Frank has cleared out his desk. After thirty years he leaves behind nothing but a carpet-thick layer of dust, ancient crumbs, numerous coffee stains, and a heavy snowfall of dandruff flakes: the detritus from which Frank and his increasingly obsolete career have long since become indistinguishable. Send in the clowns. And the Hazmat team.
The robots will come for us all in the end, he announced on his lugubrious farewell tour of the office, ignoring the obvious fact that eliminating his job barely required the services of a pocket calculator, never mind 'the robots' to whom an antediluvian factotum such as Frank would be beneath notice.
His departure was euphemistically described as Early Retirement, much like euthanasia is politely known as putting someone to sleep. In truth, he was given a choice of leaving of his own accord or being fired within the month. Still, we all pretended to believe he'd be spending the rest of his days on a golf course rather than staggering desperately across the scrapheap.
What are you going to do with all your spare time? I asked him, knowing full well it would be divided between diligently but fruitlessly scouring the Help Wanted ads and bouts of heavy drinking. He told me he'd take a month or two off, maybe do a trip west, see a few people he hadn't seen for a while, then he'd come back, better than ever, and see where things stood. Whatever, he'd be fine, he claimed.
Things always have a way of working out, they say. I hope for Frank's sake that's true, even if the machinations of things are somewhat vague in his case. Meanwhile, the company custodians came to remove the desk and vacuum the area, so now even Frank's dust is gone.
His empty cubicle has become a beige Stonehenge of which future generations will ask 'What was this built for and why?' And, to be honest, I'm not sure I know the answer to that question myself anymore.
