The Multitasker

At six in the morning, as he did every morning, Geoffrey opened his eyes and, generally thinking of various images of climax due to oral stimulation that he’d seen online as he masturbated and listed to a morning jazz program, showered. He made pancakes and wore the blue socks on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and the brown socks for the remainder of the week – except for Sundays, during which he often went sockless.

While straightening his tie, his jacket folded over the crook of his elbow, Geoffrey started his car and adjusted the rear-view mirror, dreaming all the while of the day that he would manage his very own branch of Willis Co. Driving to work was one of Geoffrey’s greatest pleasures, because as the jazz transitioned into morning news and the suburban houses all reminded him of home, he could imagine the likeness that the world bore to him. He fancied seeing himself folding clothes and washing dishes in every open window that he passed and felt quite at home among the quiet neighborhoods.

Often at Willis Co., remembering an intelligent word he had used during gossiping with his underlings around the vending machines, Geoffrey would smile and put his arms behind his head and, in the skelechair that his manager had lent him after buying, for himself, a titanium skelechair with the adjustable, ergonomic back which would fit only one sitter properly for its lifetime, would lean back as far as he could, smiling.

Crunching the morning numbers, Geoffrey usually tried to erase from his mind, once and for all, the image of a bloody revolution against the demands of Willis Co. customers and could be seen tapping the L key, for Life, over and over, even though no L ever appeared on the computer screen during these episodes.

On his lunch break, he was eating a cheeseburger at Philly’s, down the street from Willis Co. when he became perplexed by the thought that he was unaware of the earth’s rotation around the sun, even as he was thinking about it, and of the sun’s gravitational pull, which at noon, when he had noticed very distinctly new tires on a black car that passed by the office, one must become measurably lighter, and therefore, healthier.

Though when a hand touched his shoulder, he heard a voice coming from the direction of Willis Co. ask if he could use anything else, he caught a pigeon flying through the periphery of his vision and said, with words that seemed to slowly drawl, that he could use the time. Rooting for her pen and receipt pad in different pockets simultaneously, the waitress replied, it’s two hon. Geoffrey thanked her, laid cash on the counter and promptly left the diner.

He was often late coming from lunch break, and that day would be no exception, so he set a smart pace and placed one foot before the other, putting his hands into his pockets before growing uncomfortable at what he perceived as narrowness in his shoulders, and removing them again; Geoffrey gazed toward the sun, waiting without waiting for it to reappear between buildings, just as it would disappear again.

He had formed a superstitious impression that the sun was following him and decided that, as he was stepping into a shadow, he had better stop. Now, Geoffrey wasn’t used to stopping, unless he was putting his bicycle upon the living room wall wrack in order to watch television and knit by candle – and TV – light.

He moved his eyes to the ground and noticed a mysterious gray wad between his feet. He looked harder and found raised lines wrinkling in different directions according to the folds and twists in the material, and a protrusion, like a nipple, sat neatly atop the wad.

After a moment’s reflection, it occurred to Geoffrey that the wad, in fact, was a condom, and after a pause, he found himself placing the ball of his foot onto the wad, then shifting the entire weight of his body onto that ball. He had closed his eyes by the time he felt the rebound of the rubber under the leather sole of his shoe; before he twisted his foot, feeling the slippery quality of the rubber, he had closed his eyes.

Geoffrey opened his eyes, and downtown’s distant skyscrapers appeared to be a solid range resembling sound on his stereo display at home. The sun’s slanting light cut through the alleys left of him and illuminated buildings across the street, lit the colors of paint and people’s faces, and reflected, from innumerable panes of glass, blinding pinpoints and streaks of illumination.

Geoffrey closed his eyes and felt the wind that motors through the maze of downtown corridors blow through his spread fingers. Then he detected in his core, like the rhythm of rush-hour traffic, the beat of his own heart.