Roach.
Here on the other side of the line, Gerald Mitchell found that things were very different. He had been used to constant activity; productivity, progress, business growth, and industry had been his world since his graduation from business college, nearly thirty years before. In this eternity in which he found himself, with all his life laid out before him, he realized that he had not stopped for even a moment since that day in May; even his sleep, even his vacations had been extensions of his working life.
He had laid down to sleep, certainly, but never for sleep's sake; he had slept in order to wake up and work again. He had taken his vacations, just the same, in order to restore his productivity. Certainly he had been productive. Sales of beef products had risen sixfold in his tenure as AMG&P's Director of Sales; sales of pork and mixed poultry products, tenfold. That had been a point of pride for him, just an eternal moment ago.
Now, however, it seemed rather pointless. Mr. Mitchell would, he realized, never have use for beef, poultry, or any other meat product again; nor, indeed, for vegetables, fruits, or grains. Gerald Mitchell was dead at forty-nine, of the condition his Japanese competitors in the meat-product industry call 'karoshi' - overwork.
Technically, Director Mitchell's death was a result of the traffic accident. There at the end of his timeline, a Freightliner carrying twenty tons of Beef Pulp had impacted Gerald's flashy red sportscar, turning it into, the executive reflected with uncharacteristic humor, car pulp. Well, perhaps a can of man pulp. If he (the disembodied soul of Gerald Mitchell) had had lungs, diaphragm, or vocal cords remaining at his command, he would have laughed at his own joke.
As it was, he had no body; and, also, nobody to tell the joke to. He shifted his perspective - how easy it was to wander back and forth in memory, now that the body provided no interference - back to his first day in the office. He had had a bit of difficulty, he recalled, getting through the gates of the American Meat Grinders' and Packers' headquarter and main factory facility, there in the Alabama valley town of Gloom; the gate guard, used to seeing new cars passing through the management gate, had stopped Gerald's mildly-rusty, inherited Oldsmobile, intending to direct him to the other gate, reserved for factory workers.
Only a series of calls to the management suite (undertaken by the reluctant guard, on Gerald's behalf) had allowed Mitchell to arrive at his cubicle, fifteen minutes late to begin work; his pay, of course, had been docked for the infraction, and so the young salesman's first commission check had paid the down-payment on the first in a series of similar sports-cars.
This expense had provided sufficient motivation for Gerald to do the mind-numbing work of an AMG&P salesman - work which mainly consisted of calling grocery and convenience stores and badgering them into carrying the several flavors of Meat Pulp, then filling in the associated forms and collecting the commission - ten percent of initial sales, three percent of repeat sales. He regarded the ten-year stretch in which he had done little more than sell the half-pound cans of Pulp with some interest. He had not noticed the sheer volume of sales; no wonder he had been promoted to Shift Director, then to Vice Director, and finally to Director of Sales.
None of the salesmen who had been assigned to the cubicle farm on Mr. Mitchell's first day at work were still working there on the day of his promotion to Director. He realized, with a start, that this was the reason for his promotion; he further realized that he, himself, was one of only a few Pulp salesmen who did not eat at the provided on-site cafeteria; he had always hated Meat Pulp, even as a child.
Childhood. Gerald Mitchell had been an ordinary child, though at the time he had believed his mother's opinion of his lively spirit over his father's opinion of his wilful nature. He had gone through the various levels of schooling in the industrial city of Birmingham, Alabama, with very little difficulty; certainly he had passed the examinations as well as could be expected of him; and his diligence in completing the assigned homework had served him well in his later life as a salesman.
How boring. Had he had a head, neck, or shoulders at his command, he would have shaken his head in disbelief at this. He had been a - boring person! He had always imagined that his cars had made him interesting, or the increasing share of AMGP stock in his portfolio, or at very least his reputation as a reliable salesman; but, now that he was dead, he came to realize that he had been as mind-numbingly boring as the office in which he worked, the work which filled his days, or, indeed, the flavor of Meat Pulp, whether beef, pork, mixed poultry, or X-Treme.
(The contents of the severally-labeled lines of pulped meat product, it bears saying, were not fundamentally different except in the source species - Pulp X-Treme was simply Mixed Poultry with a neon-colored label and the addition of federally-approved green food dyes.)
Gerald was dismayed, as he looked more deeply into the long line of days which represented his time as a lowly salesman, to find that his co-workers often, over the course of a few years, fattened, fell ill, and ceased to show up in the office. He had no way to tell, of course, but now that he had time to think, he could only surmise that the food served in the company cafeteria - a menu of which he had partaken exactly twice, once on his first day at work, once at the celebration of his promotion to Director of Sales - was to blame.
