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A Matter of Form

---Relax, my son. Like yourself, I once warred with that which I should have embraced from the outset.

--- They must be crazy themselves. I mean, look at this.

--- I am sympathetic to your frustration with The Process, in particular, the Form which represents its present manifestation. In your rage and despair, however, I hear the passion that will one day guide you to the Ultimate Ecstasy of the Form, the Substance and the Process as they unite in the Holy Trinity of Being.

--- You’re the first person I’ve ever heard compare this bureaucratic bullshit to religion.

--- As a former Divinity student, I can assure you that there are parallels, Euclidean and non-Euclidean, between the two. Through my previous and current callings, I’ve come to realize that the Journey is the Way as well as the End. The rest is just a Matter of Form.

--- Sounds to me like you went from God to the Devil.

--- There are parallels, Euclidean and non-Euclidean, between the two.

--- I’ve got to give you credit. Considering the position you’re in, you’ve still got enough spirit to give this business the send-up.

--- Please be advised that I’m serious.

--- Get outa here.

--- That’s precisely why I’ve come to you. Having completed my twenty-five years of service, retirement is now an appropriate course of action.

--- But this form...this form doesn’t address that. It’s for mileage reimbursement.

--- Ah, but it does address that very point. I’ve accumulated twenty-five years of ‘mileage.’

--- Sometimes I think I’ve accumulated that much in the month I’ve been here. But seriously, this just isn’t the right form.

---You only see the surface. Lines, right angles, rectangles and boxes. Black, white---

--- and all shades of gray in between. It’s fucking boring.

--- Rest assured, however, that these lines encompass the Euclidean and non-Euclidean spheres which constitute the Universe of the Infinite Process, for all parallel lines on this form ultimately meet and all rectangles ultimately expand to embrace all the potentialities that may be inserted within them.

--- What you’re saying, in a roundabout way, is that there’s room to read between the lines.

--- There is always space for the appropriate interpretation. Although you may protest the Form’s black and white nature or the shades of gray in its For Department Use Only sections, you must bear in mind that black is the absence of all color and that white is the abundance of all color and that both abundance and absence of color are contained in this one sheet of paper. It is a Miracle as marvelous as The Miracle of Being itself.

---Pure bullshit from Day One.

--- But pure Process, as well.

--- That may be. But if I try to get you what you want by using this form, I’ll catch flak from the people upstairs. You expect me to call the Commissioner to expedite this? Heh heh.

--- In my judgment, that seems appropriate.

--- For this!

--- It is the Commissioner who decrees, according to the appropriateness of the situation, what shall be filled and what shall remain blank. Within the Universal and the Particular are contained all things, and these things are subject to change. The Commissioner, as the Prime Human Manifestation of the Form, attempts to be all things to all people---

--- Your typical political appointee...

--- so he must shift and so, accordingly, must his directives shift.

--- That’s the problem. There’s no consistency.

--- Which is why we must be equally rigid and equally flexible so that we can conform to the Universality and the Particularity of the Form and all of the qualities ascribed to and taken from it by the Process.

--- You really expect me to call him about...this?

--- I consider that an appropriate recommendation.

--- Well, you’ll have to fill it out first.

--- I have filled it out.

--- It looks blank to me.

--- It contains all that I was, am, or will be.

--- If I take this at face value, you don’t exist.

--- Whether I exist or not is immaterial to the Process. For the Process encompasses Being and Non-Being simultaneously and may shift from one to the other as the need may dictate. It is the duty of the Commissioner to dictate this need.

--- Let me call him. All my supervisors are at a conference. Well, his phone’s ringing...Nope. No answer.

--- In Divinity School, we were taught that if God didn’t answer our prayers, then His answer lay in the exercise of our own Free Will.

--- You mean, I should try to process this anyway?

--- Precisely.

--- Let me see what I can bring up on the computer. Well, they have you in here, from the date you first started working here---

--- and soon, to the date I retired from here.

--- Uh...

--- Are you having a problem?

--- No, uh, I’m not.

--- I hope the computer isn’t going down. The time has come for me to retire.

--- You can’t retire. According to our records, you’re unemployed.

--- I’ve been employed for the past twenty-five years.

--- That’s what you may think, feel and believe. But the computer says you’re a patient here.

---You didn’t know this already?

--- How could I tell? Everybody here, the staff, the inmates in the Terminal Processing Ward...all of them wear gray suits and wingtip shoes, just like you.

--- Without the Universal, the Particular cannot exist.

--- You’ve got a point there.

--- It seems ironic, though, that a clone should be telling me this.

--- Me! A clone!

--- Yes! A freaking clone!

--- In that case, it seems appropriate to underscore your similarity to the other patients here in the Terminal Processing Ward, right down to your hornrim glasses.

--- Bullshit! I’m different from them. And from you. I’ve known it for years. I just couldn’t admit it till now.

--- But the sum of the Particulars is the Universal. As you know from your years of service, each of us is part of the Process. I think your most appropriate course of action would be to return to your seat.

--- I can’t---I won’t---I can’t go back to being with them. I’m not like them. There!

--- I would recommend that you put your glasses back on. A review of our data indicates that you may have a nearsighted condition. Our liability---

--- Listen to yourself. You sound just like one of them!

--- I am one of them.

--- I thought you were with the Department that manages us.

--- I am. Only in a different capacity than you thought.

--- You bullshit me!

--- I was perfectly straightforward. It was your decision to submit your form to the Processing Unit of the Terminal Processing Ward, instead the Processing Unit of the Department.

--- I couldn’t help it. All you bland, faceless creeps look alike.

--- A Oneness that illustrates the true harmony of the Process, not merely through the Form itself, but through the individuals whose roles are indispensable to the Process.

---Cut the shit. I want out of here.

--- Outside or inside, The Process is the same.

--- That’s bullshit, and you know it.

--- I’ve conducted a thorough review and analysis of the Universals appropriate to the Particulars of your situation---

--- Cut the shit. I’m outa here.

--- If that’s your decision, you leave me no alternative but to process you into Non-Being. We have to keep ourselves covered.

--- But I exist!

--- According to your previous statements, both Being and Non-Being are part of the Process.

--- That was in my official capacity. I’m retiring. I’m retiring into Being.

--- Then, I regret to inform you that we cannot process your application for retirement, for the following reasons: (a) our previous records indicate that you’re unemployed; and (b) our current records indicate that you don’t exist.

--- I exist, I tell you. I fucking exist! I’ll prove it. I’ll walk out of here, right into the Department.

--- Department policy requires that you leave the grounds.

--- You know I can’t do that.

--- The Department has no facilities reserved for people who don’t exist.

--- Without my pension, I’ll starve out there.

--- Then, in keeping with the Wisdom of the Process, you won’t exist off the grounds, either.

--- I have a right to exist, goddamit!

--- Not officially.

---That’s bullshit. I earned it.

---Relax, my son. Like yourself, I once warred with that which I should have embraced from the outset.

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