Small Places : Nick L Belardes [57 of 128]

• Eighteen.
• Katie Starburn talks too much. Could be the drug-induced behavior. I don't know. Her train of thought is off the Richter Scale.
• She can't keep to any one topic. Here is someone who can hold conversations with actual Greek statues, park trees and photocopiers.
• I enjoy her rants and think she's fabulous and hilarious. She thrives on talking about sex and making the men around her nervous. Not me.
• "You know how many times me and Jake had sex this week? 12," she said.
• She also told me about orgasms and her girl's weekly clarinet lesson.
• Katie builds reports related to product development issues. She gets bored, wanders into the marketing department, says "Hi slick Willie."
• She especially likes Vishnu. Before she visits, she makes sure her breasts are half out of her blouse before
• asking him some inane question. She exits his cubicle and gives me the double thumbs up,
• letting me know that she's got something else up with Vishnu. I shake my head.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [56 of 128]

• Have you ever seen Joan's eyes if leftover pizza in the break room runs out before she gets to it?
• She will send a "You jerk" email for sure. I'm like Joan. In moments like these I realize corporate America was built for people like us.
• People who need the little things. I may never be a great ad writer. I may never get break room leftovers.
• But I will threaten hari-kari in my own personal Cubepocalypse. There’s always an office worker who leaves two hours early everyday and
• no one says a thing. At Buildicon her name is Marcia. Marcia stuffs marketing literature in boxes. Those boxes get sent to tradeshows.
• Mulani answers phone calls all day about how the boxes are stuffed wrong.
• Our manager, Milt Butterlink doesn’t care about the boxes. “Too far down the totem pole,” he says. Besides, Mulani will fix it.
• Often Marcia can be seen dropping what she’s doing and walking out the door. She has the attention span of Milt minus three brain cells.
• Yet, as I sit at my desk and fume about the unfairness of not being able to leave until 5:01, I can’t help but want to be Marcia.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [55 of 128]

• Milt: "I need to fire somebody." Me: "Fire yourself." Milt seems to contemplate that idea for a moment. His wooden fingers twitch.
• Me: "I'm not in the firing business." Milt: "I need a name." I admit I'm tempted. Kira de Frito, Joan...a toss up. They're both worthless.
• Milt insists on taking the department out to lunch so he can observe everyone in close proximity. He decides on a really bad Italian dive.
• Right away, Joan starts talking about her ailments because she thinks that's what you do when you gather for lunch with workmates.
• Mike gags. I'm ignoring the latest about her fragile kidneys. Instead I'm watching Milt who watches Mike build a tower of utensils and
• other objects. Joan: "It's the third time I've gone to the hospital for this infection." Milt stares at Mike's tower.
• Joan's eyes turn red with rage. Joan: "And in the middle of the night I can barely get to the toilet."
• Milt mutters under his breath: "C'mon, Mike!" Mulani giggles. The tower crashes and Milt looks sad. He turns to Joan.
• "What?" She storms off. Kira de Frito does too for no reason. Mike: "That was cool."
• Corporate America always seems in near riot over the trivial. I call it the "Cubepocalypse." We're always on the verge of one.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [54 of 128]

• Can't picture a Wookie among them can you? Or even among rebel fishhead telemarketers. Their cubicles would stink, but not like a Wookie.
• As bad is it might get with Clone Coffee Wars and hot babes decked in grey, I just can't picture Chewie stapling forms or designing ads.
• And in this case, practically running a company? Might as well buy into Milt's philosophy that the color red is a genuine disco ad theme.
• Shoot me now because Chewie has Milt imitating her cackle in some kind of corporate code that can only mean more work and less web surfing.
• Seventeen.
• Suddenly Milt trusts me. I don't think he trusts himself. He calls me into his office. "It's time for a talk," he says. The door closes.
• Milt: "I need to know about people." Me: "You're the manager." Milt: "Tell me about your coworkers. You seem to know them all." Me: "What?"
• I suddenly want back in my cubicle. No wonder dogs like kennels. There's a degree of solace when mindlessly thrown a bone while in a cave.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [53 of 128]

