Stepping onto the office floor, the bustle immediately overwhelmed me as people ferried across the room. Following the emptiness of the early morning, it seemed now - as the world edged toward the afternoon - that the employees had emerged from their warrens, still no less lifeless than they had been the day before. As I shuffled between carts and people with paperstacks, I slowly made my way through the throngs of people.
Swimming through that ocean of people, I finally made my way to my objective: to my desk.
With a groan, I lazily fell into the desk-chair as I stared at the beaten computer, gripping the folder as I placed it on the desk. Opening up the case manager once more, I stared at the screen.
A Case Transfer Request has been submitted by Employee #2513 (Vincent R) to your Active Case Load. Confirm?
I confirmed the transfer, as my stack was updated with new information. The active case of Derrick Rodgers appeared on my dashboard, and as I opened it, his life was reduced to codes and digits before my eyes. I hated the inhumanity of it. That reduction of a person's being, into digits and numbers, was something wholly reductive - deeply wrong, a simplicity that reduced the soul to a commodity. Yet, from this desk, there was little I could do about the machinations of the system. It was dejecting, frankly. I scrolled down to the bottom of the page, and there, an empty box sat - waiting to be filled.
Active Reincarnation Candidacies (0)
I flipped over Derrick's manilla folder and entered the code meticulously into the system, before double-checking each digit to make sure it was correct. After a moment, I sighed, as I stared at the reincarnation box. I wasn't entirely sure about the world of owling for a man who wanted to fly free, but no reincarnation was entirely perfect - each new life has its own faults.
I knew for a fact from the Inspeculator trip into Derrick's mind that he would have issues adapting to a non-domestic lifestyle of foraging, searching for the food that owls would need to survive without training, and for a man who wished to reincarnate and fly free - it was perhaps the only way to give him an enjoyable life while fulfilling his wishes. It wasn't complete freedom, but it was as free as Derrick would really be able to survive. Chucking him into the wild as a bird, with limited understanding of his own anatomy and dietary requirements, would probably be a quite torturous life.
Whatever life he ended up leading, I could at least be sure that he'd have the ability to control his own destiny as an owl. He could always give up on society, drop his duties, and fly into the sky if he felt inclined to. Nobody could take his wings from him. Standing up, I finalised the information, and submitted it with a resolute click.
Active Reincarnation Candidacies (1)
Sitting up from my desk, I stared across the room, looking to see if Vincent was still around. It seemed he'd returned to his desk for now, leaning back in his chair as he read through the contents of a manilla folder. I guess that must be the case I was assigned today, the one he'd picked up in my stead.
Logging out of the system, I stood up, approaching Vincent's desk with the case file in hand. I rapped my knuckles against the surface of the wood, the knocking sound drawing his attention as I stood with a friendly smile by his desk.
"Hey Vincent," I began. "How's the case coming along?"
"Good," Vincent said. "I'm having a bit of trouble coming up with new lives for him, but I've got a few ideas - it's just a matter of sifting through which one is probably best. What about Derrick?"
"It's going alright," I said. "He's a bit of a difficult one. The details from the Inspeculator are pretty scant, but I managed to pull something together - at least."
"Oh?" Vincent said, smiling. "And what might that be?"
"I'm thinking of letting him live as an owl," I answered. "He seemed like he wanted freedom, to escape the sedentary world of the ground, and... I think it'd be good for him, at least from what I saw of his life."
"Yeah," Vincent responded. "That sounds good for him. Hell, I wouldn't mind a life like that myself. I always loved bird-watching as a kid."
I chuckled a little at that. I remember in my world, the only people who really spent time watching birds were the ones that were about to shoot them out of the sky with a crossbow. I knew Vincent was a pacifist, and so the idea of just him awkwardly ogling a bird as it flew across the sky was, for some strange reason, hilarious to me.
"Watching birds?" I said. "That seems like a strange choice of hobby."
"Maybe in your world," Vincent replied. "I used to love going with my dad bird-watching. Grabbing my little binoculars, waiting patiently for to catch a fleeting glimpse of a redbird or a cerulean warbler, it really was a lot of fun."
"Okay, now you're just making up words," I laughed.
"I guess you'll never know," Vincent said, with a toying smirk.
Standing there, we laughed, before an awkward tension enveloped us. After a moment, Vincent sighed, as he stared across toward the vista window - looking out toward the abyss beyond it. Like waves of liquid light against the glass panes, it was serene. He was lost in thought for a moment. He stared out the window, with a solemn smile upon his face, joy and melancholy fused within his emotions. Thinking carefully about what to say next, he hesitated before speaking.
"Thank you for helping him," Vincent replied. "I know it's selfish of me, to ask for him to get special treatment while so many people suffer in this place, but... I don't want to let him down. I wasn't there enough for him in life, so... I was at least hoping I could be there for him in death."
"I have no problem with that," I said to Vincent. "I'm here to help whoever I can, Vincent, you know that."
"Thanks, Malarie," Vincent said. "Say goodbye to him for me, would you?"
I smiled softly and reassuringly.
"Of course, Vincent," I replied. "I'll make sure of it."
