enthusiastic impromptu happy masturbation. This time he sighed as his scrotum came away in his hand. He held it up for a few minutes feeling its weight. He thought of things that he had held before that weighed the same as his scrotum. He bounced it all in his hand a little, the penis slipping through his missing upper fingers and dropping to the floor to explode in a small cloud of dust. The coffee bubbled and croaked in the pot. He set his balls on the table carefully, whining a little as they rolled off onto the floor and under his TV chair. He would be fired today for not showing up for work. What excuse could he give? Should he call in sick? Outside, in offices all over the World people moved back and forth between cubicles focused on the task for the day. On their desks were pictures of their families. Eighty percent of their time was spent in that cubicle. He saw them dissolving in each little space like snails hit with salt, hissing and bubbling, their work place noisily becoming a damp, empty shell. He sighed and tried to handle the sugar with missing fingers. Instead he spilled it on the surface of the dining room table and floor. No sugar today. The coffee had finally perked. He stood on one leg to pour it, and winced a little as the skin of his ass remained on the chair dissolving into a dust doughnut. He hopped to the counter, poured the coffee with his good hand and tried to sip it. He felt the steam dissolve his upper lip. Air blew across his exposed teeth and gums. Determined, he tried again, the coffee burning his inner mouth. He mumbled his anger at the staring sink erupting with unwashed dishes. He had to call in to the boss. He was sure he would be fired this time. The work day wore on. The sun moved behind the tall office buildings. Clouds puffed and blew about windy skyscraper tops while birds drifted in the air around them. Inside, people mapped out the minutes of their lives from job to job. Here and there a personal touch or two bled into the fabric of the workday. It was like a stain on someone’s underwear. It was accidental humanity. He stood on one leg in the middle of his apartment. The TV complained about high gas prices. Osama bin Ladin bitched again about how America misunderstood him. The World dragged itself into the afternoon like a struggling dung beetle pushing its own waste uphill. He tried to pick up the phone but his remaining fingers snapped off his palm from the pressure. They flopped onto the top of the phone table, one falling on the floor behind it. He would explain his lateness to his boss, as soon as he figured out how to dial the phone. Then again, where was he going today really? He hopped to his recliner and sat down heavily. He pushed back to raise the foot rest and felt his arms pop from the elbows and roll into his lap. He cried. The fingers left on the phone table dissolved like sand. The leg on the floor disintegrated and blew around in a breeze from the kitchen window. Outside someone yelled obscenities at a cabdriver. People were closing their briefcases and shutting down their office computers all over the World. It was quitting time. The sun ducked shyly behind the trees of the city park. Homeless people stirred. 38 theMeadow
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