Things like water boarding are easy. It’s when they do damage that heals slowly, that’s when you really take your work home with you...

     I’ve probably held at least thirty different jobs since I was sixteen and in one way or another they have always been torture. A job by my definition = Doing any kind of task that others with more money than you, refuse to do. Like being a cashier at a fast food place and taking everyone’s shit. The second you sign into your register there is a line of refreshed assholes just waiting to give you hell. The city beyond the walls of the burger stand in which you prostrate yourself daily is filled with hungry demons waiting to pain your being. Management in such places always try to make it seem as if you were doing the most important god damn job ever created, even  though you just work in another fucking burger stand. Go another mile and there will be... another... fucking... burger stand, and a mile after that, yeah... Fuck people that can be so gung ho about something so humdrum. Being around their ilk is insufferable. If you’re going to suffer why not do it for real?

      I once had a job where I was forced to look at cocks all day. Yeah, penises all day long! I was working for a place that did urine analysis collections for the local county justice system and these collections had to be observed. I guess it would have been great if I were homosexual, but I AM NOT. My bosses here would have liked me to believe that my very reason for existing on this planet was to look at dick for forty hours a week and that I was making a proud living doing so. Yeah, right. You have to be some kind of warped fuck to take pride in a vocation like that, even if it’s in the name of supposed survival! Watching the peeing pricks of pricks all day. I had sunken far in the name of food, shelter and clothing; time and time again and it had to stop!

When I answered this ad in a small little known smut rag that read:

 Feel like you’re getting tortured all day for as little money as possible?
 Well, get tortured all day for real and get BIG $$$ doing it!
 That’s right get paid what you deserve and receive the compensation & benefits YOU DESIRE! Apply in person @ The Interrogation Room 1572 S&M Dr.This message has been brought to you by The Government
“Helping you, serve you, while you serve us!”

            I really didn’t know what to expect but at least the ad seemed honest & I wore my Sunday best, maybe I looked like enough of a jerk for a stranger to want to torture me? I didn’t know. I had no idea what I was getting into, my expectations however, were high. My spirit would not be broken with a never ending interrogation!  Pay me!

        Well, for some reason I was the only one to show up for the interview, so I was hired. I had to sign more forms than the usual work place required for a new hire, but that was okay because that seemed like torture too. I also had to go through more drug testing than your average responsible employer would ask for, because as my new boss said “We cannot have our employee’s senses dulled by the influence of any natural or unnatural substances, certain staff are to feel the entirety of our interrogations.”  “Remember though Mr. Page. You are the highest paid member in our working class sector of government even though you only possess a G.E.D... I can only imagine the pride you would have for yourself if you can “hold it together”!”

         On my first day of “holding it together” The Government gave me what they called a Soft Orientation. This was like one would imagine. I was given a card from a normal 52 card deck of playing cards and told not to tell anyone what that one card was, it was okay to lie though. They then proceeded to grill me about my card under the light of a heating lamp for forty eight hours while I was strapped to a metal chair in a bare cement square of a room that had one single blacked out window in it that I faced and one single speaker in the middle of the ceiling. My fellow employees were not in the room but there must have been many of them as their voices did not always seem the same or maybe the questions were generated by a computer? They didn’t allow me to drink anything during this orientation nor did I eat or sleep. I did not give up the identity of my card for the duration of my first test. When this was over I was told “Mr. Page this first test is now over, you are now free to go home and recuperate for a period of 120 hours as we can afford no more overtime for the rest of your work week. For now on, you are to guard your card’s true identity within an inch of your life in or out of this facility. Have a wonderful weekend!”  As for my opinion of my new found employ? I’d have to say that: I love it! I am no longer imagining my own misery! IT’S REAL!

          When I clocked-in for my third day of work I was waiting in line to punch the keys to the time clock and I recognized the voice of one of my workmates after I bid him a “good morning”. I guess the voices were not computer generated after all. That makes me feel good, like we are all family here. Anyway, for my third day I had 20 duties to perform. I had to endure my finger nails and toe nails being removed with different devices, pliers, and wedges. It was great! We all finished work early and I was given two weeks off to recover and go see a doctor. Recovery time is mandatory in this line of work!

The following is a list of things I have had the pleasure of going through while I served my government:

1.   I’ve been bludgeoned with multiple items hot and cold.
2.   Stabbed, cut, or sanded repeatedly (usually with salt or lime juice to help with painfulness).
3.   I found out exactly what “Chinese Water Torture” was and still is.
4.   Some of my more frivolous body parts were removed by smashing, bashing or grinding. I even chose to have to have my left hand mangled slowly with an industrial strength blender, I rarely had options, but this was one and it came with a $200’000 dollar bonus: if I did something similar with my right hand, I could buy a house!
5.   I did get to experience “The Rack” (for this I was given a month and a half to recover from various dislocations) and Crucifixion; though not the total finality of it.
6.    I have been physiologically, psychologically, surgically and philosophically maimed, yet I persevere...

Until now that is. I have just had my family and friends threatened in and out of my work place and I believe THAT is going too far!

       I could never have anyone hurt them like I have been hurt in the name of my own survival coupled with extreme greed or the real face value of a cheap paper card. Last week, I gave up the suit and rank of my card. However, I am currently sitting in a giant pot of steaming water with my entire family about to; as they said “be boiled alive unless you Mr. Page give up your card’s real rank and suit.”  My card was a deuce of spades or at least I think it was?  I must have forgotten the card’s rank during the many psychological torture test. I’d lost it a while back, and now I can’t even look my mother, father or brother in the eyes. They must think I am a complete loser! GOD! ...Right now, all I’d like is their forgiveness and the ability to go back in time and work at... ANOTHER... FUCKING... BURGER... STAND!