I Have a Special Plan for This World
- combination H.P. Lovecraft (cosmic horror), Franz Kafla (bureaucratic
nightmare) and Groucho Marx (“I intend to live forever, or die
trying.”). Thomas Ligotti has written a very funny story.
As he did in his novella, My Work is Not Yet Done,
Ligotti fires off corporate horror fiction where he takes specific aim
at the cramped, constipated corporate mindset it engenders - so cramped
and constipated, so small and stifling, it becomes laughable.
The
tale's unnamed narrator, a gentleman I'll call Sid, starts off by
telling us he remembers working in an office “where the atmosphere of
tension had become so severe and pervasive that one could barely see
more than a few feet in any direction.” And he means this literally, and
for good reason: a pervasive yellowish haze envelops that part of the
city known as 'Murder Town'. Actually, for public relation reasons and
commercial reasons (in other words, to make more money), Murder Town was
renamed the Golden City. You gotta love the searing irony here.
Sid
works at the Blaine Company recently relocated in the main Golden City
crumbling office building where the Blaine Company is the sole occupant.
And there's an undeniable fact associated with the Golden City: the
denser the yellow haze, the more murders have been reported to the local
police.
Shortly after relocating, founder and president UG
Blaine sends a blunt, terse memorandum announcing a 'companywide
restructuring'. And then the ominous disclosure: Sid informs us, “Within
a few months of the announcement of this obscure 'restructuring', the
supervisors of the various departments within the Blaine Company, as
well as a few members of upper-level management, were all murdered.”
What
would you do if you worked at the Blaine Company? Of course, any
sensible person would simply call in and say they quit and will not be
coming in again. But no, the corporate mindset is so dense, every bit as
dense or denser than that yellow haze, all the men and women hang on.
Shifting to a few clips from the tale's highlight reel:
VIOLENCE AND MORE VIOLENCE
Anybody
with a background working for a corporation will have a flash of
recognition when Sid tells us “it was in the nature of a supervisor's
function at the company to forment exactly the kind of violent and even
murderous sentiments that would lead low-level staff to form images in
their minds of doing away with these people (upper management).” Oh,
yes, in the corporate world, employees are not only encouraged to
cooperate with bosses and co-workers, they're urged to loath them as the
enemy, the competition, barriers blocking their own advancement.
Thomas
Ligotti comprehends the mentality of corporate-types down to their
swinish toes: underneath the shell of a superficial smiling face, you
have a power-hungry, low-grade manipulator.
SUB-BASEMENT MEETING
Senior
officers call a meeting of ALL Blaine Company employees held in the
sub-basement, a dank, sinister looking room that can only be reached by
the freight elevator. Everybody must cram in and stand as they're told
the Blaine Company is positioning itself to become 'a dominant presence
in the world marketplace'. Sid and others are perplexed since their
company's sole activity is only manipulating documents for a group of
dismal local businesses.
What a howler! The room, the meeting,
the statement – and then the kicker: the new Vice President of
Development, an elderly Henry Wilson who looks like a creature straight
out of a B horror film, delivers a robotic monologue on all the radical
transformations and restructuring needed.
INSANITY!
Following
the meeting, Sid overhears a woman whose a longtime employee whisper to a
group that what they're doing is perfectly insane. A guy known as The
Bow Tie Man says, in turn, he'll be turning in his notice. At this
point, Sid joins the group and speaks a length, including this snatch:
“Haven't you observed that there is a natural tendency, deranged or not,
for all such entities as the Blaine Company, for any kind of business
or government or even private individual, to extend themselves as far as
possible – to force themselves on the world as much as they can.”
More,
more, more! Corporations are forever after more growth and profit. It
matters little if millions are brutalized and dehumanized, if the air
becomes poisoned, if the lands and waters become an open sewer, even if
the planet is about to burn to a crisp – above all else, what really,
really matters to corporations is
to expand and dominate as far as possible.
NEW COMPANY PERSONNEL
First
The Bow Tie Man is replaced by a new employee, a man who doesn't look
anything close to the usual company worker with his face almost entirely
covered by shaggy strands of unwashed hair and overgrown, untended
beard. And after other regular employees stop showing up at work, they
are likewise replaced by what appears to be derelicts from the Golden
City streets. Meanwhile, that yellowish haze becomes denser and denser
both outside and inside the Blaine Company.
COSMIC HORROR
The
weirdness grows progressively weirder. Mr. Henry Wilson summons Sid to
his office, an office having an eerie resemblance to a pig sty. The way
Thomas Ligotti describes the office and Sid's interaction with Henry
Wilson is an stroke of authorial beauty. But, as it turns out, what
transpires on the final pages of I Have a Special Plan for The World is anything but beautiful for all the humans working at the Blaine Company - and beyond, far beyond.
For Thomas Ligotti fans, this story is not to be missed; it's Lovecraftian sweet. It certainly is among my favorites.
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