• I'm still frozen, though contemplating the Cubepocalypse flag when I'm suddenly awakened by a rare sighting of the Buildicon Bigfoot.
• It's Milt's boss. Imagine that hairy schoolgirl who always followed you home, becoming a corporate chief. Now imagine a big hairy salary.
• I hear her howl from four cubicles away. It's the kind of nervous laugh you'd expect from a Wookie having to hang out with low-life Jawas.
• For a moment I think Milt's wearing earplugs. I'd go pull them out myself if I weren't afraid all my missing antfarm ants would spill out.
• Milt and Chewie disappear into his office. Her voice pierces the walls as if it were a Swingline stapler laugh.
• I wonder what they're up to. The laugh of Milt's boss sounds like the real Chewbacca's howl, so I naturally think, "Blasphemy!"
• I consider dressing like one of the Huts. Now think about any great Star Wars office.
• Imagine Death Star cubicles with Palpatine hologram clocks. Clones all working the phones.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [52 of 128]

• Think about it. What do you want from your break room? Coffee consistency. I say that over and over in my paralysis: coffee consistency.
• Email: "All: Since our coffee service, "Get a Break" seems to have gotten a break from bringing us coffee stirrers, I have ordered some."
• This is what Buildicon Enterprise has come to... Plastic or wooden stirrers, generic or non-generic creamer. I can't take it. I'm frozen.
• Has the company secretary seen that many bad movies? Because she just wrote a line out of one. This is corporate America gone mad.
• The crazy idea that workers might revolt over not having their preferred java stirrers is almost enough to make me want to carry that flag!
• New "Don't Tread On Me" banner for the modern age: Green flag with white coffee cup in the middle surrounded by a square, er... cubicle.
• It's the common good of the corporate cubicle crowd. Slogan: "Decent coffee! Decent stirrers! Sturdy cups!" Chant it! God I need a latte...
• I wonder: Does every corporation eventually face their own Cubepocalypse? Workers expected to do the mundane revolt over something trivial.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [51 of 128]

• She drove me home, unbuttoned her blouse and said, "They look real don't they? I need celery. I'm so organic. I don't even lift anymore..."
• She continued: “I was just too inhuman then. You know, all apple and no stem? Couldn’t see nothin’ but lumps I was so bloated everywhere.”
• She didn’t stop talking.
• "I had no neck. Now I eat sushi. I want to open a sushi bar but I'm afraid I might have to learn some Japanese. So, how are your apples?"
• I'll get back to the fabulous Katie Starburn. For the moment I'm locked in my cubicle, paralyzed. I think it's the email I just read.
• It's a coffee-related email sent to all Buildicon personnel. Apparently the secretary is on the fritz about coffee stirrers. Not good news.
• Like any cubicle worker, I think, "Don't mess with our coffee!" If there's a balance to corporate cubicle existence, coffee provides it.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [50 of 128]

• The entire Buildicon office is turning into a claymation of its former self.
• Milt Butterlink's spider bites have healed. That doesn't keep him from wandering over to my desk and babbling. I try to focus in.
• Milt looks like he's chewing when he talks. So I look at his nose instead. There's something hanging there like some wild flea circus.
• Even though he's still talking, all I hear is "Boogerboogerboogerboogerboogerboogerboogerboogerboogerboogerboogerboogerboogerbooger..."
• I consider telling Milt that a booger is doing some kind of high-flying act between nostrils. I almost wish I had a bag of peanuts.
• He's talking about the company party I never go to and brags about dancing in leather on a table. I consider his booger act YouTube worthy.
• Sixteen.
• Katie Starburns was once an organic bodybuilder. I guess that means everything but steroids. Anyway, she's got the body of a Greek goddess.
• She's statuesque with marble-like cleavage. Only hers? Silicon. I think her skin is real. Not that I touched it or she hasn't offered.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [49 of 128]

