I had a strange dream last night. It was made stranger by the fact that it had tactile portions to it. In the dream, I actually petted a koala and could feel it. When I woke up this morning, I realized it was probably Sheba's fur. But here is the first part of the story:
It all began with the koalas. They weren’t really koalas, at least I don’t think they were, but they were the one consistency across everything. I suppose that doesn’t make a great deal of sense but then, none of this really does. And I can’t really share it with anyone without being labeled as mad but the knowledge weighs upon me like weight of the Ouranos must have weighed upon Atlas. So I shall commit my tale to paper in hopes that the purging of the memories will lessen both my load and thus my chances of being named crazy and committed.
Unlike many stories of my life, I cannot point to a definitive beginning for this one, but I suspect it would be the week before the accident. Or, more accurately, the first variant of it I remember. Monday, I woke up, dressed, and went to work. The commute was no more exciting than usual, probably the most interesting thing was the guy in the subway terminal busking with is saxophone. He was a regular busker, and most folks nodded his way as they passed him, standing with his back against the wall, his open instrument case at his feet so people could toss donations in as he played. That was normal, but the small leash tied to his ankle and connected to a koala sitting next to him, gently moving in time with the music and that soporific look that koalas always seem to have, that was different. Normally I would have stopped to ask him about it but he was in the middle of a song and my train arrived so I just got on board and didn’t think anything more of it.
Work was normal. I’m a mid-level accountant in a Madison Avenue ad firm. Working for such a firm sounds far more exciting than it is, at least for the drones like us. If you’re one of the creatives, they’re the ones that get to hobnob with the big names and get credited with coming up with the next Bimisi the Bull character to sell baby oil and diapers. Not the life for me, I just get to audit the bills and payments and make sure that the bills are correctly split across campaigns. The highlight of working for such an agency is the Christmas basket which usually contains items supplied by clients. As a bachelor, there wasn’t much use for the baby oil and diapers contained in last year’s basket. But work that day was pretty normal. The commute home was as archetypal as any of the other 240 days a year that I commute back and forth from the office.
Tuesday began much the same way. The one item that stuck out in my mind was an announcement of a new icon. That’s the way the agency referred to certain types of characters we created. It was, in the founder’s words, because these characters will become as iconic as Tony the Tiger or Charlie the Tuna. This icon was Kaage the Koala, a new mascot for the zoo. The image sent around was an almost anime caricature of the marsupial that I had seen with the busker the day before. Which reminded me that I hadn’t seen him that morning but that was nothing too unusual. Sometimes he switched platforms and was probably performing somewhere else. That night, about half an hour before I had planned to leave, I found a discrepancy with one of our major suppliers in Sydney and called to figure out what was going on. Given that it was 8:30 in the morning there and they were still working on their first cup of joe, it took a few minutes to convey what the discrepancy I had found appeared to be. Once it was pointed out to them they agreed that it looked strange and said they’d investigate. We agreed, given the time difference, that we’d schedule a meeting for tomorrow, my evening, their morning, to go over what they’d found. Then I headed home.
The trip home was uneventful, excepting the launch of Kaage the Koala. It seemed like the zoo must have hit some huge, government windfall because there were already posters in the subway and I saw a couple of billboards. That was unusual because I’d only heard about Kaage today and usually the gossip mill would have had some hint of such a large campaign about to be launched is such a widespread fashion. But I didn’t worry about it, went home and ate, read a book and turned in.
The next day I decided to change my usual pattern and drive into work. As a general rule I’d prefer not to drive into the city but I knew it was going to be a late night and this way I could justify heading over to Darien, CT to a great little burger joint I liked. So I hopped into my economical compact and headed into the city. I’m not really sure what happened next because all I remember is a very loud and ugly cacophony of metal grinding against metal and my body dissolved in pain.
My next memory was of blinding light shooting into my brain as an EMT shone a light into my eye and said something, I’m not really sure what. I felt my body lifted as each jostle shot new bolts of pain through nerves that seemed to be stretched to the breaking point and I can remember wishing they would just snap so I wouldn’t feel the pain anymore. Then there was the ambulance ride to the hospital and a lot of noise. Some of it may have been words but I couldn’t understand anything through the pain. Then, finally, there was blessed darkness and peace.
Monday, I woke up, dressed, and went to work. It seemed like any other Monday only, and I know this is hard to explain, it felt more so like any other Monday than I remember a Monday feeling. I got to the subway station and there was a busker playing saxophone. I thought his choice of music was strange, it seemed that he was playing the Kookaburra song, and his saxophone was rendering the most mournful version of that song. At least that seemed more likely than his knowing a Welsh folk song, especially when I strode past him on my way to the open subway door and noticed he had a koala tethered to his ankle, sitting next to him and watching the subway crowd pass by from his half-closed eyelids.
My job as a mid-level accountant for a Madison Avenue ad firm was boringly normal as well. It did seem as though my auditing of bills and payments to ensure the bills are correctly split across campaigns was easier than usual. Maybe a decade and a half on the job had made it easier to spot mistakes but they seemed to almost leap from the columns of figures to my eye. But I still had to check and double check that I wasn’t missing anything and so my day went on. My work day ended and I went home and did the Times crossword. Monday is always the easiest puzzle of the week, but this was so easy I wondered if Wil Shortz had been replaced.
Tuesday began much the same way. As I got on the train into work I realized the busker wasn’t there today. I chuckled then, thinking of his companion of yesterday and wondered when the agency was going to come up with a Koala for use as an icon, a character as iconic as Chester Cheetah or Shamu. When the agency announced the new icon Kaage the Koala as the mascot for the zoo, I just wrote off my earlier thoughts as probably having heard some rumor about Kaage from the office grapevine. The middle of that afternoon, I found a discrepancy with one of our major suppliers in Sydney. I set it aside and made a mental note to call them before the end of the day when they would be in the office. I could have sent an email but that would raise the probability of someone auditing what was probably a simple mistake. Around 8:30 am Sydney time, I called, figuring they’d have gotten their first cup of coffee to jump start their day. It still took a few minutes to convey what the discrepancy I had found appeared to be. Once it was pointed out to them they agreed that it looked strange and said they’d investigate. Given the time difference, we scheduled a meeting for tomorrow, my evening, their morning, to go over what they’d found. Then I headed home.
The trip home was uneventful, excepting the launch of Kaage the Koala. It seemed like the zoo must have hit some huge, government windfall because there were already posters in the subway and I saw a couple of billboards. While I didn’t remember hearing about the campaign, I figured I must have, that’s what made me think of it on the way in. I didn’t worry about it, went home and ate, read a book and turned in.
The next day I debated whether I wanted to drive into work or not. As a general rule I’d prefer not to drive into the city but I knew it was going to be a late night and this way I could justify heading over to Darien, CT to a great little burger joint I liked. Normally this would require no thought but today my hindbrain was telling me that it would be better to take the subway, avoid the car. As an accountant, I wasn’t used to hearing warnings from that part of my psyche so I dismissed them, hopped into my economical compact and headed into the city. I’m not really sure what happened next because all I remember is a very loud and ugly cacophony of metal grinding against metal and my body dissolved in pain.
I could write down, in tedious detail, the repetitive nature of the next several weeks, but even with a brain that functioned with as little imagination as mine, I realized something was up.
Now I have some work to do but I'll return to this later this weekend.