Small Places : Nick L Belardes [30 of 128]

• "I would never. I just know you're the new guy and wanted to say hi, Vish," I say. Vishnu: "I've been here four months."
• He sits like the same preying mantis near my kitchen window. I can't ever tell that it moves, that it eats. I can't even see it blink.
• Every once in a while I notice in the small places of my house where there used to be spiders are now broken webs picked clean.
• "I just kind of wondered," I say. "Wondered what??" Vishnu sits up. His eyes are now wide. "Are you wondering the mysteries of the Web?"
• Vish "Afraid customers aren't going to partake of the Buildicon web portal?" "Nothing of the sort!" I say. "Do you hate New Delhi?" he adds
• "Let me tell you the streets are like gold. There are no huts, no barbarians, no Mother Theresa action figures, no cow trolleys...
• "We have temples for old and new religions. We have Sikh temples that sparkle with white lights and Hindu temples like mountains in the sky
• "We have an ancient red fort and much newer lotus temple that glows like a candlelit blossom on a serene body of water...

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [29 of 128]

• Eleven.
• I ask: "Does anybody know Vishnu's real name?" Mike: "I think it's Sam Vishnukuku." "Oh come on," I say.
• "Seriously. Check him out. He seems to go into hibernation at his desk. You think he's sleeping but he's not. Not at all. It's perplexing."
• Vishnu sits in near slumber. His screen changes. Updates are made, download buttons are created, links form. His lids are half-closed.
• I can hear the mouse click, but Vishnu doesn't change position. His hand never seems to move. I swear his body is about to levitate.
• Vishnu is from New Delhi, a city not filled with elephant tusks or nectar water torture. It's as advanced as the rest of the Free World.
• He sits at his Web post like a guardian to a realm of many-armed gods and says, "You think I am sleeping but I am not.
• What's your problem?" "I have no problem, Vish." "Yes, you are staring." "I don't know what you're talking about."
• "You are staring at me because I'm Indian."

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [28 of 128]

• And that's OK, except now he's wearing goggles to work. He's happy we're bringing life to the land of grey. But now I call him captain.
• Up walks Kira de Frito. Dear me, did I forget to mention that she has a birthmark on her forehead? She's got that look in her eye again.
• "You do not like me," Kira says. I say in reference to her birthmark: "You're so retro Gorbachev." She doesn't get it.
• We battle with questions: "What did I ever do?" "You didn't like the song?" "Why are you so angry?" "Are you not a fan of musicals, Kira?"
• Kira de Frito once starred in a Brazilian novella. I never acknowledge her stardom. So she's overly sensitive.
• She bolts into Milt's office. "What's up with the colorful new ads?" I say to Mike. "It's like robots in dance gear."
• Mike: "It's our new look and feel." Me: "Rainbows?" Mike imitates Milt Butterlink: "Make Buildicon recognizable with color."
• He adds, "Milt can't choose one color so he goes with them all."
• Milt's door opens and out pops Kira de Frito. She bolts for her cubicle. "What's up her pineapple?" Mike says.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [27 of 128]

• Mulani: "She's only clothed from the waist up, a corset." Me: "Right now?" I look. "No, you idiot. When they, you know," Mulani says.
• As I sit down at my desk I suddenly realize that if Buildicon is the social heart of Americana I'd rather be in Brazil with Kira de Frito.
• I want to be carrying around platters of pineapples, wear an oversized cabana shirt, and see Kira scream "Carnival!" in her coconut bikini.
• I'd rather it be Mulani than Kira de Frito. Let's eat, let's dance, let's get away from the color grey in a seaside town filled with color.
• Except there will be copacabana boys by the hundreds. I can't bear the thought of losing Mulani to a pineapple plate distributor.
• "Ay!" I yell. "Is there no justice?" Mike looks at me. I don't think he cares that I yelled.
• He's busy designing a robotic ad for Buildicon. Me: "Do we have to sing a musical?" Mike: "Yes. Can we make one up?"
• Me: "Of course. I don't know any actual words or tunes. Do you?" Mike realizes he doesn't know any musicals either, but we sing.
• He leads. Next door is the president's office. He doesn't say a word. He knows we're crazy.
• He's also happy because I know Margo in Orders just intercepted a fax that he paid $300,000 for a turbo prop.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [26 of 128]

