Fireland

The Tubers Say It's 4:09 PM / 14 July 1998

Dell Pankow drummed his fingers on the woodgrained enamel of his superdesk. The resulting sound was flat and dampened. He adjusted the rhythm. He created a solid backbeat with his thumb. His left hand got in the act after awhile and what emerged was a competent “Moby-Dick.” Tick-tock went the clock. This is not literally true because Dell Pankow had one of those digital, ticktock-free clocks that was powered by two potatoes, each one speared with one lead and one copper wire. This was a birthday present from the office. The card was actually only signed by the receptionist (“From the gang!”) whose name was Margaret but for some reason Dell always called her Millie. This was out of forgetfulness, or rather lack of attention. Margaret had been instructed by two separate managers not to correct Dell Pankow. On three different occasions, however, Margaret pretended to make a phone call while Mr. Pankow was passing by, saying, loudly: “Hello? [name]? This is Margaret!” Just to sort of impress the truth upon him, since it can really get insulting after awhile if you’re continually called the wrong name. It makes you feel truly insignificant, and such feelings are already all too commonplace for a receptionist in a company like MasterTech. But Dell never noticed, or rather he noticed the abnormally high volume of her voice and the fact that she was making a personal call (he assumed) on company time, but the specific words didn’t seem to sink in. Margaret passed the time by signing her name on notepads, over and over. The FedEx guy kind of gave her the creeps.




Joshua Green Allen
 

WELCOME GENTLE LADIES
Fireland is a rickety old website by Joshua Allen.

CURRENT PROJECTS
A novel called Chokeville and a beverage-review site called The Knowledge For Thirst.

WRITING / ARCHIVE
A great deal of typing is collected in the Archive.

WRITING / ELSEWHERE
Articles and whatnot for other sites, including The Morning News, Wired, and McSweeney's, can be found in External.

MOVIES
I've been involved in a number of Epiphany Sink pictures.

MUSIC
I record music under the name Orifex.

FEED
The RSS feed is here.

NOTIFICATION
Join the notify list for extremely infrequent updates via email.

MISC
The Sexiest Sentence Alive, Fireland Broke My Will To Live, The Black Pill Diaries, and a sampling of Old Fireland Designs.

EMAIL
I can be contacted at .

 

♦ ♦ ♦