Small Places : Nick L Belardes [91 of 128]

• Twenty-Nine.
• Mike: "Do you love her?" Me: "What the hell are you talking about?" We're watching ice hockey.
• A player gets boarded. His stick breaks. "Mulani," Mike says. "All this moping around.
• You keep talking about weird dreams and the two of you won't look at each other half the time.”
• "And that means love?" I say. Mike is working on his second beer. "Just admit it," he says. Me: "I'm not admitting anything."
• There's something in thinking about a girl when you're at a hockey game.
• You see a dazzling hip check and suddenly love is less frightening. Turk Grinn is the interim marketing manager.
• He's dashing in all the right Texan ways. Except for his hiccups. You want to Tivo those out.
• His first order of business is to consider hiring Joan back. He says he is going to make a decision and announce at an upcoming meeting.
• Kira de Frito soon starts disappearing into his office. Me: "What do you think she's doing?" Mike: "One can't predict de Frito."
• She’s already mentally unstable and now she has started emailing me project requests that make no sense whatsoever.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [90 of 128]

• Twenty-Eight.
• The interim marketing manager is a golfing buddy of the Prez with a hiccupy heave that makes his stomach seem to jump in his chest.
• A Texan, in his "no BS" manner, he hiccups and says to the marketing group: "First of all, y'all make too much noise.” Mike squirms.
• "I declare this cubicle zone a no music zone. It will also be free of talk, free of mindless chatter, and most of all, free of laughter.
• "Now, whenever I'm around and you're talkin' to me, you are in a free speech zone, unless you start laughing.
• "Let me remind you that workers in general make too much noise. Am I clear? Because I want positive production.
• "I don't want no half-assed, slippin' around on two left feet doin' nuthin' but scratching paws on carpet. Follow?" Everyone nods.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [89 of 128]

• The faces of our uncreative corporate audience are mostly disgusted during the two-and-a-half minutes of film. Mulani giggles.
• Mike and I realize we have won a minor creative corporate battle in our own rodent-like cubicles of Buildicon Enterprises. Kira storms out.
• "Not all artwork is ever respected," Mike says watching Kira and two others flee the cubicle. "It just wouldn't feel right to be loved.
• Suddenly I imagine Milt Butterlink dressed as a franken-squirrel pimping our movie on Sunset and Vine. I feel like a freakin' superstar.
• There are epiphanies to be had in the office. Realizing Kira de Frita's boobs are fake is not one of them. Unless you're in tech support.
• The meaning of life is wrapped in workplace realizations.
• My heart beats fast simply trying to understand the complexities of copy machines.
• Epiphany breeds ads. "Sleek. Robust. Sexy Data." Girl in hard hat puckers to Ethernet wireless. All after spying Mulani eat cup of noodle.
• I'm destined for enlightenment after realizing the secretary ordered stationary with company logo upside-down. Wisdom: "Not my problem."

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [88 of 128]

• "The beast dances and everything," Mike says. "It moves its hips like a squirrelly Elvis. Check it out." He sets a camera on the desk.
• He's right. The squirrel doesn't just dance but plays annoying music while swiveling its hips. I'm suddenly caught up in the malaise.
• Me: “You know the office digital camera takes fifteen second movie clips.” Mike: “You don’t say? I get full credit as director.”
• In our newfound freedom from work boredom and magazine ad creation we have completed a short film titled "A Rodent Affair." It's PG-13.
• The film stars two squirrels who fall in and out of love in a matter of two and a half minutes. The dialogue is French; English subtitles.
• Mike posts the movie online and we opt for a 9 a.m. world premiere. Even Kira de Frito shows up. "I do so love the novellas," she says.
• Kira is dashing in her inability to grasp Hollywood. "I like Jamie Dupp, Harrison Fork and Rene Shellfishsugar," she says.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [87 of 128]

• Twenty-Seven.
• This is the moment where dreams melt down. Reality is no cartoon. Bagworms don't walk and talk. Beds are places for cold sweats.
• In the middle of the night I'm thinking about the office. I can barely remember the dream. I have cubicle-inspired anxiety. I see faces.
• I fix coffee, toast. I turn on late night TV. Bela Lugosi looks half dead. I switch to the History Channel. WW2 footage, canned explosions.
• I try to remember the old man, the farmer. Instead I feel three days behind in creating ad jargon for wireless industrial data streamers.
• He has already lost interest in the demise of Milt Butterlink. Boredom has set in. This is corporate boredom at its worst.
• He places a stuffed squirrel on his desk that looks like a flower child. Me: "What's that?" Mike: "It plays music."
• I'm a bit annoyed, because on my shelf of endless fast-food toys I have a stuffed squirrel too. Mulani gave it to me. It doesn't dance.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [86 of 128]

Eyed by the cat on the roof, the bagworm, along with her quiet bug friends, went into the farmhouse.

• They crawled up the wooden legs of the table and stepped onto its crumb-covered surface. Strangely, the farmer took no notice of them.
• Upon closer examination, Mrs. Bigmoth could see a pincher bug on his shoulder, whispering into the farmer’s ear.
• "What's this?" Asked the farmer. "A bagworm with an umbrella, blue bugs, a strange snail and walking sticks? What do you want with me?"
• The bagworm stood tall, right on the farmer's newspaper. "I'm sorry," she said. "But there is a grumpy-faced pincher bug by your ear."
• "Yes, I'm blind. So what? He was reading me the morning paper. What is it you want?"
• The bagworm stood taller than ever. "An end to the booms," she said. "It's disturbing the forest and knocking baby bagworms out of bed."

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [85 of 128]

• The bugs didn't say a word. The forest was alive with stinkbugs, fungus spores, lady-bug-covered trees and fat aphids soaking in nectar.
• She "Harrumphed" and kept walking until it was 10:09, when she stood on the edge of cornfields that stood like rows of towers.
• "That's the place," said a curious old snail. A contraption on his back poorly mopped his slimy trail as he slithered.
• Suddenly it was 10:10. Loud booms filled the cornfields. The bagworm fell over. When she jumped up,
• far away she saw the top of a farmhouse. The farmhouse was a cobb structure built of mud and grass bricks.
• A puff of smoke went up from a crooked chimney. A cat slept on the roof. Next to the farmhouse stood an old barn.
• In between the two was an outhouse. A fence that bugs could easily walk beneath surrounded it all.
• Inside, the farmer sat at a kitchen table reading a newspaper. He oddly looked like a younger version of the old man from the walking path.