• Ten.
• Today is like yesterday only worse. I walk up to Buildicon where a bum pisses on a tire in the parking garage.
• Thank God I don't have a car. I say: "Don't you have a goddam outhouse? Or a newspaper? Or a friend to piss on?
• Cause you're pissing me off!" He laughs in my direction. I snap out of it as Buildicon's self-imposed beauty queen,
• Kira de Frito passes by. She builds spreadsheets that Mulani has to fix.
• She talks to Brazilian product buyers, perhaps about lingerie. She's the Wicked Witch of the West Indies, kind of dark, with a hook nose.
• Kira de Frito slinks by in a jaguar of an outfit, very catlike, with tight black pants and cleavage you could put a pineapple platter on.
• By the copier Mulani tells me about Kira de Frito's crisis: "I will not suffer this one alone. She has to dance for her husband." Me: "No!"
• Me: "He can't?" Mulani: "Nope." Me: "So she dances a jig each night before they salsa?" Mulani: "Every night." Me: "Horrible!"
• I mean, don't get me wrong. Shake it don't break it. "But that's not all of it," Mulani says. I run the copier again to buy more time.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [25 of 128]

• Nine.
• 2 am: I dream about my dead ant farm. I am inside it, lost. There are no ants to show me the way,
• only plastic walls and hulks of dead ants. I split open a dead dried ant and make a sort of shaman costume that I wear while I explore.
• I commune with their dead consciousness. I find a room with ant eggs stuck to the walls and ceiling. One is cracked open.
• Black lifeless eyes stare out at me. I am them. In my shaman ant dream I grow thirsty. I use two broken antenna as divining rods.
• I dig and water springs out. I wake up having wet the bed. Milt's eyeballs are nearly touching the new ant farm I bring to work.
• "Where are the ants?" he asks. "I just mail-ordered them," I say. He seems more impatient than me about the ants arrival:
• "When will they come?" Me: "Any second now." Milt stares for minutes on end. I finally get the ants and dump them into the ant farm.
• They spread throughout like they'd just been on vacation and start digging tunnels. I watch the ants watch me.
• I think they can see me. They gather at the plastic walls. No wait. It's the dead fly I put in there. Never mind.
• After lunch I see the ant farm is a complete wreck. All the sand walls have collapsed. There's no movement. A Post-It reads: "Earthquake."
• Milt walks by. He doesn't look at me but snickers to himself. I follow him to the bathroom where I can hear him laughing insanely.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [24 of 128]

• I suddenly want to create diorama of pink packaging corporate puppets, not merely for my entertainment,
• but for all bored Buildicon workers. What do you think if you see pink packaging sponges with faces:
• felt-pen grins of asinine pondering and surreal cartoonland pontifications?
• Mike and I design a character in this pink sponge puppet named Blockhead Joe. Much of his story is simple. He marries Airhead Pam.
• Blockhead Joe and Airhead Pam have a grand wedding. They appear on a sitcom. He cheats on her. She cheats on him. They have baby larvae.
• We put up a 'Free Larvae' sign. They're made out of packaging popcorn. We draw faces on them so each one is unique.
• Glen quits his job in Tech Support and takes his larvae to Mississippi. I soon get an email: "We're here!" I never hear from him again.
• Airhead Pam gets murdered. Some of the larvae turn into spawnlings that are Styrofoam, half sponge. Blockhead Joe gets framed.
• Blockhead Joe gets kidnapped. The ransom is twenty bucks. Body parts begin to arrive. How do I get away with this you might ask?
• I have no idea how I get away with this sponge show other than the four workplace axioms I defined earlier.
• I'll do some real work tomorrow.