work birth

work birth: a crazed striking short midnight thriller

Ke is dissatisfied at work. She tries to approach her coworkers but her awkward broaches of veiled small-talk are rebuffed. No one talks to each other here. Even on her birthday, Ke finds a post-it at her desk inviting her into the break room to eat a single-serve jello mold. Alone.

She works up the nerve to request an appointment to speak privately with her boss. Her wish is granted but when she arrives at the boss' office, she finds a baby. Like an actual infant. Ke is shocked. I mean, she just opened the door and: baby. Crawling on desk, naked. Conversation is impossible. She doesn't know what to do. She leaves.

She confides in a reluctant ally—a cubicle neighbor—who recognizes this as an avoidance tactic. "It's bullshit. She's manipulating you." But Ke is like, "What do you mean? Did you hear what I said? I opened the door and... I think I'm going crazy. She was a baby! How can someone willfully turn themselves into a baby?" The cubicle neighbor holds firm, "She's doing it so you become flustered and never ask for what you want."

Ke is unconvinced but tries again. She asks for another private meeting and the boss is super accommodating, "Yeah, sure! Come by my office." Ke arrives. The boss is again a baby but this time Ke doesn't surrender. She steadies, takes a seat at the table and demands the infant take her seriously. The baby is lying on the desk and pees into the air. Urine everywhere. It's a mess, it's absurd but Ke is undeterred.

"I know what you're doing."

The baby stares at Ke.

"I'm not leaving until you acknowledge me."

The baby moves toward and reaches for her breast—HOLY SHIT. Ke recoils but notices her shirt is damp. Her breast is leaking milk—what the fuck?! She looks to the closed office door, the glass window, no one's looking but still. This is so fucked for so many reasons. But she opens her shirt and offers her breast to her baby boss who aggressively FEEDS.

Ke leaves the office rattled but weirdly empowered. Minutes later, she sees her boss (as her adult self) and wonders if she hallucinated the whole thing. She runs into the bathroom and checks underneath her shirt to find her nipple is bleeding. It really happened.

There's a meeting in the conference room. The boss is leading and Ke sits anonymously among her coworkers. The boss is bulldozing but then sees Ke pouring milk into her coffee. Hypnotized, the boss' eyes glaze over: "Ke, do you have anything to add?"

All eyes on her.

"Uh, what if instead of awarding commissions for individual sales, we switch to company wide profit sharing in overall gross? This way we're incentivized to collaborate rather than compete."

Boss: "We'll take that into consideration."

Dumfounded, Ke attempts to celebrate with her cubicle neighbor. "She acknowledged me! I mean, I don't know if the company will actually implement it..."

Exactly. The cubicle neighbor warns—don't get distracted by superficial concessions.

Ke mulls that over and looks down to see her belly is growing. She's pregnant. Terrified, Ke does her best to cover up with a straining cardigan but the boss notices and rages with jealousy offset by frightening pleasantness.

"Congratulations. A work birth."

A what?

"A work birth. I'll deliver it."

Um, thank you so much but I'm not sure that's—

"It's the only option covered by the company health insurance policy."

The boss hands Ke a bouquet of balloons.

"What an exciting time."

The belly grows to term. 5pm strikes. The offices empty out. Ke tries to get up from her desk when her contractions begin. She's in labor. Her boss appears, ready and exhilarated to midwife this unpaid OT work birth.

Ke's pushing on the carpet, aided by her boss who extracts from Ke's womb: a LABOR UNION NEGOTIATOR. Like a sweaty, balding, middle-aged, chain-smoking, pork-sausage eating labor union negotiator.

Ke and her boss both freak out. But this guy—straight outta the womb and full of goo with a green plastic visor—whips out his pen and paper without missing a beat and starts negotiating for better pay and paid leave. Ke is excited but before she can say anything, her boss takes out a gun and shoots the the labor negotiator in the head.

Ke: "OH MY GOD, I just gave birth to this sweaty man and you killed him!"

Boss (nonchalant): "I stabilized his heart rate."

Ke: "You obliterated his heart rate! I'm calling the police."

Ke crawls towards a phone. The boss calls out that per company policy, the company is immune from fault for any fatalities or damages that may occur during work births. Ke reaches the phone and frantically dials 911.

Ke: "Yes, please, I need help. My boss just shot my labor union organizer... baby."

911 Operator: "Did this happen during a work birth?"

Ke: "What the fuck is a work birth!?!"

911 Operator: "Did you just have a baby?

Ke: "Yes."

911 Operator: "Where are you?"

Ke: "At work."

Dial tone.

Okay, there's a dead labor union organizer bleeding all over the floor. The boss is very calm and pleased with herself and scrapbooking the moment when Ke grabs her stomach. There's more. The boss recognizes, "Oh, yes. The after-birth!"

Ke lays down and gives birth to a radioactive green placenta writhing on the company carpet.

Ke is again horrified but the boss is clear: "I know just what to do with that."

The next day, Ke arrives embattled and bewildered. Everything's been cleaned up from the prior evening's massacre. Ke takes a seat at her desk when an electronic xylophone sounds over the loudspeaker:

We are committed to innovating a corporate culture that empowers and centers its workforce. As a symbol of our appreciation, please head over to the snack-room for a special treat.

The entire staff gather in the snack room for the unveiling of a SLURPEE MACHINE filled with the radioactive green afterbirth placenta. The staffers are tired of these empty ovations in lieu of livable wages but are so worn down that they perform graciousness and one-by-one walk up to the machine and deposit their portion of slurpee into a ribboned cup. They all drink and stain their teeth with toxic green. The bosses smile as they see this as another achievement of total control. But then:

"I make $15 an hour and I've worked here two years with no overtime."

The trauma-slurpee is transforming these worn-down, compliant zombie-minds into a hive-mind. Company executives watch in horror as staffers connect, realizing their collective power.

A deafening silence falls over the room as the employees twist their "toxic" sights onto the suits-in-charge. The boss opens her mouth in hopes something will come out to save her. It doesn't.