The menu, he recalled, was heavy on processed foods; processed meats, to be exact; to be more precise, the fare served by the AMG&P cafeteria had mainly been sourced from the AMG&P factories. Had he had cheeks remaining to his command, they would have blanched at the realization; not only had MP - as the sales staff inevitably came to call the flagship product - been bland and relatively disgusting, it had been - oh, no, even now, in the living world, still was - rather unhealthful.
Gerald had imagined himself to be a useful member of society. Certainly, his sales figures had shown an ever-increasing volume of shipped product; it had been a point of pride - wielded in much the same fashion his imagined ancestors had wielded their swords - and he had often spoken of his own productivity in glowing terms, on vacations to places in which the round-edged rectangular cans of Meat Pulp were no-where to be found.
Suddenly, his life-long lack of a romantic partner came into resolution. Not only had he been a boring person, he had been - a detriment! No wonder all the beautiful people with whom he had shared expensive mixed drinks in beautiful places - two weeks, once a year, before returning to spend the other fifty weeks in the office - had declined to call him back. He hadn't been a high-powered executive, as he had allowed himself to imagine on the daily drive back and forth from his well-appointed house to his bland office; he had been - a junk-food salesman!
Not just any junk-food salesman. A canned-meat salesman. And not just any canned meat; with the clarity which inevitably follows a sudden death, he looked over his mind's abstraction of a can of Pulp - Jesus. Fourteen times the recommended daily value of sodium. Triple the recommended daily intake of fat. Half the day's requirement of sugar! Was there any real meat in the stuff? He didn't know, and had no way to check; he had never, in all his time on the AMG&P campus, visited the factory floor. For all he knew, the stuff wasn't even made of real animals.
Now that he could see the total effect of his life on Earth - eight figures' worth of cans of the meat product, shipped across the Southeast, consumed by unsuspecting purchasers, leading to their sickening misery - he was struck by a wave of regret. Though he had no stomach, mouth, or oesophagus with which to vomit, he, yet, felt the urge; how many people had he killed, unwittingly, simply by the use of a telephone and system of paperwork?
It was in that moment that he felt the tug on his soul; and, suddenly, the soul formerly known as Gerald Mitchell was incarnate again.
He twitched his antennae and scuttled out from underneath the refrigerator.
He had laid down to sleep, certainly, but never for sleep's sake; he had slept in order to wake up and work again. He had taken his vacations, just the same, in order to restore his productivity. Certainly he had been productive. Sales of beef products had risen sixfold in his tenure as AMG&P's Director of Sales; sales of pork and mixed poultry products, tenfold. That had been a point of pride for him, just an eternal moment ago.
Now, however, it seemed rather pointless. Mr. Mitchell would, he realized, never have use for beef, poultry, or any other meat product again; nor, indeed, for vegetables, fruits, or grains. Gerald Mitchell was dead at forty-nine, of the condition his Japanese competitors in the meat-product industry call 'karoshi' - overwork.
Technically, Director Mitchell's death was a result of the traffic accident. There at the end of his timeline, a Freightliner carrying twenty tons of Beef Pulp had impacted Gerald's flashy red sportscar, turning it into, the executive reflected with uncharacteristic humor, car pulp. Well, perhaps a can of man pulp. If he (the disembodied soul of Gerald Mitchell) had had lungs, diaphragm, or vocal cords remaining at his command, he would have laughed at his own joke.
As it was, he had no body; and, also, nobody to tell the joke to. He shifted his perspective - how easy it was to wander back and forth in memory, now that the body provided no interference - back to his first day in the office. He had had a bit of difficulty, he recalled, getting through the gates of the American Meat Grinders' and Packers' headquarter and main factory facility, there in the Alabama valley town of Gloom; the gate guard, used to seeing new cars passing through the management gate, had stopped Gerald's mildly-rusty, inherited Oldsmobile, intending to direct him to the other gate, reserved for factory workers.
Only a series of calls to the management suite (undertaken by the reluctant guard, on Gerald's behalf) had allowed Mitchell to arrive at his cubicle, fifteen minutes late to begin work; his pay, of course, had been docked for the infraction, and so the young salesman's first commission check had paid the down-payment on the first in a series of similar sports-cars.
