I Was Part Of Something Special

Dear Octopus,

There was a very nice girl who used to work on my old team back when I did (sometimes casually referred to as 'The Whorey-Glory Years' among the elder and more vaunted statesmen of said auspicious department), and I learned last week that said colleague recently left, with no leaving drinks and little of the deserved fanfare or sentimentality. 'Gone to another agency presumably,' says I, whilst leaning back in someone stranger's chair and idly doodling a cartoon sperm whale on their notepad with a speech bubble saying 'I SUPPORT COMMUNISM AND REFUSE TO RESPECT WOMEN'. 

'Indeed not,' replies Zara, candidly observing my endeavours from across the way. 'No?' inquires a now curious Action Squid. 'Magazine? Creative house? Production company? Some meagre digital PR agency burrowed away like last year's Christmas baubles in the attic of a decaying Soho loft conversion?' Zara shakes her head. 'That’s a negative Captain.'

(Frustrated now) 'Well where then?'

'She's gone to start her own company, selling rare and antiquarian doorknobs.'

At first I was aghast. Who on earth does this girl think she is? Doorknobs indeed. Not just a gross and perverse deviation from this luminous media industry - which to me now seems so 'unleaveable' - but it's so left-field; so daring, so brave, such deft, brazen, admirable entrepreneurialism, via such a thoroughly unknown quantity. Maybe I was wrong about her. Maybe she’s one of ‘those.’ A few days meditation followed. Then I realised that it's fascinating. Not because of what it is: obviously trading in rare doorknobs is a great thing, far more fulfilling than advertising at least. It's fascinating because I never had the slightest clue that my colleague was inclined that way. No-one could have known. But this episode is allegorical of all the hidden diversity that perpetually lies dormant in and around the places we frequent more than our homes. Just because we share the same tiles of carpeting with someone, drink from the same water fountain and perform the same set of arbitrary roles.....it doesn't mean that we ever really know them. I look around these white walls now and see new faces; with whole wild worlds of adventure, romance, intrigue and knowledge all submerged beneath grim corporate masks.

I know that there are / were only 15-20 people in the office of your so-called 'charity' my dear Octopus, but your homework assignment this week is to ask someone what they're into, that they might not otherwise volunteer. Maybe it'll be archery, maybe taxidermy, maybe cross-dressing on a Saturday night and asphyxi-wanking to the theme tune of Maid Marian & Her Merry Men. You just don't know. What you will know though is that it'll invariably be different, and you might be surprised by what you hear.

It's depressing really...and not just the thought of certain nefarious individuals wilfully preparing horrible hybrid jizz-nooses in their dim, curtained bedrooms. Why do I not have some exciting double-existence waiting for me as I leave the office? The word 'doorknobs' will now forever be a metaphor for all the unlived lives still coursing through these veins, and the declining number of hours in which they will never see the light of day.

Your loving friend,

Action Squid