who?
december fifteen | ten post meridiem
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The building where I work is next door to a house of *ahem* ill repute. Its architectural style is somewhere along the lines of genteel bunker: it presents a respectable facade to the casual observer, but look closer and you'll notice the lack of windows, the discreetly hidden entrance. Hidden because people don't want to see what goes on inside; don't want to see the broken and battered dregs of humanity who are forced through dire need into performing miserable acts other people do with pleasure... for cold, hard cash. The normals among us don't want to see these glazed-eyed reminders of the baser elements of humanity, if "humanity" even still applies to these debauched meat puppets. Each day, inside, behind closed doors and impermeable walls, they go through the motions of what is to others a pleasurable activity, one indulged in during leisure hours, one that facilitates personal communication and compassion; one that feeds the soul. They know their customers don't care about them, don't respect the precious and unique individual they once were and could be again, if only they could pick themselves up out of this infernal gutter. Some customers even abuse them, shouting insults and threats before hanging up and leaving them behind forever. But there's no time to cry over this savage mistreatment, no time to lick old wounds: the clock is ticking, the sands through the hourglass are slipping, and the Man needs his money. The poor girl or boy - young; formerly innocent, so innocent - picks up the phone, again, knowing that the hurt and the pain and the sleepless nights will come, again, maybe with that very call, and the next, and the next. The life of a telemarketer is the Tragedy of Our Age, if Tragedy doth still visit our poor heads this late on the stage we call Life. The whores! The filthy whores!