Observations

After having worked here for several weeks, I have come to the conclusion that there are extraterrestrials among us. Or even that, more precisely, I am among aliens.

At first, this idea was based only on an amusing little observation. I noticed that although I work in a large cubicle farm where they raise a hundred auditors and tax associates at a time, the bathroom was nearly always empty. Empty in an unused sort of way, almost as though I were the only person who actually had to do the things one does in there.

And so I wondered to myself how it was the other 99 people avoided going to the restroom. I witnessed them eating, so I knew that if their bodies obeyed the same laws of physics that mine does, they had to eliminate waste, too. And yet the bathroom is always empty. How or when were they performing this biological function? How could they avoid the inevitable urge after a venti triple-shot eggnog latte?

Then I began to notice that although these waste-retentive organisms work long days five and six days a week, they all look phenomenal. Although they clearly have no time in their lives for the luxury of exercise or a day spa, their skin is flawless and their bodies are trim.

But not only are their bodies slender, they also look remarkably young. Yes, it’s true many among them claim to be only twenty-plus earth years old, but even the more seasoned members of their species retain a youthfulness that defies the aging effects of years of
stressful working conditions. Just look at how a typical president ages during the course of his tenure to see what I mean. In only four years, a sprightly man emerges aged and tired, exhausted from his ordeal.

But these beings do not show the wear of decades of twelve-hour days under terrible pressure to perform. They look youthful and vigorous. And yet they seem so human, full of the same quirks and many, if not all, of the frailties of humanity.

They may return to their dens in the darkness of night to excrete their purified wastes from wide pores lining their spines. The may watch our solitary moon throughout their sleepless nights, reading audit work papers or communicating with their home world through
exotic miniaturized instruments implanted inside their deeply-folding brains.

But I wonder if they were always this way, and why they would hire a human like me.