Skyscraper

I’m a sky scraper. Yes, with a space in the middle. That means I fly across the sky and pick up any materials that might be of interest to me, or might be of interest to officials that might not want them to be there, like carbon dioxide. My job’s getting a lot harder since we were established. I think there might be a case to be made for us unionising. Oh well, it’s a living. If I was alive and not a skeleton brought back by dark magic I would take issue with the idea of a ‘living.’ I am unable to empathise with people but that but what can one expect from a skeleton?

Riding over the prism also helps. But there’s no time to get into that I have a job to report to. As usual I eat my breakfast and it leaks out of my ribcage in a gooey mass. Every time. The person who this skeleton used to belong to must have been a big eater because I can’t seem to shake this need to eat constantly. Not that it matters to me but whatever. I grab my hat, surprising given my lack of eyes, or too many. How many eyes do I have again? I look in the mirror, two of them, alright. How do they stay hydrated? Enough of that I have a place to be.

I fly over there by flapping my bony arms. Yes, I am aware how stupid it makes me look, but it’s how I get from place to place so that’s how it has to be. Appropriately enough my work is actually a skyscraper, so I just have to fly through the window. Well, I used to fly through the window, but after the tenth or so time they just gave up and put a piece of paper over the hole I crashed through. It was really courteous of them but I do so miss the sensation of breaking glass.

As I head for the boss’ office I’m overcome with a sense of worry. Cubicles abounded everywhere, the grey carpet let off a smell of mediocrity and the posters all depicted graphs and charts that nobody could decipher. Approval for being able to put some nice pictures in here, maybe of people and humans who still have all of their organic matter attached to them, would take a while so I never tell the boss. But I know this meeting isn’t going to go well, so I may as well bring it up. Can’t get wet in a thunderstorm, right? I think I did that wrong.

“Ah,” The boss exclaimed, “Come on in. We need to talk, boney.” Not my name but okay. I hung my hat, hoping that metaphor wouldn’t become appropriate, and plopped down on the chair. It wasn’t comfortable and made my bones rattle, but so does everything these days.

“Your numbers are terrible,” I said. I was hoping we would say it in unison but the boss had different ideas.

“What? No this isn’t that kind of meeting. I’m here to give you a promotion.” He said, excitedly. I can’t say he exclaimed again but yeah he still had that kind of tone. I’m not sure shuddup.

“This is incredible,” I ex…ooops there I go doing it again.

“We think this is long overdue. You are the best sky scraper in the skyscraper. Originally the board refused to bestow you with this honour because you are, frankly, and I mean no offense, a pile of bones.”

“That’s okay,” I reassured him, “I literally am a pile of bones so the assumption isn’t incorrect.”

“He nodded. He said yes. This is what we’ve been waiting for. This is our moment to shine!” He shouted, leaving me confused.

“We?” I asked.

“Why yes, your skeleton is being replaced with mine. Isn’t it exciting.”

I escaped.