotine-stained skies

the siren call of factories fills the immensity of space with thunderous symphonies of machinery that chew

& churn & spew future food for landfills & oil-drenched ocean shores

with trash piles of discarded metals & plastics that stand heaven-high, a modern Tower of Babel to honor

the ingenuity & unquenchable thirst of human excess—

excess that willingly offers up the fruits of nature as burnt offerings to the endless furnaces of fabrication & the

Hephaestion hammer.