THE CUSTODIAN

 

 

In the background, behind glass, are the plants as if in a huge box. And here in front, also in a glass box (armored), is the custodian. It has something in common with plants, a certain secret that comes from the earth. And between one glass cage and another, the young, aging assistant managers strive, so dapper with their impeccable suits and their exact smile. It is true that they are less circumspect than the custodian but, like young assistant managers of a financial company, they are not trained to kill and that redeems them a little. Not too much. Just enough to grant them the grace of imagining them - as our custodian usually imagines them - making love on the carpet. In unison, yes, to the syncopated rhythm of electronic calculators. Below them, the secretaries are also sadly beautiful, almost always with light eyes, and the custodian contemplates them not without a certain lust and thinks that the blonde assistant managers - almost all of them also with watery eyes - are in better conditions than him to seduce the women. young secretaries. Only he hasthe Parabellumand he also has - hidden in his executive briefcase - a telescopic sight and a silencer of the best foreign manufacture. In an inside pocket of his jacket he carries his permit to carry weapons, the card that accredits him as a guardian of the law. In the other pocket you have to know what he has, not even he usually wants to find out: one time he found a lipstick and stained his hands red as if it were blood, another time he found seeds, unidentified; On one occasion he got lost in the lint of his pocket among strands of tobacco and other herbs, and now he no longer wants to even think about that pocket while he watches the clients who enter and leave the vast offices. He knows that the assistant managers may have light eyes, but his glass box has three round eyes (one for each useful side, the fourth is attached to the wall) and they are stranger eyes, not to mention more practical and eventually more lethal. From there he can shoot anyone looking for him and from there he can feel safe: that box is his mother and contains him.

From his glass box he sees the most absurd beings parade, with the faces of dwarfs, for example, or women with shapes that contradict all the laws of aesthetics and little girls with hair dyed egg yellow. At times our custodian thinks that the company hires them to highlight the physical beauty of its employees, but very soon he discards that crazy idea: it is a financial company, made to make money, not to spend it on absurd projects.

And why is he there? He is there to defend the money and he would be there to water the plants if only they allowed him to.

It would be good for him to be able to move from time to time to the other glass box, the one at the back; It is much wider than yours even though it is not armored, it has more air, and the transition from the silver to the plants is just a matter of a single letter. A step that would make him so happy, especially because the money belongs to others, will never be his, and on the other hand the plants belong to no one. They have a life of their own and he could water them, caress them, even talk to them softly as if they were a friendly dog, like that guy who spent his days taking care of his people with the greatest tenderness and was a hunting dog and a carnivorous plant. He doesn't need to love so much to kill others, he doesn't even need to have a certain amount of affection for the people in that office even though he is there to defend them, to risk his life for them. Only nothing ever happens there: no one enters with a threatening air or attempts an assault. Sometimes a suspicious package on a seat catches his attention, but the person who had forgotten it immediately returns and walks away as casually as possible with the package under his arm. Therefore, assuming there had been a bomb in the package, it will explode away from the sacrosanct offices. And his duty only consists of defending the company, not the entire city and even less the universe. His duty is simply that: to act in defense and not in the line of attack, although if he had half a brain he would know that the alleged aggressor could very well be one of his own (a man like him, without going any further) and not something foreign like the safe can be. But my life is going to cost them dearly, it is often said, repeating the phrase heard so many times during training, without realizing that every mortal thinks the same, with or without permission of the law (a life is not something that can be give away just like that, and even less his own life, but he has a license to kill and he feels calm). That's why he sleeps peacefully at night when he's not on duty, and sometimes he dreams of the little plants in the background. That, of course, when he doesn't have to dream about the beautiful naked secretaries, who are somewhat stuffy but always exciting. Dreams that are more of a waking dream, daydreams where the beautiful men and women of the financial company roll around naked on the carpet that silences their movements. The carpet as a silencer. He too, there in his glass box - Snow White, damn it! - He has a pistol with a silencer and he also remains silent as a plant. Vegetable, almost. He is silent in his glass cage, caressing his silencer while he imagines those outside in positions completely at odds with good customs.

And there he is, immersed in his daydreams, defending with all his humanity what does not belong to him at all. Not even remotely. A perfect cretin's life. Defending what?: the safe, the honor of the secretaries, the confident air of managers, assistant managers and other employees (their dapper presence). Defending clients. Defending the money that belongs to others.

That idea occurred to him one day, the next day he forgot it, he remembered it a week later and then little by little the idea settled forever in his head. A touch of humanity after all, a spark of idea. Something that warmed him like her affection for the plants in the background. Something called anger.

He began to go to work shuffling his feet, he no longer felt like such a man. He no longer dreamed in the mirror that his job was the job of brave men.

What a revelation the day when he knew (deep inside, in that area of ​​himself whose existence he did not even suspect) that his profession of bravery was the profession of idiots! That balls well placed are not necessarily those placed in defense of others. It was as if they had given him the famous kiss on his sleeping forehead, as if they had woken him up. Illuminated.

All these things that were impossible for him to convey to his bosses. Of course he was used to keeping his mouth shut, to keeping to himself as a treasure the few feelings that were surfacing throughout his life. Not many feelings, little notion that something was happening in him despite himself. And he had endured without saying a word that long course on first-hand torture called training: it was not then a question of sitting down to talk - and since when have you sat down, in front of your superiors? -, to talk, exposing doubts or presenting complaints . That's how little by little he began to nurture a very illuminating fight and he was able to spend the afternoons standing inside his glass cage occupying his thoughts with something more concrete than erotic daydreams. He stopped imagining the young assistant managers rolling around with the secretaries on the soft carpet and began to see them as they were, performing their specific tasks. A coming and going in silent respect, a very astute management of money, of stocks, bonds, bills of exchange, currencies. And all of them so insultingly young, attractive.

It was good for months to strip those bodies of all their ghosts and see them only in their purely work functions. Our custodian became realistic, systematic. He decided to get out of the cage and walk his elastic figure through the rooms full of desks, he began to exchange a few sentences with the most accessible employees, he smiled at the secretaries, he chatted for a long time with one of the stockbrokers. He became intimate with the goalkeeper. He even mentioned to some his attraction to plants and one time when he noticed them wilting he asked permission to water them after hours. When the offices closed, they began to leave him tending to the plants, fumigating them, cleaning them of soot so that they could breathe comfortably.

One evening he took his passion to the extreme of spending two hours mating peacefully among the plants. The night guard couldn't help but mention it to his superiors and everyone feared that the guard was becoming a poet, something very harmful in a job like his. But there was no need to fear such deterioration: he carried out his surveillance conscientiously and he was extremely active during his hours on duty without letting any detail escape. He even managed to thwart a dangerous assault thanks to his very fast reflexes and a sense of smell that earned him the applause of his bosses. He knew how to receive the reward with great dignity, aware that he had done nothing but take care of his own interests. His hierarchical superiors and also the company directors present at the simple ceremony understood the custodian's humility as a noble feeling, a true satisfaction for the duty fulfilled. They then doubled the amount of the reward and retired calmly to their respective homes knowing that the financial company enjoyed unbeatable surveillance.

Thanks to the double bonus, the custodian was able to equip himself as desired and only needed to put into practice the patience learned from the plants. When he finally considered the time had come to strike, he did so with such cleanliness that it was impossible to trace him and find his whereabouts. That is to say that in the eyes of others he managed to realize his old dream. That is to say that he was swallowed by the earth.

 

END

 

2008 edited by Paya Frank @Blogger