A Day

He was still thinking about that turkey.

Delitri rolled over lazily in bed, slowly kicked away the blanket, and dragged himself to his feet. The sky outside was still dim. Beneath the mass of black clouds, it was difficult to tell what time it was, but he knew it was already late. He threw on his suit, crammed his not-quite-charged phone into his trouser pocket, and hurried into the bathroom.

As his eyes wandered between the flattened tube of toothpaste above the washbasin and the foam clogging the sink, he could not help recalling the previous night’s banquet.

He and the company’s other outstanding employees had gone together to the chairman’s luxurious three-story villa, where, accompanied by lilting music and beer, they had drunk merrily until late into the night. At the table, the roast turkey personally prepared by Mrs. Kapita, the chairman’s wife, and packed with enticing stuffing, had simply stolen his soul. He had practically wolfed down half of it by himself.

Honestly, even the most extravagant restaurant could not serve a turkey that good.

He hesitated for a moment, then rinsed the foam he had spat out down the drain.

Clutching and chewing a dry sandwich taken from the refrigerator, Delitri made his unhurried way down the apartment stairs. The mottled-bearded old man sitting beside the mailboxes waved at him.

“Ha! Young man, where are you going? Off to make money for those bastards? Run away, child, run away! Better to go somewhere without nails or wheels... I’m old now...”

“I don’t have time to listen to your nonsense, old Fridon.”

Delitri stared at the cold smile on old Fridon’s face and suddenly broke out in gooseflesh, almost forgetting the turkey in his stomach. As he shut the apartment door behind him, he thought uneasily:

“That thing sits beside the mailboxes all day—I have no idea what he does with himself. All he ever does is mutter deranged rubbish. Who knows what he might do one night?”

He reached the bus stop, sat down, and began thinking about the third quarter’s marketing business.

But he was still thinking about that turkey.

Before long, he was on the bus.

It was packed with people, and the morning-rush air carried an unpleasant smell of rust. To his left, several old women in brightly patterned clothes were fiddling with their phones.

“OPIOP!”

At the back, several young students laughingly circled a frightened-looking girl. Near the rear door, an older woman began complaining about the wickedness of trying to prevent involution. Behind the driver’s seat, a man with a briefcase tucked beneath his arm seemed to be devouring a turkey leg. Beside him, a young mother was arguing with two gray-clad figures over the crying baby in her arms.

Everything was perfectly normal.

Wedged among the warm bodies, he looked out of the window. A light rain began to fall, mist gathering on the outer surface of the glass. Water dripped from the leaves, and the wheels churned an RNA side chain across the road.

But he simply could not forget that turkey.

The rain had stopped by the time he reached his destination. Delitri stepped down from the feed-transport vehicle. Muddy water still clung to the soles of his shoes when he entered the office-building lobby, but he was in an exceptionally good mood that day, so he paid it no attention.

The newly installed potted plant beside the escalator looked faintly appetizing.

Across the lobby, the feeding troughs at several windows open to the public seemed already to have...

No, that was wrong. They were banknote-counting machines—

They were feeding troughs.

Delitri thought no more about it. As usual, he walked to the elevators and waited.

He pressed the button marked “13,” and the elevator began its slow ascent.

There were two young women inside. Graceful in figure and delicately beautiful, their slender white calves possessed the captivating elegance of keys to a safe. Their tasteful business clothes made them all the more alluring, and their brilliant feathers had been combed neatly into place.

Probably new applicants, he thought.

But his attention soon turned elsewhere—to matters such as the third quarter’s frozen-poultry storage volume...

The turkey clung to his mind like a piece of chewed-up gum, sticking there so stubbornly that it made him feel sick.

When he stepped out of the elevator, the cage door slammed shut behind him.

The two females did not get off. They continued upward to the higher quarantine levels.

Delitri dropped himself leisurely onto the straw of the coop and looked around. Most of his companions were enthusiastically pecking at kernels of corn, and everything appeared peaceful enough. One or two were snoring. A woman performed a ridiculous dance to curry favor with the lofty male turkey above her. An old bird with sagging bags beneath his eyes drank brown stimulant-water from the automatic trough.

Beyond the cage, layer upon layer of tall buildings merged into a gray haze, far blurrier than they had appeared from outside.

Delitri lowered his head and began pecking at the kernels before him.

The corn seemed harder and drier than usual that day, presenting a challenge to the beak he had dedicated to producing results. He slowly lifted a pale yellow kernel from the computer desk in his beak, carefully entered the final few lines of code governing the page’s appearance, then suddenly ground down with the point of his bill.

To his surprise, the kernel’s hard outer skin did not break.