This expense had provided sufficient motivation for Gerald to do the mind-numbing work of an AMG&P salesman - work which mainly consisted of calling grocery and convenience stores and badgering them into carrying the several flavors of Meat Pulp, then filling in the associated forms and collecting the commission - ten percent of initial sales, three percent of repeat sales. He regarded the ten-year stretch in which he had done little more than sell the half-pound cans of Pulp with some interest. He had not noticed the sheer volume of sales; no wonder he had been promoted to Shift Director, then to Vice Director, and finally to Director of Sales.
None of the salesmen who had been assigned to the cubicle farm on Mr. Mitchell's first day at work were still working there on the day of his promotion to Director. He realized, with a start, that this was the reason for his promotion; he further realized that he, himself, was one of only a few Pulp salesmen who did not eat at the provided on-site cafeteria; he had always hated Meat Pulp, even as a child.
Childhood. Gerald Mitchell had been an ordinary child, though at the time he had believed his mother's opinion of his lively spirit over his father's opinion of his wilful nature. He had gone through the various levels of schooling in the industrial city of Birmingham, Alabama, with very little difficulty; certainly he had passed the examinations as well as could be expected of him; and his diligence in completing the assigned homework had served him well in his later life as a salesman.
How boring. Had he had a head, neck, or shoulders at his command, he would have shaken his head in disbelief at this. He had been a - boring person! He had always imagined that his cars had made him interesting, or the increasing share of AMGP stock in his portfolio, or at very least his reputation as a reliable salesman; but, now that he was dead, he came to realize that he had been as mind-numbingly boring as the office in which he worked, the work which filled his days, or, indeed, the flavor of Meat Pulp, whether beef, pork, mixed poultry, or X-Treme.
(The contents of the severally-labeled lines of pulped meat product, it bears saying, were not fundamentally different except in the source species - Pulp X-Treme was simply Mixed Poultry with a neon-colored label and the addition of federally-approved green food dyes.)
Gerald was dismayed, as he looked more deeply into the long line of days which represented his time as a lowly salesman, to find that his co-workers often, over the course of a few years, fattened, fell ill, and ceased to show up in the office. He had no way to tell, of course, but now that he had time to think, he could only surmise that the food served in the company cafeteria - a menu of which he had partaken exactly twice, once on his first day at work, once at the celebration of his promotion to Director of Sales - was to blame.
The menu, he recalled, was heavy on processed foods; processed meats, to be exact; to be more precise, the fare served by the AMG&P cafeteria had mainly been sourced from the AMG&P factories. Had he had cheeks remaining to his command, they would have blanched at the realization; not only had MP - as the sales staff inevitably came to call the flagship product - been bland and relatively disgusting, it had been - oh, no, even now, in the living world, still was - rather unhealthful.
Gerald had imagined himself to be a useful member of society. Certainly, his sales figures had shown an ever-increasing volume of shipped product; it had been a point of pride - wielded in much the same fashion his imagined ancestors had wielded their swords - and he had often spoken of his own productivity in glowing terms, on vacations to places in which the round-edged rectangular cans of Meat Pulp were no-where to be found.
Suddenly, his life-long lack of a romantic partner came into resolution. Not only had he been a boring person, he had been - a detriment! No wonder all the beautiful people with whom he had shared expensive mixed drinks in beautiful places - two weeks, once a year, before returning to spend the other fifty weeks in the office - had declined to call him back. He hadn't been a high-powered executive, as he had allowed himself to imagine on the daily drive back and forth from his well-appointed house to his bland office; he had been - a junk-food salesman!
Not just any junk-food salesman. A canned-meat salesman. And not just any canned meat; with the clarity which inevitably follows a sudden death, he looked over his mind's abstraction of a can of Pulp - Jesus. Fourteen times the recommended daily value of sodium. Triple the recommended daily intake of fat. Half the day's requirement of sugar! Was there any real meat in the stuff? He didn't know, and had no way to check; he had never, in all his time on the AMG&P campus, visited the factory floor. For all he knew, the stuff wasn't even made of real animals.
Now that he could see the total effect of his life on Earth - eight figures' worth of cans of the meat product, shipped across the Southeast, consumed by unsuspecting purchasers, leading to their sickening misery - he was struck by a wave of regret. Though he had no stomach, mouth, or oesophagus with which to vomit, he, yet, felt the urge; how many people had he killed, unwittingly, simply by the use of a telephone and system of paperwork?
It was in that moment that he felt the tug on his soul; and, suddenly, the soul formerly known as Gerald Mitchell was incarnate again.
He twitched his antennae and scuttled out from underneath the refrigerator.
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