Cracked
Really? You “don’t care”? Your entire job appears to be ensuring that Jimmy refrains from cracking corn while upper management is away on business.
Is this where you thought you’d be, 10 years ago in grad school, as you put the finishing touches on your master’s thesis?
You took a quick job after you got your degree, thinking you’d save up enough to take the summer off and turn that thesis into a book. Before you knew it, that part-time job at the corn not-cracking factory had turned into a career. The pretty girl who stood next to you on the line all day became your wife. In short order: two kids, a mortgage, promoted to middle management.
Now you supervise the night shift, making sure your employees crack as little corn as possible. You should be happy: a woman you love, beautiful children, a yard that hasn’t sprouted a weed in years.
But that summer tugs at you. The summer you never had, when you would have locked all the doors, turned off the TV, and dived into yourself, writing from a place of quiet and peace you didn’t even know was there.
Jesus, there he goes again. Jimmy. Should have fired him months ago, when his cracked-to-uncracked ratio went sky high. But up there, in the cold light of the monitoring booth, you can’t bring yourself to care. You’re somewhere far away, sharpening a pencil, a blank sheet of paper stretched out in front of you, all the way to the horizon.
(Image: NH567)
