MONO ISSUE 1 PDF FLIPBOOK - Flipbook - Page 27
As I walk toward Mr. Taylor’s office, I think about what June would look like wearing only her
hairstylist smock and nothing else. I think that maybe this is something I can work on once I have Mr.
Taylor’s job. This time I enter his office without knocking; a minor breach of protocol but intended to
send a message. Mr. Taylor is standing behind his desk with his back to me and staring out of his
window. The office of Head Zookeeper comes with a utilitarian view of the customer parking lot.
Before I can speak, he says, “It’s yours.”
“What?” I say. “What’s mine?”
He turns around finally and looks at me with those weepy eyes. “The squeaky chair,” he says.
“This office. The zoo. Everything.” He slumps heavily into said chair – the same one he has just
bequeathed to me, but never mind – and sighs loudly. The chair sighs with him.
“I’m done,” Mr. Taylor says. “This last – incident – it’s just too much for me. I can’t take the
sadness of this place anymore.”
To my surprise, I suddenly realise that I don’t want Mr. Taylor’s job. If he can’t take the sorrow of
combustible new world apes and negotiations with the Giraffe’s Union, how am I supposed to deal
with it? He’s been my buffer for the last twenty years. I’ve been the problem solver. And while there
has been much pressure in solving all the myriad problems of a modern zoo, in the end it was always
Mr. Taylor’s responsibility. The buck stopped at his squeaky chair.
I try to think about June naked and unsuccessfully hiding behind her make-up toolbox, but my
mind won’t grab on to the fantasy. All it can do is picture me sitting in the squeaky chair of
responsibility, with the weight of all the zoo problems upon my back.
And I weep with Mr. Taylor.
