Persons attempting to find a "text" in this [story] will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a "subtext" in it will be banished; persons attempting to explain, interpret, explicate, analyze, deconstruct, or otherwise "understand" it will be exiled to a desert island in the company only of other explainers.
BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR - Wendell Berry's introduction to Jayber Crow.
This article was posted to Jayber on 4 April 2007 by to the following categories: Feature, Stories.
An audio version of this article is also available.
On Tuesday, I was sitting at my desk responding to an email when without warning, my eyebrows twitched and dozens of goose pimples formed on my neck as my body reacted to a disagreeable and breezy draft. I shivered and realized that there were cars honking while a strange and unfamiliar voice said, "Well, if I don't make it, tell my wife I love her."
Immediately, I snapped up like a rubber-necked prairie dog and found a strange man on a wobbly ladder dangling out the 4th story window. Instantly, I knew what was going on. Earlier that day, our office manager told me the Glass Man was coming to replace a cracked window, which he had, and was performing an amazing and treacherous act of bravery in order to do his job.
My job is nothing like that. My idea of "amazing" is elegantly coercing an LCD display to draw an animated arc. My idea of "treachery" is writing code that is highly-coupled or not cohesive. My idea of "bravery" is coding a tricky algorithm to convert ballistic coordinates from 3-dimensional spherical space, to 2-dimensional cartesian, or using Internet Explorer. I don't do cool things like hang out windows, or have regular needs to tell co-workers to convey amorous feelings to my wife "in case I don't make it."
Glass Man, I salute you.
Sounds like he needs to join the union.
Did he make it?
He did in fact make it. It really was quite astonishing how unsafe it all was.
well spoken…
i do have to say, when i worked hvac/electrical, we had to use similar ladders. one of my step-father’s ladders was even labeled as “Shaky Jake.” Not fun for an 20-somethin ft. extension ladder.
Yeesh. “Shaky Jake” doesn’t sound comforting.