I feel tormented by it and have nowhere to go. My colleagues
poke fun at me when I approach it, reigning in their faces just short of a
smirk. As a matter of fact, they do not bother with that tiny courtesy on
occasions. They are quite open in their enjoyment of my discomfiture. They peer
over my shoulder, feigning a patient calm, as I wipe, place, press, rub and try
again. Brought up to be a nice girl, I step quickly out of queue and wait a
slow slot to step back; all the time, my blood pressure steadily spiking.
The stress begins right there on approach, some hundred
metres from it. Something heavy spirals up from the pit of my stomach as I move
closer, the dread grasping and clenching my throat in a sour grip. An
inexplicable sadness steels up and the feet slow down. But there is no escape.
It has to be done.
Is it my gene blueprint that is unfriendly and reticent, not
forthright enough to be called at will? I have wondered at the pattern and
texture of my skin. The frequent rejection must say something for my
unwholesomeness. I wipe and clean and blow some seven and a half times but
at each turn: woe! Sneaking a look around to make sure there are only some close
friends around, I have tried standing on one foot, even raising an arm once to
strike that one potent, all successful stance. Tapping, shaking, and caressing….all
to no avail.
The idea was to regularize and simplify and assist. Who
would have thought it would challenge my self- belief? With every rebuff, I came away smaller. I struggled with rectification projects, seeking technical
assistance, sheepishly requesting human masses of flippancy for sympathy and
the magic cure. All I got were those gloating expressions of fake sympathy. Oh
yes, we will do something, the person is not in today, try next week, it could
have been done the day before and so very easily but where was I?!
It isn’t much to look at. There is the small black box,
tacked on to the wall, drawing sustenance from an unremarkable wire. It is
no-nonsense. There is only one or the other; it is red or green, no amber
please. Despite the dust and grime of an intrepid, daily human contact, it
inspires an emotion called reverence. You want to fold the hands and bow,
“Please accept me today. Show me the uplifting green.” Standing there in a
puddle of frustration at the succession of petulant reds, I have achieved an
intuitive understanding of why the antediluvian man began to worship inanimate
objects. What else is there to do when the tangible asserts?
I understand the Fingerprint Attendance System is a fool
proof monitoring gadget but what is one to do when it insists you are not you!
Which of us speaketh the truth? I am at war with this machine here. Tally ho!!
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