The Broken Face | Teen Ink

The Broken Face

April 19, 2009
By Shawn Paustian BRONZE, Las Cruces, New Mexico
Shawn Paustian BRONZE, Las Cruces, New Mexico
2 articles 1 photo 0 comments

The broken face of a man in need of help mouthed out the words of distress, but the vocal vibrations were not strong enough to make the sounds. All while looking at the mirror in a kennel for humans. Realizing who the face was the dismissal of truth was in motion. The man with the broken face fell through the crack of an office cubical that was surrounded of more cubicles, to arrive at a business meeting. The tweed jacket with the silk lining, and the khaki pants with the slight wear and tear on the right pocket was the only thing to distinguish him in the crowd of the seemingly cloned and dazed company workers. They all had the same voice, the same clothes, the same hair, and the same plastered smile.

As the workers were set to stone to be forever in the repetitious work of accounting, color seem to dissipate and light was filled with the eye straining fluorescent light tubes as they constantly flickered on and off. No more was the Earth a playground, but a war zone. The man could not comprehend the stoning of the workers and the loss of color, so hidden in the corner of a room a cold sweat ran down his forehead. The sweat reached to the tip of his nose and like faucet that has its handle not fully shut, the sweat dropped one teardrop at a time.

His eyes were constantly looking for an exit, but none could be found. Following the mores of society he did not scream for help in a room of supposed quietness. The backdrop of an office room then changed to a room full of workers. The constant sound of fingers hitting the keyboards annoyed the broken faced man, but as the boss said “The sound of keyboards will be almost like a heartbeat.” The man could not stand for a heartbeat to be a keyboard, for a heartbeat should be… The word he needed was lost in the vocabulary of software commands and shortcuts. He could not believe what an enterprise could do. The man was lost at breath and surprised at the thought of how one can enslave themselves by applying for a position at a business. Memories of family and accomplishments were almost gone. The man with a broken face had lost focus of what was by his side, for he wanted a life where he could be independent and away from the past.

The truth was that reality was shown in the dream of the broken faced man. He learned that the only way to be prepared for the future is to remember the past. The colors of love, family, accomplishments were lost in the everlasting vortex of greed. Awakened from the unsettling truth, that man was I.



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