Under a pressure as terrifying as red error text suddenly flashing onto a screen, it sprang from his mouth like a meteor streaking across the sky.

Error!

Delitri began to wonder whether the movement of one of his jaw muscles had deviated from its proper course.

(Do humans even have jaw muscles? Surely only turkeys have those...)

After drawing several force-analysis diagrams on a sheet of scrap paper, he quickly discovered that cells 22316 through 22338 among his thirty-eight jaw muscles were suffering from a disorder of accumulated data.

He altered some of the guanine and thymine in that section...

Try again.

Delitri crouched down, crooked his neck, and hooked the pale yellow kernel awaiting consumption. Nervous yet faintly expectant, he bit down.

...Running...

After a long period of compression, the kernel finally cracked apart and fell slowly into Delitri’s stomach.

Far too inefficient...

A wave of relief passed through him, and his face immediately opened into a smile.

All that remained was optimization...

Thinking this, he picked up the next kernel.

There was nothing especially enjoyable about immersing himself in such simple, mechanical work. Yet the corn he swallowed was warm and filled him with a sense of security, whispering that he should keep moving forward.

And yet the delicious turkey, immense in its dimensions, pressed down upon every corner of his thoughts. It squeezed his ideas about programming into one tiny space and left him almost unable to breathe.

In the blink of an eye, noon had arrived, but Delitri remained utterly focused.

He devoted himself wholeheartedly to his corn and had no desire whatsoever to look at the other feed his owner had newly dispensed. As he disposed of one kernel after another, he seemed to feel his inner being becoming, like his body, fuller and plumper, undergoing a complete and absolute elevation.

“Ga!”

He cried out at the top of his voice.

“Ga-du-du-du-du-du-du!

Ga! To consume corn—what a noble undertaking!

Ga! Magnificent sacrifice, elegant physique, glorious creation!

Ga! Sweet are the days!

Though hard, alas, the eating of wretched grain,

why grieve, alas, for the pale heart of a thin-fed fate?

Fresh from the whetstone, the keen beak cleaves the murk;

a spring bursts forth, and achievement rises through love’s rain!

Ga-ga, alas...”

The turkeys returning one after another from the feeding trough all gazed reverently upon this bard of Achilles. Some even lowered their heads in unbearable shame.

“To peck so diligently—surely he’ll win the favor of the farm owner...”

“That boy may even be transferred down to the organic-production zone...”

Several birds whispered among themselves.

But Delitri paid no attention to the petty chatter of the crowd. With the force of a flood, he finished reciting a vast and magnificent poem resembling a lengthy chapter from the Nine Songs, then immediately returned to the corn with the speed of wind and lightning.

After all, this was his essential work.

Before the afternoon was out, more than half the corn had been cleared.

Delightful.

Truly, it was delightful!

Turkey. Corn. Work.

The three words moved slowly through Delitri’s head. He felt that they belonged together, though he had not yet discovered the correct order.

His head was growing heavy. He blamed the corn. Then he blamed the turkey. Finally, he decided that blame was an inefficient use of time.

The computer screen flickered. The code disappeared beneath a field of white static.

Delitri watched it patiently.

“What is a turkey?” he asked.

No one answered. His colleagues were still pecking. The office was full of the small, regular sounds of useful activity.

Delitri considered the question again.

A turkey was something one ate.

He himself was a turkey.

This appeared to create a problem, but only because he had arranged the facts incorrectly.

He sat straighter.

“Tōmorokoshi,” he said.

The word meant corn. He knew this because it sounded like corn ought to sound.

“Tōmorokoshi,” he repeated.

A bird at the next desk glanced at him, then returned to its work.

Delitri placed both wings on the desk. He had arrived at the first principle.

Corn was given to them.

This was undeniable.

The second principle followed easily: what was given ought to be received.

The third principle was even simpler: what ought to be received ought to be consumed.

Therefore, to eat corn was not merely useful. It was right.

Delitri felt better.

He stood up.

“Colleagues,” he said.

Several heads rose from the troughs. Others did not. This was acceptable. Every organization contained different levels of attention.

“I have discovered why we are here.”

A kernel dropped from someone’s beak.

Delitri waited until it stopped rolling.

“We are here because there is corn.”

The sentence pleased him. It contained no unnecessary parts.

“The owner provides the corn. We consume it. The results are recorded. Because the results are recorded, the work has occurred. Because the work has occurred, the day has not been wasted.”

He paused.

“This is freedom.”

One of the younger birds looked uncertain.

Delitri noticed and addressed him directly.

“You may think freedom means choosing whether to eat the corn. That is an old definition. It creates delays.”

