Graveyard Fulfillment (Late December)
In the month of frost and salmon gathering to spawn, the sun reaches its nadir. Various charities advertise societal failure. Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, physicist and writer of satirical philosophical miscellanies, offers some negative theology of his: “Is then our conception of God nothing more than the inconceivable personified?” (translation from the German by the Almanac writer).
The graveyard fulfillment center associate stands hunched against the pallet jack. Snow falls in piecemeal avalanche down from the loading dock awning. The associate dreams of a more convivial climate, neotropical, dreams of the cheeseburgers found in such climates. Meanwhile, festive commodities accumulate, toys and treats boxed for shipping. They are shunted elsewhere but keep accumulating. The branded parcel boxes smile with the same vacant logo. The shift lead passes behind him. He gives him noncommittal contact, a sort of halfhanded pat on the back. “There’s been talk of organizing here, talk here today, at the center,” the shift lead says, “let me know if you know anything.” Not waiting for an answer, he disappears behind thick semitranslucent vinyl curtaining. The associate stares out into the short middle distance. Tire marks form semicoherent patterns in the snow, trace semicircles, roughhewn, spiraling to the fulfilment center gate. A vest mounted timer bleeps and strobes. His allotment for time on task, the year itself, nears closure.