At this time of day, the loading dock should be the perfect place for private psychological convalescence from your public humiliation at the grubby hands of that design team underling.
But no respite awaits you here.
You walk in only to be stared in the face by the glowing timer of a ticking bomb reading 2:05.
Then 2:04.
Then 2:03.
You stand there, transfixed in disbelief, until those little red lines of light read 1:59. Then you are confronted with two options: attempt to defuse the sinister contraption or flee the building, pulling a fire alarm switch on your mad dash out.
So which one will it be?
1:55
You consider the risks involved.
Evacuating: possible injury to those who can’t get out in time; descending the stairwell while spazzing with laughter, for example, could have ugly results.
Defusing: the danger of accidentally triggering detonation, which will assist no one and put you in the position of first and greatest exposure to some strain of ticlous bodaeciosus—probably hysterioso (more commonly known as infectious laughter); an instant after the bomb goes off, you will be covered in and inhaling microbes relentlessly secreting proteins that elicit the sensation of being tickled.
Discouraged by these potential consequences, you consider the outcome of inaction.
In now one minute and forty three seconds, this gleaming, pressurized metal canister standing before you will blast ticlous throughout the building to render everyone helpless in fits of laughter lasting who knows how long, to then leave torsos sore and cheeks aching. Productivity will take a nosedive. Debilitation if not full incapacitation during the hysterics and utter exhaustion afterwards.
Seriously disruptive.
“How diabolical,” you mutter, certain that this must be the doing of a rival company or disgruntled employee.
1:29
Or, you wonder, is there another possibility?
Could a workplace plagued by laughter actually have benefits? With everyone so stressed out by the upcoming product launch, an episode of imposed, inevitable levity could be beneficial to employee wellbeing.
Don’t they say laughter is the best medicine? Didn’t you read somewhere that laughter promotes social cohesion?
So maybe this is the doing of a maverick manager concerned about organizational morale, who—fed up with the status quo—has taken matters into his or her own hands.
1:18
And when was the last time you had a really good laugh? One that banished—for a short while—all your worries?
1:13
You can’t remember.
Maybe you’d personally benefit from this thing going off…
1:01
There’s enough time to go upstairs and join the others for the impending communal laughfest. At the very least, you’ll start cracking up in the elevator, then stumble out onto the fifth floor and make your giggly way to your department; there, your team will welcome you into their jubilant hysteria, faces ablaze with inexplicable merriment, fingers gleefully pointing out the amusement they find all too easily in each other’s amusement—now that’s the sort of being laughed at that’s worthwhile.
0:57
You head back to the elevator as fast as you can.
Fascinated by the ways in which the literary arts can serve as a mode of metacognition, Soramimi Hanarejima writes innovative fiction that explores the nature of thought and is the author of Visits to the Confabulatorium, a fanciful story collection that Jack Cheng said, “captures moonlight in Ziploc bags.” Soramimi’s recent work has appeared in various literary magazines, including The Flexible Persona, Black Dandy and Pulp Literature.
Photo courtesty Pikwizard