• I see Mulani's shape in sparks. I see her shape in the sand, in imaginary bioluminescence. I hear laughter, crackling flames, ocean roars.
• Buoys bounce in the dark sea. Waves crest and crash. The sand is cool next to me. A sand crab wanders close, moving like a sideways glance.
• I drift off to sleep feeling so infinitesimal that I can understand the small places between grains of sand. There's electricity in them.
• I can leap from each. A billion stepping stones to an uncertain future. The spaces become wider, the leaps longer. I try to grow wings.
• Fifteen.
• Working for a corporation is like taking the end result--life's grand statue of me--and re-sculpting into a big worthless block of clay.
• Some, like Joan or Milt, are practically monoliths at their desk. Think about it. What happens to our personalities in cubicle culture?
• Buildicon's idea of team-building is turning us all into big cubes. We'll never escape our cubicles: products of a product-driven company.
• I'm beginning to think there's more of me in the worthless Happy Meal toy I brought back from lunch. I put it on the shelf with the others.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [48 of 128]

• Mulani passes me. She's a faster runner, more athletic than I ever knew. I get winded in the sand and have to stop.
• I'm a failure at rescue. I never should have watched Baywatch. They were out of my league all along.
• I gasp while Mulani comforts Vishnu with kisses and hugs. I put my hands on my knees as Mike comes stumbling,
• pretending he's mental with the whole episode. For some reason he's a natural. Mike: "I murder little kids for Frisbee.
• Now I go to car and we go back to institution." Like an insane man he stumbles across the sand.
• Lying on the sand in the dark I feel like Buildicon's cubicles have been lifted from around me. I imagine them shooting into the heavens.
• I look up, play dot to dot, connect unseen lines into Mulani's shape.
• She's about to wad the moon like paper from Buildicon's faulty printer. Not too far away there's a fire in the sand.
• Mike is building it. Sparks fly. Vishnu is drinking heavily. Mulani is humming quietly. I suddenly feel small again.
• I'm the ant shaman in the tiny farm. Even a fleck of dust shines brighter than me. A star shoots across the sky.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [47 of 128]

• She wrinkles her brow in confusion. My hands never quite reach her waist as I suddenly turn and run down the pier.
• Two porpoise leap and make their way along the coastline. I know what Vishnu is thinking. The dolt thinks he sees sharks.
• Vishnu’s hands are up by his face in disbelief. He screams and runs, falls, gets up, screams and runs then repeats the process once more.
• Mike simply throws his arms in the air. He walks around clumsily on the sand for a few moments, then picks up some seaweed.
• Suddenly Mike starts screaming as if he’s seen some kind of sea creature more frightening than the sharks in Vishnu’s imagination.
• Mocking Vishnu, Mike covers his chest with his hands and falls to the ground pretending to die. He convulses. He kicks his legs out.
• A couple of kids walk up and kick sand on him then take his Frisbee and run.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [46 of 128]

• She leans over the pier railing. Her skin is dark. There is a shine to it in the hot sun and I suddenly want to hold her.
• I want to touch her shoulder, wrap myself around her waist and feel her lips. She turns and looks into my eyes.
• She gazes and starts smiling. Mulani turns and looks over the sand and sea. "China is so far away," she says.
• "Are you the kind of person who would take me there?" I don't have to think about this: "Sure. Why wouldn't I?"
• Mulani: "There are things I need to do and see but I'm afraid." Me: "I know."
• Down below, a few large waves roll across the surf. I sneak closer. I want to put my arms around her waist. She can sense it too.
• "Tell me what you're feeling," she says. It's as if she knows what I'm feeling--that I can't shake her, or this, or anything about her.
• I'm about to answer when my eyes move from Mulani down below to Vishnu who just dropped the Frisbee. He points to the ocean.
• If I had watched Mulani I would have seen something in her eyes just then I had never seen: the same adoration I feel for her perhaps?

