"It's your fault! You clear it up!"

I know he's right. I don't know what it is he's talking about but it must be me who did it, because I always do. It's always me and he's always right.

The fact that I haven't even the slightest inkling of what he's talking about is irrelevent. I leave my desk and walk around to where he was pointing - sure enough, there in the cubicle of Martin Davis is the dead body of Martin Davis. I'm not sure exactly what he died of but it looks painful.

Having never met Martin Davis ( curious, he works 6 feet away from me - worked I suppose) I don't know what his thoughts were on death, let alone his own death and certainly nothing about his wishes as to what should be done in the event of his death. However, I remove his wallet and all other personal effects from his warm body and move his lifeless form onto one of the trolleys usually used for computer monitors.

Not an eyebrow is raised as I wheel the cadavre that was Martin Davis through the rows of cubicles containing software engineers, too absorbed in their work, or perhaps too fearful to notice their colleague's death.

The two people in the lift talk about the latest news about operating systems and the like while I progress down into the basement. The sewage maintenance shaft is open and I drop the body down, following it on the ladder. The smell masks the rising odour from Martin Davis' body as I stuff him into the drainage port and push him down with a piece of piping.

How did this happen? I may be responsible for his death - my manager certainly thinks so - but I certainly didn't kill him.

At one point in my life I was a nice person. I would never harm a soul. But then I harmed my own by joining this company. I changed myself into an automaton, a wholly crueller callous version of myself, subservient to the wishes of those who would - and did - conquer me.

I am now the scapegoat, for whoever killed Martin Davis. I have transformed myself - a change for the worse.

I wash the stink off my hands and head back upstairs for coffee. I will go back to my cubicle and work until it is my fault again. Until I have become another person, another scapegoat.

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