At work I keep vacuuming up feathers which makes me think someone keeps bringing birds into the shop. On the front door there’s a big sign that says No Dogs and a picture of a dog with a red X through it so everyone speaking every language in the world will know not to bring their dog. The sign isn’t in Braille though. Blind people can bring their dogs into every store because of something called the No Braille Loop Hole. They don’t make No Dogs signs in Braille, so blind people are allowed to bring their dogs into every shop in the world and everyone is too ashamed of not having Braille on their signs to tell the blind people that it’s not allowed.
This is probably how people are allowed to bring birds into the shop I work at. The bird owners probably all say, Well there’s a no dog sign, but there’s nothing about birds, so I must be allowed.
The shop I work at is a bookshop, and maybe birds are the only other literate animal. No one has talked to me that much about birds, and maybe everyone forgot to tell me that birds know how to read.No one talks to me much at work in general. Either they ignore me, or else they talk to me in a very deliberate way because they think they are communists. It makes the want-to-be communists feel good to talk to me because I am the floor cleaner, and they think I’m doing honourable work. They think that talking to me proves that we are all equal, but those people are really just talking to me because in a place they’re trying to keep secret from themselves they can’t forget that I’m the one who’s paid to clean the floors they’re paid to stand on. They’re the only ones who can’t see past that.
Everyone talks to me when they walk muddy footprints across the floors I’ve just moped though. Everyone apologizes, and they all seem so sorry, and that’s when I feel sorry for them. I feel sad for them because they must care about their jobs and get upset when something in the bookstore goes wrong. Why else would they think I care if they track mud footprints across the white tiles? I’ll get paid either way. I’m too busy vacuuming up feathers and thinking about birds that know how to read to even notice if the floors get dirty after I’ve cleaned them.
Jane Ozkowski 