Dedication and Prologue

Dedication

These stories are dedicated to the people who inspired them, I forgive you.  I hope you can forgive me too.

Prologue

As I sat in the Human Resources conference room, Mary Ellen brought me a paper and pen.  “Now write,” she said, “or we can call someone to give you a ride down to the Cook County Jail.”

 

I was summoned to HR for a workplace violence complaint and to be honest I didn’t know what I had done. I’m a civil servant who works a nine to five filled with drudgery, faithfully waking up every day to accomplish some minor yet loathsome task few others would acknowledge requires any effort, no less exists. I’m the one who seals the cracks, clears out the dust, and smooths out uneven planes in a world filled with jagged edges.  No one thinks of me on sunny days when the skies are blue and tulips are blooming, they only remember me after the torrential rains or when the temperature has reached one-hundred and they are sitting in a room without air-conditioning. I’ve become associated with the distasteful aspects of life most would rather ignore and that is my crime.

But I had agreed to the mediator’s bargain, that I would write an apology to the aggrieved parties and they would not press charges.

 

They had to accept it to make it valid. 

 

I sat in the room until evening, without writing a word.  Then with a sigh of resignation, I began, with yesterday’s events.