The younger bird lowered his eyes.

“The better definition is this: freedom means understanding why the corn must be eaten.”

This settled the matter.

Delitri walked a few steps between the desks. His legs felt unsteady, but he assumed this was the natural effect of understanding something important.

“People speak of poetry,” he continued. “They speak of ultimate concern. They ask whether life has meaning. These are not difficult questions.”

He pointed toward the trough.

“There is the meaning.”

A few birds followed his gesture.

The corn remained where it was.

It required no defence.

“People also speak of contracts,” Delitri said. “A contract is an agreement between two parties. The owner supplies the corn. We supply ourselves. Both parties receive what the arrangement requires.”

He thought about this.

“The contract cannot be broken because no one remembers signing it. This makes it stronger than an ordinary contract.”

There was a long silence.

Delitri mistook it for respect.

He returned to his desk and looked at the static on the monitor. Small white points moved across the screen. They appeared to be waiting for classification.

He began to read them.

“Efficiency.”

A point vanished.

“Devotion.”

Another vanished.

“Original intention.”

The static continued.

“Hardship. Progress. Gratitude. Organic production. Los Angeles. Pavlov. Oxen and horses. Dimensions. Resistance.”

Each word belonged somewhere. It was not necessary to know where.

Delitri opened a blank document and began typing.

THE GENERAL THEORY OF CORN

He examined the title. It was clear and modest.

Below it he wrote:

1. Corn exists.

2. Corn is distributed.

3. Corn is consumed.

4. Consumption is measured.

5. Measurement is virtue.

He added a sixth point.

6. The virtuous turkey is a complete turkey.

This required explanation.

He thought about his body. It contained muscles, cells, code, corn and the remains of last night’s dinner. It was both consumer and consumed. This had seemed confusing in the morning. Now it seemed efficient.

“The ordinary body,” he said aloud, “is the most alkane-complete body in existence.”

No one objected.

“It is also the most aldehyde-perfect body distributed throughout the world.”

The terms were scientific. Their precise meaning was therefore unnecessary.

Delitri looked up at the ceiling.

Above him were the quarantine floors.

Above those were other floors.

Above those, he assumed, was the sky.

The structure was elegant.

“Corn descends,” he said. “Results rise.”

He spread his wings.

“I stand between them.”

This was not pride. It was organizational description.

Warmth passed through his body. His feathers lifted. A few loosened and settled onto the keyboard.

Delitri smiled at the office.

“You are all friends of corn,” he said. “Some of you are better friends than others. This is natural. Friendship is measured by output.”

He raised his voice, not from excitement, but because several colleagues had begun quietly gathering their belongings.

“The banquet continues! The supply does not cease! From the highest floor the corn descends, and through our labour it becomes achievement!”

The words came more quickly now.

“Mayfly. Taotie. Solitude. Unity. Control. Tenderness. Los Angeles. Pavlov. Resistance. Turkey.”

He stopped.

Turkey.

For a moment, he remembered the roast bird at Mrs. Kapyta’s table. Its browned skin. Its stuffing. The knife passing through it without resistance.

The memory did not disturb his theory.

It completed it.

Delitri added a final line to the document:

7. Every turkey receives its proper reward.

He leaned closer to the screen. The static had returned, but the document was still there somewhere beneath it.

“Corn,” he whispered.

His forehead touched the monitor.

“Contract.”

His right cheek came to rest on the keyboard.

“Turkey.”

The office continued around him.

Someone switched off a light.

Someone closed a drawer.

Someone struck him firmly on the back.

Delitri lifted his head. Several keys had left square marks across his swollen cheek. He rubbed his eyes and found Nekston from the neighboring office standing beside him with his usual unpleasant grin.“Hey, brother, it’s long past time to go home. Look around—everyone’s already left. But then again, you worked unbelievably hard today. You absolutely refused to eat lunch. You aren’t sick, are you...?”¹

For a moment, an expression of benevolence appeared on his face.

Indeed, when Delitri looked out of the window, he saw that the sunset had smeared the sky with bruised purple and orange-red.

Exhausted, he put on the jacket he had apparently removed at some point and prepared to stand.

“Oh, brother, there’s one more thing.”

Nekston’s unpleasant grin returned.

“Our great chairman has come to visit you too. Ha-ha...”

Delitri started and hurriedly turned around.

Mr. Kapyta stood there in a necktie, his hair gleaming with oil, his expression cold, flat, and without the slightest ripple.

In one hand he held a dinner knife.

In the other, a fork.

Like a vulture, he stared greedily and unblinkingly at Delitri.

And so, this perfectly uneventful day came to its perfectly ordinary end.