Unfinished Official Business

I imagine the work left behind in my old office is still there, some of it piled in the corners, papers spilling over onto the floor, reports clogging up the bookshelves and stacked up in the hall closets, very little of it filed properly, but for some registered items.

Someone picked up the baton where I left off.  Like workers before me finding it always there, never ending, forever needing attention, filling up the desk, spilling onto the floors, clogging up the bookshelves.

The best part of the work day was that early moment in the morning when I took off my coat , sat down at my desk or my workbench and pondered what needed to be done, appreciating the morning quiet before the storm, the steady beat of rain drops on a metal roof,  thunder rolling across the sky, silent slushy winter snowstorm filling up the streets, causing much churning of ice water through guttered curbs, hurried runs for fresh cups of coffee and a sweet roll before the first early meeting.  Quick notes drawn up of ideas to be fleshed out in the coming months. Dreams sketched on chalkboards and paper, typed up in our computers, discussions with a colleague during an early phone call, commitments made, promises offered.

The worst part of the work day was the begrudging moments of administrative matters, pushing for decisions to be unreasonably made by 10am without exception, promptly reporting the irrational results on single sheets of paper and filing them endlessly in alphabetized folders, costing monies that might be better used on people needing real services, rather than to things mattering not at all, but to administration. I'm not sure they even remember why they asked it to be done anymore, once it is properly filed.

I see our results, those steel shards of war, crushed peoples, green phosphorous clogged waters, murderous politics, plague outbreaks, journalistic lies, top heavy unearned wealth.

Work everywhere lies strewn around in offices and on floors, stuck in files, cut into small strips to keep it secret.

It is unfinished. I am not sure that it is yet begun.