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [45 of 128]

• "People from your city, your family, your neighborhood and outlying villages celebrate this festival for 5,000 years.
• "Customs are as ancient as the streets and air. All around you are lights and smiles. There are great temples and wide festival streets.
• "You stop for a pastry delicacy smothered in cheese. The ancients walked the same road, ate the same food,
• prepared in exactly the same way. "You see, a roll is not just a roll. It is a cultural artifact constantly remade in the likeness
• of its former self. "Every day they are reborn and you can have another. Time overlaps.
• This is the enlightenment of the roll," Vishnu says. Mike doesn't get it. On the pier I have a moment alone with Mulani.
• Far below we can see Vishnu and Mike tossing a Frisbee across the sand.
• Each dives over sea kelp and jellyfish carcasses to catch passes. Occasionally Mulani waves down to them while we walk.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [44 of 128]

• Fourteen.
• The blue-green ocean off the California coast plays like a magical song, beckoning Vishnu. It reflects deep azure in his eyes.
• There is a boyish glow that builds until he suddenly screams joyously from the back of the car: "Ocean! Ocean! Ocean! Ocean!"
• If there is a time that Webmaster meets spirituality in nature, this is the mystical moment. Sadly, there is no mouse for Vishnu to click.
• Near the pier there's a shop that makes the best cinnamon rolls I've ever tasted. The aroma fills the street as we park.
• The aroma inside is perfectly overwhelming. "Four please," I say. Four rolls are placed on plates. Icing is then smeared across the tops.
• "Let the angels dip their heavenly wings in sugar and fat," Mike says. Vishnu: "What are cinnamon rolls?" I set one in front of him.
• "Ah, a pastry treat," Vishnu says. He smiles big as he takes his first bite. Suddenly he looks like he's about to tell a wondrous story.
• Vishnu: "We have such delicacies in India. Picture a soft midnight sky. You're under the most majestic festival lights wrapped in goodness.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [43 of 128]

• In the meantime, Vishnu does double work maintaining both the old website and the new website that is never launched.
• His eyes slowly cross. Me: "Say, Vish. What do you think about a beach trip?" He gets nervous: "Did you not hear? Shark attack."
• Go figure. He's a web news junky. "They're not going to jump on the beach and bite you." Vishnu: "Oh no?
• I cannot place myself in the path of certain death." Me: "Come on!" Vishnu: "I have seen Luke Skywalker and his war of stars.
• The dark side can rear its head any time to bite off the hand of the unsuspecting.” "Did someone say beach trip?" Mulani says.
• She must already have bags packed somewhere. "Yeah you can bring your husband." I cross the line.
• Mulani is quicker than me: "Oh who needs that bimbo. He's in South America. Besides. I need some fun in the sun with my favorite boys."
• Just then we realize that Kira de Frito has been standing in the cubicle. We don't know how long.
• Her birthmark looks like seagull splatter. I give Kira a slow nod as if I'm communicating with an extraterrestrial.
• She looks like she's about to cry and bolts into a sea of cubicles. Mulani: "Maybe we should invite her."
• Me: "I thought shark attacks were terrifying." Just then Milt passes. He trips on the carpet. Karma.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [42 of 128]

• Kira: "a..." I speak slow as if to help: "A... what?" But that does no good. She suddenly bolts to Milt's office and slams the door.
• Mike: "What do you think they talk about every time she runs in there?" Me: "Maybe she can't form complete sentences in there either."
• Vishnu walks up and looks at Milt's closed door. "Who's in there?" he says. Mike and I: "Kira de Frito." Vishnu: "Why?"
• Me: "We don't know." And so this is the corporate world: incomplete sentences, mass miscommunication, closed-door meaningless meetings.
• I need a road trip. Vishnu: "Ahh. I need a graphic for our new website that never launches." I feel put out.
• Can't he see I'm surfing the Web and chatting? Along with Buildicon's old website, Vishnu works on a new company
• website that was supposed to be launched a year ago. It’s like the space shuttle. Every time they think they find a loose tile,
• the launch date is scrubbed for six months in order to procrastinate. By the time we launch the new site,
• Buildicon will be ready for a new design on top of the old design and the new design. Vishnu stares.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [41 of 128]

