Factory Theodicy by Olivier Faivre
Factory Theodicy by Olivier Faivre
Theodicy: argument vindicating God’s goodness in view of the existence of evil
We’re all looking at the financial auditor hunched over his paper-thin laptop.
He’s perusing the digital scorecard of our business unit —operating income and cost, machine downtime and inventory levels, customer satisfaction and returns, employee retention and sick leave, etc. etc. We know what he’s doing: he’s seeking omens for the performance in Q4, inspecting the graphs and numbers as if they’re steaming entrails. He’s divining the company’s future. Our future.
We’re looking in silence. We’re listening to the rain walking on the rooftop. He is young, with a bovine face. He’s obviously oblivious to it. How he thinks he looks sharp —his suit and tie— that bothers us.
He’s good with numbers, we’ve been told. They didn’t mean he thought deep thoughts about the nature of mathematical truths. He’s fast. Fast and accurate. Fast and accurate and shallow —you don’t need a graduate degree to see that. We’re looking at the Excel spreadsheet half-reflected in his wireframe glasses.
His lips move and twitch as he fills in the rows and columns. Ctrl+C. Ctrl+V. An unconscious prayer. He’s shallow and we can see through him and we see that he worships data. Like a savage bowing before a primitive jungle god. We resent that.
The rain is pouring now. We think of how, if this were a cathedral, water would be choking the leaden throats of the gargoyles at each corner of the roof. But this is no cathedral.
He stops typing. He looks up at us, then back at his laptop. We move in, forming a circle of which he is the centre. We see the red digits on the screen, in the rightmost column —a vertical smudge of carmine.
The stupidity of the situation. It leaves us no choice but to.
We move closer, rolling up our sleeves. He looks up again. We shuffle reluctantly, testing the sharpness of our nails against the tips of our thumbs. He is slow to understand.
The deafening noise of the rain, an endless roar.
I look at the ember at the end of my cigarette; it flicks like a firefly. The rain has stopped. The world outside is quiet and clean. I do not look at the others.
The bovine terror in his eyes. I think of my wife, that uncomprehending look on her face as the baby’s head wedged her hips open. The screams. The blood. Her flesh ripped off like an overripe pomegranate.
No one is saying a word. I think about my boy. The other boys and girls, all those precious futures. Nobody is talking.
The cigarettes are cigarettes no more; they’re smoke and ash and butts. The butts we carefully discard in the bin.
We grab the tools and garbage bags and head back inside to clean up.
* * * * THE END * * * *
Copyright Olivier Faivre 2024
