Admit it, you’re biased when it comes to animates versus inanimates, preferring scurrying creatures to stationary furniture. Too bad for you then. Because today’s episode finds us within the office of an unnamed captain of industry, an anonymous baron of business. There are photos of the walls on the walls – no evidence of who this titan of technology is, lest his enemies use it to their advantage. This tale has nothing to do with rabbits or ducks, pigs or farm animals of any kind, instead focusing on the existence of a lonely and unassuming desk.
From typewriters to computers, Dick Desk has seen it all. His surface was once polished with obsessive regularity. Not anymore. He’s lost some of his initial luster, watching powerlessly as his varnish disappeared. Have you ever woken up with a mysterious injury? As you stumble to the bathroom to freshen up and grab your toothbrush, you notice a slight slice on the tip of your index finger. You don’t remember messing around with the sharp edge of a soup can before bed. You don’t recall any midnight knife play. You have no recollection of any activity that would have removed a chunk of flesh from your most trusted digit. You chalk it up to sleepwalking, or a practical joke from your cousin, a cutlery fanatic and current houseguest. You move on with your life and accept that you’ll never know the truth. The finger will heal and that’s that.
On this dewy morning, Dick Desk experienced a similar phenomenon. Only he knew that he couldn’t have been the culprit. Although Dick was a desk made of wood, mostly oak in case you care, he was not meant for nature. Like a domesticated pet who’s spent too long pampered by humans, Dick Desk could never return to the wild forests of his ancestors. He had a recurring nightmare that he was in an overgrown rainforest, stuck in the mud. Somewhere he could and would quickly rot. The beetles and termites would feast from his legs on up before devouring him whole. Then he’d jump up, shrieking loud enough to roust the staplers and pencil sharpeners who called his woody expanse their home.
It was a coaster ring, and it wasn’t there the night before. His sworn enemy, a junkyard philistine, Salvatore “Sal” Vage had been by though. The impressions left on the surface bothered Dick. It wasn’t just that an assortment of coasters were always within reach. It was that this must’ve been a message. Sal had spent months trying to convince the Captain to sell the desk and open up the office space. Two sawhorses and a flat old door would do the trick. Plus, out of pure generosity, he’d take Dick off the Captain’s hands. It’s not like Dick was worth anything at this point. Look at the scuffs and scratches. The coaster ring was a power play. But what could Dick do? He was a desk.
Sal snuck in that morning and began unscrewing Dick’s legs that were bolted tightly to the floor. He reassured Dick the process would be over soon and not to fight the inevitable. But the windows were left open. The Captain liked that sort of atmosphere, it counteracted the dust from the books he never read. As Sal began to unscrew one leg he slipped on the dew, cracking his skull on the ornate trim.
Sal woke up in the emergency room with a mild head injury, no dumber than before. The Captain called 911 as soon as he got to the office. So for today at least, Dick Desk lives on, safely and securely, under a pile of bills, receipts and a couple thank you cards. Maybe tomorrow he’ll be pulverized into woodchips for an elementary school’s playground. But not today. Because today, he’s still a desk.
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