A Day in the Life

of an Architectural Intern/Zombie

The alarm clock blared and I blindly reached out to silence the offending noise. I groaned under the covers. Yet another day at the office awaited me… handrail details, toilet partitions, perhaps glazing details. This wasn’t what they told me it would be like in architecture school. I sat up in bed, blinking in the morning sun. The cat was motionless, contentedly sleeping away, undisturbed by my dulled movements.

Dragging myself to the bathroom, I studied my image in the mirror. Bloodshot eyes, grey complexion, bloodied gums. Darn it, it keeps getting worse everyday. I leaned in closer to the mirror only to bump my forehead painfully against the mirror. “Ow,” I groaned and then gazed at the bloody patch of scalp and hair that clung to the surface of the glass. Sighing with disgust and disappointment, I reached for a few sheets of bleach wipes and wiped the mess from the mirror away.

{ More after the break }

After I wrapped my head in fresh bandages, I examined my hands. Sometime during the night, I had lost my pinky finger and all the nails on my left hand. I wondered if the cat had eaten the pinky finger. She had gotten to my right little toe a couple nights before. I slowly wrapped gauze around my right hand, covering it until the only index finger and thumb protruded. I tested it, mimicking clicking on an imaginary mouse and maneuvering this imaginary mouse around. That would do. I can still go to work.

I donned my black turtleneck and pondered whether to wear pants. The flesh on my legs was starting to fall away exposing the bone beneath. I had a tendency to leave clumps of rotting tissue behind wherever I sat or walked. Pants were normally not something I would wear to the office, but concerned with hiding the now protruding femur, I struggled into them. At least I wouldn’t have to worry about shoes. After work yesterday, I was unable to remove my feet from my black work boots, having partially melted into the leather. Studying myself in the full length mirror, I decided it would be good enough to get through the day.

Lately, my breakfast had consisted of raw hamburger and today was no exception. I found myself tearing into the package with ferocity and a deeply primitive hunger. In my impatience, I bloodied my black turtleneck and smeared offal all over my face. But I was running late. I had to get to work. Grabbing my black messenger bag, I shuffled out the door into the sun.

Having arrived at the office and grunting hello at the receptionist, I sat down in my sunless cubicle. I opened my email only to be inundated with new tasks and messages. My cubicle neighbor popped his head over the shared partition. “Hi there,” he managed to slur.

“Hi Steve. How was your night?”

“I think I lost my ear last night,” he shook his head. His loose scalp flipped over, exposing a gaping hole where his ear once was.

“Awe man, that’s too bad,” I murmured sympathetically. Steve and I were two interns in a large firm employing hundreds of interns, each of us in a different state of decay. Steve’s state of decay was more advanced than I, due to having begun his ARE. I started showing him my missing pinkie finger when the boss walked directly into my cubicle.

Unlike us, the boss was the picture of glowing, pink health. The boss jovially smacked me on the back and chirped “good morning!” oblivious to the drip, drip, drip of my blood on his Italian leather shoe. “I know I said I would take you to the job site today, but we really need to issue these drawings. Can you just work on detailing the toilets and then maybe throw a finish board together? Thanks, you’re a doll.” I smiled weakly, nodding my agreement.

“Sure thing, boss. Right-o.” With that, the boss turned heel and strode off. I turned back to my keyboard and retched up a lung. “Oh no,” I groaned. “IT won’t like that.”

Throughout the day, various PM’s popped their heads in and out of my cubicle, each one of them smiling and cheerful. They began to grate on my nerves. The last straw was when the little intern from interiors popped her head in and announced a team meeting. I glanced at her. Fresh out of school, she still had all her hair and was remarkably alive looking. In fact, I determined she actually WAS still alive. How did that happen? How did she escape the slow rotting from within? Watching her trot off towards the conference room, I wondered how long it would be before she turned grey and began picking the flesh off her own cheeks. Breathing deep and gathering myself together, I trudged to the conference room.

In the conference room, the mangled remnants of humanity sat uncomfortably in Aeron chairs as the Boss sat at the head of the table and did a role call of projects for the week. He stood up and addressed the team.

“I want to thank you all for all your hard work and I know many of you have been working long hours for no overtime. You are all poised to reap the rewards of your hard work soon. This year, unfortunately, there will be no cash bonus, but the other partners and I have chipped in for a hot dog party! I’m sure you’ve also heard rumors of layoffs. Fear not. Those of you who remain 100% billable for the next quarter will only have to worry 20% more than those of you who bill 95%. We’ve also decided to no longer offer health benefits, since so many of you are not taking advantage of our plan. And why would you? You’re all the picture of health.”

Steve’s other ear plopped to the conference table surface. I picked it up and chewed on it pensively, while Steve leaned closer to the boss and stage whispered “What is he saying?”

The perky interiors intern turned around and loudly gasped “OMG, that’s disgusting!” I swallowed the ear and grinned. The entire team turned to look at the young intern, suddenly vividly aware of her beating heart, her pink cheeks and frightened breath. Only the Boss seemed undisturbed and continued droning on about the importance of team communication. All around her, the interns began to growl in hunger, edging their Herman Miller chairs closer and closer to her as she rolled her’s back, inch by inch. She shrieked as the entire team descended upon her, screaming as her flesh was ripped away. Steve groaned “BRAINS!” and the team paused to laugh appreciatively.

I grabbed her right pinkie finger from a pile of parts on the floor and tried to stick it onto my pinkie stump. Sighing from frustration, I tossed it aside and watched my co-workers gnawing on her limbs. Steve was sucking the marrow from her bones and sat down next to me at the conference table. We briefly discussed who was going to work on the submittals and who was going to finish the CAD monkeying. I got stuck with the CAD monkeying.

The Boss had not stopped talking or smiling the entire time. Utterly oblivious to the carnage occurring, The Boss smiled out onto the blood crazed interns and thanked them for their hard work and concluded the meeting with “Let’s Win this Day!”

I picked up another finger and began to chew on it absentmindedly while I gazed out the window of the conference room and wondered silently “Will I ever finish my IDP?”

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Written by Genie Bae – (EBArchDesign).

Original Post appears on EBArchDesign’s blog Fluidword > HERE

Happy Halloween!

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photos are from abode of chaos’ photostream on Flickr (used under creative commons license).