The young man, filled with excitement and trepidation, walked towards his destination. He was a very definite sort, he knew who he was and what he wanted. However, the beginning of his first day on the job had left him a bit anxious, he made his third trip to the company bathroom. Considering he had only been in the office for half an hour, a third trip to the bathroom was a little out of hand. He looked himself up and down in the mirror, combed his hair again and repolished his glasses. Placing his glasses back on his freckled nose, he then tucked his shirt back in, and refastened his belt, centred his tie and tied his shoes. A quick brush of his meticulously white teeth and a little floss, and a shave of what little hair he had on his cheeks. He left the company bathroom and walked down the corridor to his destination. He wore his own sort of armour, a grey suit, once owned by his father, it was a cut too small. Yet the comfort it offered emotionally was essential in the battle that would ensue upon his arrival at his purpose. Before him was the beating hub of offices, the brain that enabled companies to prosper, and the most human creation of all time. The archives, the filing room, the vault of memories, the knowledge of the past envisioned in the present for the needs of the future.  

The young man was nervous for a reason, it was not that he was worried about making a bad impression on his first day of the job. The three trips to the bathroom had probably achieved that already. No, the young man was worried, scared even, because it was the first time he had been in a filing room for five years. The man was well versed with the workings of a filing room. In fact, he had probably seen more files in his short life than most see in their whole lives. You see the young man came from a family of archivists. His parents both had an unhealthy obsession for the art of filing, they filed away every minute of their lives; from petrol bills to what they had for dinner. The family made sure to remember every moment of their lives. However, their love of filing ended up being their demise, filing killed the young man’s parents.

Or to be more precise the family’s pet monkey Buttercup, who housed in the filing room at home had killed his parents by throwing a filing cabinet on top of the helpless victims. At the time the young man had been full of anguish, and had begged the police to put the wild animal down for killing his parents. However, the police had countered that it was honestly the owners fault. It was hopelessly thoughtless to believe that it would be safe to house a Silverback Gorilla in a 10 by 10 filing room. The bloody thing took up half the room, they argued. The verdict was that the young man had to continue taking care of the Gorilla, or else he would be jailed and fined for improper care of an animal. What kind of verdict is it to leave a 15 year old alone, with the murderer of his recently deceased parents, let alone a murderer who is a 230 kg wild beast? In Buttercup’s defence, the ape had all sorts of reasons to be mad, firstly Buttercup was a male, a poor choice of name. Secondly the police were correct, the filing room was hardly a place for an adolescent gorilla. And lastly, Buttercup hated filing, didn’t understand the need to house the past, the whole concept was too human and not suited to the world of a wild ape. He was in essence the counter to the human concept of filing, a wild existence incapable of being archived, a nemesis to the young man. Honestly the whole story is a bit novel.

Back to the young man’s first day of work, and his first tentative steps into the filing room that would become his home for the next six working month.  Stubbing his toe, the young man’s first introduction to the room that would be his life, was poor. Hopping on one leg whilst grasping his throbbing foot, his vantage point from the floor at the entrance did not offer a good view. Yet in his eyes, before him towered a glorious forest. The steady gentle hum of life drifted from the computing units on the far wall. An untold number of files graced the forest, foliage upon towering filing shelves, august in their extensive nature and unimaginable depth. The musky scent, an earthy smell of forgotten secrets wafted through the far reaching forest. As he waded through, the dense forest cut an imposing figure for the young man. But as the forest closed in around him, a familiar warmness accompanied it. All emotions of fear and apprehension vanished, replaced by a familiarity and a feeling of utter joy. This truly was a filing room. He all but flung himself through the room towards the inner sanctums of the filing room, a great lust for what he had forsaken himself over the past five years. He greedily inspected every inch of the room.

 Closer observation of the indeed splendid room revealed a filing system in disarray. The young man could see what he had been hired for, and dear lord did they need it. Holding back tears for the disease that had begun to infect the dignified, orderly forest, he started formulating how to fix the defiled filing room. Formulas flew through his head, should he file alphabetically, numerically, chronologically, geographically but if he filed geographically would it be closest or furthest or even geographically by chronology. Pruning, the room needed pruning. A checklist was required: new manila folders, draws needed refastening, new light globes were needed and the paper quality was abysmal.  But, an image was beginning to form in his head of the room perfected.

Surrounded by what he loved, rosy thoughts of healing the filing room to its deserved beauty filled his mind. For a time, he forgot his worries, his fear which stemmed from his nemesis in life and ideal. For a time he forgot all, but what he loved, he returned to his naivety and innocence. This is where we left him, a perfect representation of humanity, encapsulating its most ordered form to its most emotional.