Little Things to Get By
I'm a low maintenance employee but I need little things to get by. All I wanted was a window. They offered me a great office in the new wing, but it didn't have a window. I didn't ask for promotion, a bigger car or a fatter paycheck; all I wanted was my window.
They stalled and tried to negotiate. I dug my heels in and explained bluntly that this one's not negotiable. I think they realized that if they'd turned me down I'd have told them where to shove their job and taken the next plane out of this God-forsaken desert.
They moved a junior accountant to get me one. The office is a ground floor cell and I did him a favour getting him released. He even shook my hand and thanked me. The window's better than many I've had. I normally get a cityscape. This time it's a vivid abstract framing a bush and the tops of three flagpoles in the distance silhouetted against the azure sky. I guess they thought "he wants a window; let's give him the worst one we can find."
The Bougainvillea fills most of the lower area of the frame enriching my otherwise sterile environment with colour & life. Her spontaneous existence mocks the plastic wood, the synthetic fibres of my carpet and the chemical paint, the bland backdrop to lifeless calendars and planners. She is rich and fulsome, vivid green, flowering unabashed in an array of shocking violet petals.
Now she is my companion and has grown, under my patronage. The gardeners tried to cut her down. I ran outside and yelled at them to stop. I charged them to water and prune her and do everything within their power to allow her to flourish. They get an extra twenty a month for the trouble.
She protects me, shielding my view except for the sky and flagpoles but allowing me to believe I could be anywhere. Beyond her screen could be the green mountains of my home, rather than the bleached ocean of sand I know to be there.
In the afternoon Shamal winds her branches scratch my window as if to remind me she is there, there in the heat. How anything lives out there in that oven still astounds me but she blossoms and blooms while I sweat & wilt. I thrive in air-conditioned sanctuary. We are both at our best pressed together against the warm pane, isolated.
She gives to me, generously, and in return I continue to offer protection and sustenance. And so our strange symbiosis flourishes.
Like I said, I'm a low maintenance employee but I need little things to get by.