They built a wall in the staff lounge. Standing eight feet high by ten and a half feet long it was quite an impressive sight, although without a primer/sealer coat, a top coat or any other such blandlishments it was whispered around the water coolers that the grayish-brown gyproc added a rather drab note to the room. In fact it was these very whispers that upper management wanted to suppress. It saw something insidious in them and in due course they settled on a decisive course of action: a wall would go up, it would cut through the center of the staff lounge and once a day one employee was to take the hammer provided and put a hole in the wall.
But that was not all. There were other rules. “The wall,” it said in a memo that circulated through the lower tiers of power, “is not to be written on or defaced in any way. Furthermore, the individual whose turn it is to put a hole in the wall shall not swing with great force. The swingee must stand an arms length away (approximately one foot) with their shoulders square to the wall, and raise their swinging arm shoulder height so that it is at a right angle with the floor and, when in position, swing the hammer until it taps the wall. Holes must pierce the wall and can be placed anywhere. It is also to be noted that this, The Wall Project, is a one hundred year project. It borrows from the best of the Eastern traditions upon which this great American company is built. A Zen mentality is required. Holes will be counted nightly to ensure that no one staff member shall have more than their due share of swings. To all staff this wall represents unity. Treat it as if it were one of your own.”
It was a long list of demands and the day before The Wall Project began several keen staff members were practicing their swings, and it was even rumored that a certain click was going to the local pub to practice. Others scorned this.
One of these rebellious, negative influences upon the company’s general atmosphere was Graham Nivens, the first to take the hammer to the wall.
The First Swing, as it became known, was a celebrated event in the company’s history and began to take on such hallowed allure as that attributed to the curse of the Bambino, the records set by Wayne Gretzky, Pele’s moves. Without doubt there was a great hubbub of excitement like had never been known before. The selection process was simple. Names were to be thrown into a hat and the first person selected would be granted the right to swing the hammer and inaugurate the grand vision of The Wall Project’s one hundred year plan, but the Media Guys on floor six objected to this archaic method and with a flurry of emails they contended that there were obvious and clear methods of cheating that could be employed if the staff were to take this route and as a result, they proposed to delay The First Swing contest for another week until they could concoct a highly encrypted computer program that would randomly generate the winner. After that, things would proceed alphabetically. The proposal was agreed upon by all those who cared. A week rolled by like a walrus and great tension, apprehension and excitement spread to all corners of the company. When the day in question finally arrived, it was determined that Graham Nivens would be granted the privilege of The First Swing.
Talk circulated about where he was going to place the first hole. “Ah, hi Graham,” Aaron Stevens said appearing at Graham’s side as he headed up to the lounge to take his swing. “Have you decided where you’re gonna put it? Huh? The hole, I mean. Huh? Where?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Ralph Evans piped in. “Where is it going, Graham?”
Another member walked by and told them to shut up, the bets were in, and they shouldn’t try to tamper with the process.
Graham walked on in silence. He had dodged questions all day and now, at the end of his shift and the appointed hour for his swing, he was determined to remain silent.
Zen even.
In the lounge a blue banner proclaiming “Hey! Hey! Its the Big Day!” in bright red letters faced Graham as he entered. He walked passed the cake and bunting and had to push through the wave of people who were supposed to be at their desks. They receded before him as he strode towards the table where the hammer, now known affectionately as “Bunter,” was laid in its cedar wood box and he hoisted it from its velvety blue bed.
Except for a holy semicircle of space where he now stood, the area before the wall was crowded with onlookers. He raised the hammer as per the directions and recited the phrase that had been added in an addendum e-mail from those at the top, “I swing, therefore I am!”
And in a slow easy motion he dropped the hammer and broke the wall’s surface.
There in the wall’s one hundred year grandeur was a hole the size of a bottle cap. It stared back into the room. It wasn’t much really but gasps of awe and admiration went up nonetheless. People pushed in, squeezing Graham out of the way like he was yesterday’s news, to discuss the hole; its size and shape dissected in minute detail. In the frenzy that followed, those closest drove their fingers into the hole and others discussed the fact that he had chosen such a bold place at the center of the wall.
Exhausted and with no one watching him, Graham put the hammer back in its velvety resting place and walked out of the lounge and back to his desk on the third floor. He was the only one there. With his hands shaking and an inability to focus on his work, he reflected on what had just happened. With no clear answers, he packed up and headed home.
The next day Graham retained some of his celebrity status, but by mid week it had passed onto Jeremy Adams, the next in line. The money in the staff pools swelled. There were side bets; a fever broke over the whole population. Graham acted as though he were happy to have the spotlight off of him, but deep down his heart ached for another swing, another shot at the wall.
Indeed over the following months The Wall, which had once been an eyesore and a source of derision, was now the staff’s greatest ally and benefactor, a source of pride and respect. The Wall Project was off an running. And in short order there were larger and larger bets on where the next person would place their hole, leagues dedicated to whether or not the project would last a full one hundred years, and on that score, staff members pledged that their unborn babies would be raised to join the company in order to see the bets through; and there were wagers on whether or not the wall would be defiled and who, if anyone dared, would be the first to do so.
Jeremy Adams swung.
Ethel Barts swung.
Mark Brautigan swung.
Sam Dougherty swung.
And each time the fervor around the swing grew. Crowds came and stared and watched and returned the next day to their desks to discuss the previous day’s awesome event. Staff no longer gathered around the water coolers and it was even mentioned that they were now redundant features of the office space and that the staff could forgo water. Their was even a buzz going around that the toilets maybe removed. All they needed, it seemed, was the wall. The monthly stats came down from on high reporting that morale was at an all time high. Management even boldly stated that they “were happy.” Production was up. Profits too.
The first year of The Wall Project was a great success. Graham got two more swings that year and he placed his holes in the top right and bottom left hand corners, but both swings never really matched up. The First Swing, he began to think, just may have been his life’s defining moment and he began to wonder if he should have milked it for more than he did.
But for the rest of the staff, the wall was unity. The hole count was nearing a thousand and now and talk of the wall festooned them together. There were those who proclaimed that the scattered holes bore an amazing likeness to the Shroud of Turin, that it was nothing short of a miracle and that the staff room was truly blessed. Pictures quickly shot up all over the Net. Others contended the holes predicted the future and some spent their life’s savings on lottery tickets. There was rumors of a group that wore dark hooded costumes and met on Sundays to purge and pray. They were an exclusive group and not much was known about them.
Graham Niven, however, passed through the second year of the project feeling more and more resentful of The First Swing and The Wall Project itself. He didn’t share the staff’s enthusiasm for the wall and his long descent into himself began.
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