'Is this a new game?', she asked. Sincere. They were following her here and trailiing her there. Already, she'd told them as they accompanied her to the loo, 'this is only for women. It's not for you. You can't come in,' she had tried to explain. 'The little boys' room's left. Surely that's plain?' They'd waited outside, but had looked quite bereft.
At the end of the day they had walked her to her car. 'I can manage myself, it's really not far. I'm parked at the front and I've not much to carry.' As they stood by her vehicle: 'there's no need to tarry. Of course, there've been times when I forgot where I'm parked, but . . .'. 'Just get in and go home,' one of them had suddenly barked.
So, the day had been odd, right from the start. She had felt this the moment she'd walked in the office; they'd all turned to stare at her, faces set in a grimace. She had set a line early and slacked before work. As a consequence, her hair was unbrushed and her trouser-legs muddy. She had no make-up on and her face was quite ruddy; from the effort, you see, of balancing on a tape. But it made her feel well. It was her new form of escape. To get off the wire, get her feet back on the ground, felt like a terrible breach, she now often found.
She had set up her laptop and begun work on some task, but she'd noticed their faces were set in a mask. They all looked the same (and it wasn't that pretty). What was wrong with them, she wondered. It seemed such a pity. She feared they all took their jobs too seriously. But the profession was in crisis; the institution a ship of fools. To not see its absurdity was a form of insanity. She had long ceased to feel any real sense of sympathy.
As she walked to the canteen, down the corridor and stairs, she began to get nervous; she was not unawares, that behind her the masks were now walking in line. An organised procession, they were marching in time, to the beat of her heart that now beat like a drum. They were blowing on pipes, all fingers and thumb. She considered it an omen of bad things to come.
And, then she remembered, for Christians it was Lent. Perhaps that's what gave them this terrible bent? While she had been slacking perhaps they were lacking the things they'd enjoyed, like chocolate and wine. The things that enabled the full-time employed to believe they were fine?
Then it suddenly dawned; the idea was spawned. A long time ago she had read Bakhtin on Rabelais; the socio-cultural imperative for grotesque revelry and play. The desire for freedom from hierarchies, replaced by community. A sense of embodied-ness, albeit collectively. The impulse to defy political order and law. Of course, she thought to herself, that's what all this is for.
They were feeling disempowered, completely oppressed. The masks were merely a strategy of the disillusioned and dispossessed. The carnival dress both concealed and made manifest all that they felt, all that was repressed.
And, to be honest, she would have found it a hoot, but for the fact that she hated both piccolo and flute.
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