Warwick Slavik’s Day at Work

Jesse S. Mitchell

Warwick Slavik likes to be productive, converting oxygen to carbon dioxide, breathing for the trees, leaving his footprint, gentle, behind.  EinWurm gets upset waking up in the mornings, his body aches, his mind all frozen over, so much ice, so much ice, so much iceage melting, Paleolithic drifting.  The two men watch outside the window, looking to see the time.  Real time, not clock time.  Is it Anthropocene?  Is it Pleistocene?  Here come the meters, here comes the showers.

The dark sky reminds the two men of night, of sleeping, dreaming. 

Warwick’s dream is retire someday and live in Taos, live near D. H. Lawrence’s ranch, his favorite writer.

EinWurm hears T. E. Lawrence, not D. H. and Ein never really cared for the Arabs. 

He scowls.  

Here come the meters.  Here come the comets, explosions.  Here come the showers.

The two stand in silence for a while.

They are clearly two very different people.