• I need a road trip with my office pals. I imagine Vishnu has an inflatable tube, Mulani in a bikini and Mike
• with a splatter of nose lotion. I begin to imagine Mulani blowing me kisses, sharing a beach towel, when I notice
• Kira de Frito standing in my personal cubicle space. Kira: “I need a projecta requesta.” Her Brazilian accent is extremely horrible today,
• more so than usual. Her breath is no rain forest. Me: "You have a project?" Kira: "I believe so, jes." Me: "You believe so? OK."
• And then she just stands there. Is she hypnotized? By what? I pray to God I don't have something hanging from my nose like
• Milt Buttlerlink always does. Me: "Kira?" "Jes?" she says. Me: "Kira? I can't read your mind."
• Although I am beginning to think I can see the shape of it outlined by the birthmark on her forehead.
• "I need..." Kira de Frito says. I form words as if speaking for her. I do the eternal slow nod as if to pull words from her lips.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [40 of 128]

• Milt stares at the spider. It never moves. He waits 10 minutes for it to move. I wait 10 minutes for him to move. It's a move off.
• I twitch. Milt comes back to my desk eight times. I hand him a completed newsletter that's a month late.
• "I'll look at it next week," he says. "Why is there a live cricket in your spider tank?" Milt asks. Me: "For effect.
• It helps make the spider look real." The next day the spider tank is on its side. The lid is off.
• I find Barbarella crawling on Kira de Frito's chair. I think about leaving it. Milt passes my desk.
• He has welts all over his face and neck like he has just wrestled a snake or giant spider. I take Barbarella home.
• Shark attack on a nearby beach. Some surfer was nearly chewed off his board. I click on the video link and see a chomped on surfboard.
• "Yeah broh, I was hangin' it goofy foot by the pier. Shark thought I was seal bait. But I looked into his eyes, and like, whoah, you know?"
• The closest beach is two hours away from this smoggy valley. The water is cold, the jellyfish are as big as people and the ocean is murky.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [39 of 128]

• Thirteen.
• Today I'm at work surfing the Internet. What more can I do to take up boredom than to stream mindless media straight onto my desktop?
• The Drudgereport is scamming there's been another shark attack. For some reason I think it might be my ex. Worse things have happened.
• I can imagine my ex on Oprah, sobbing, wearing a fake arm that's Gumby-like and bent to look like she's the victim of the shark kingdom.
• Ex: "I was paddling, stuck in a half circle, trying to get away. I could see my fingers wiggle as he swallowed." And then Oprah would cry.
• I'm feeling dysfunctional. It's a cubicle thing. Confined, I don't feel like I'm helping the collective. I bring my pet tarantula to work.
• The spider’s name is Ms. Barbarella Big Fangs. She’s hairy. She eats crickets. Milt Butterlink sees her and instantly stops at my desk.
• Milt: "You can't bring a spider to work." Me: "It's not real." Milt: "It's real." Me. "It's not real." Milt: "I know it's real."
• Me: "Nope."

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [38 of 128]

• Mulani hangs over me. "Nice," she mocks. "And you colored in the lines." Mike shakes his head. "I need a third grader to do it," I admit.
• I need one sentence approved to finalize this month's e-newsletter. It's taken five days to write the stupid sentence. Am I inefficient?
• The problem is, each time I show the sentence to Milt he says the same thing: "It needs some shiny pizzazz. Make it freakin' Hollywood."
• This is technical data. I interviewed two product developers and a tech support engineer. It's not enough. This job is a battle.
• How can Milt expect me to know technical data when I can't even build a paper version with slots in it? And no, I can't color in the lines!
• The tech support office is a nerdy war zone with everyone on a headset solving a wireless protocol automation crisis
• somewhere in the world. I feel like Dan Rather trying to get a story. I say:
• "How does a Radioblast work over Ethernet when running twelve robo-flippers?" I’m ignored by the tech nerds.
• So I determine the only answer I can from the land of high waters: I’ll write the newsletter next month.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [37 of 128]

