Vocation Poem by Richard Cole

I'm going upstairs to the CEO. The elevator doors glide open, and I step out. Deep, plum-colored carpets. Heavy doors. A receptionist is talking low into the telephone. She looks up, still talking, and her eyes follow me as I pass. I wander down hallways big as a landing strip. The floor is quiet and filled with light. Each room is empty as I walk by.

I reach the CEO's office. The secretary is gone. I push at the steel door, and it slowly swings open like a vault. The CEO sits behind his desk at the far end of the room. As I walk toward him over the thick carpet, I can see that his eyes are flat and milky. The wind whistles quietly at the windows. The CEO stares at the horizon, head tilted to one side, thoughtful. Like a desert king, his body has dried into a question mark, fragile and papery, the skin pulled back from his teeth. His hands rest lightly on the desktop. Through the broken skin, I can see the hollow bones in his wrists—small bones, like a bird's.

I'll have to think about this. I look out the window. Far below me, on the sidewalks, the tiny figures are crawling back and forth, too tiny to be heard, too tiny to scream. Actually, there was something I was supposed to do... I rearrange his arms. He's about my size. I slip and the whole body abruptly slumps to the carpet. For a moment, the office feels like it's rising and falling, slowly, like the deck of a ship. Half in, half out of the world. The secretary appears cautiously at the door with a question. I tell her not to worry. I smile. I tell her to hold all my calls.