• Joan says the story isn't proven. But one can tell there's something in her blood that runs wild like
• her father up that bullet-ridden path. I give up on copy for a Buildicon newsletter.
• I put it down to work on a pop-up pencil holder wireless device mock-up for a possible ad.
• It's for a big wireless promotion: a life-size pencil holder punch-out. Just color with crayons, fold together, add sand for a stable base.
• Kira passes. I clearly don't know what I'm doing because I have paper cutouts all over my desk. She flings her hair in my direction.
• I want to say: "It must be easy to know where you're going when there's a map on your forehead." I bite tongue,
• consult net for paper dolls. Fold 'C' into slot 'C', 'A' into slot 'A'. How can I go wrong? Hell, I designed the slots. It will cost
• $18,000 to run the ad. No problem. And then it falls apart. Every slot rips at once. I’m not a goddam paper house architect. I know this.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [36 of 128]

• A micro-manager like Milt has to see every ad before any can leave the office. Otherwise that's trouble: my natural state of existence.
• Milt changes all the copy. It goes full circle with graphics too. He's ignorant that Buildicon ads cost $8,000 to $10,000 each.
• You can see that if we miss a deadline it's bad even if it is Milt's fault. I call it displaced blame. Others simply call it "Milt sucks."
• When I'm at home and the lights are out I stare up at the ceiling imagining pinpricks of light, the small places that represent infinity.
• Get ad copy right, or Joan says it won't mean shit from shinola. Joan: "You will piss off the entire sales force." Like I'm scared of them.
• Joan is sort of like a manager. She's also a trade industry writer, idea woman, trade show aficionado and daughter of a Korean War veteran.
• As the story goes, her father killed off his own captain for sending his platoon on a dead-end run up a Chinese-infested hamburger hill.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [35 of 128]

• He has a large nose as big as his head, narrow set eyes, and an Adam's apple that moves like the large glowing ball on Times Square.
• I'm sure Milt and Ichabod are having a lovely discussion about an ad campaign. I laugh because Milt is oblivious to Joan's ranting.
• Joan disappears down to the parking garage. She smokes two cigarettes, then screams so loud a lady walking to the bank
• trips over her heels. If there's one thing I learned how about to approach people from my previous jobs: never cross a bulldog.
• Joan, my friends, is a bulldog. How to treat Joan the bulldog: do what she says, pat her and scratch her fur every chance you get.
• Stay away from her pissing tree. Joan is from a working class cowpoke town. She's the kind of person you just leave alone.
• That's what you do with all cowboys actually. Apparently, Milt yelled at Joan for missing an ad deadline.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [34 of 128]

• Twelve.
• Joan has glazed-over eyes. They are shiny and bloodshot as she sits in my cubicle and speaks in a whisper. Her hair is a burnt frizz.
• Milt says: "I feel like a freakin' superstar. But too many tigers in those hoops while you're jumping can lead to unspeakable things."
• I write down his axiom. It's another bad saying for the book of Milt sayings. Joan continues to whisper. I don't listen. She thinks I am.
• Joan rants: "That &%$#! should be shot! He doesn't know who he's dealing with! I will lay down my resignation! He doesn't know shinola!"
• I can't understand how someone can purse their lips so much and still be able to form clear sentences. My mind wanders.
• I'm thinking about Mulani. She's dressed cute. It's formfitting. She's formfitting. Her hair is in pigtails. What happened between us?
• Joan paces. Milt's in his office speaking French to a French marketing contact who looks exactly like Ichabod Crane in a turtleneck squeeze

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [33 of 128]

• Several tables stop playing pool to stare at Mulani yelling. She smiles back innocently: "Well that's what she said!" She loves to curse.
• "She's right. The guy is like some kind of psycho babe who's constantly making false promises about gooey relationships," Mike says.
• Mulani frowns as I say, "He then forgets all about his kind gestures and goes Devil on our asses and treats ads like bad dates."
• Mulani growls: "Leave us women out! Milt is just showing poor traits common to many men. He has an unhealthy management-sized dose."
• Vishnu rolls his eyes. Mulani grins in response. He sizes up the 6-ball, but finally misses a shot. "Ha! Did you see that?" Mike laughs.
• Mike's had a few too many beers. It shows. "Vish is breakable after all! You shark! You potato drinking pool shark!"
• "Leave sharks out of this game," Vishnu says. "I am not fond of them or their many teeth." A shark's stomach isn't a small place, I think.