GOOFBALL

Episode 3: SILENCE OF HAM

Fante had never meditated before, but he had watched approximately forty-five seconds of a YouTube video at double speed during his morning bathroom break, which made him, by corporate standards, a certified expert.

"It's called 'Mindful Monday,'" Greg explained, handing Fante a folder containing seven blank sheets of paper and one coupon for a free smoothie. "The CEO read an article about 'corporate Zen' and now we all have to find our inner nothingness for forty-five minutes or we lose our parking privileges."

Fante flipped through the blank pages. "Are there instructions?"

"The blankness is the instruction," Greg said, his eyes doing that thing where they looked both intense and empty at the same time. "Embrace the void. Become the folder."

"I don't want to become the folder, Greg. I want to teach people how to breathe without swallowing a bug."

Maya looked up from her desk, where she was rebuilding her keyboard after Fante had spilled a protein shake into it earlier that morning. "Fante, you breathe through your mouth like a dishwasher with a clogged drain. Maybe let someone else do the wellness?"

"I can't!" Fante swished his pants excitedly—shwoosh-shwoosh—and pulled out his Fire Warden whistle. He blew into it, but it was still the clown horn from yesterday. HONK. "See? I'm officially in charge of wellness. It's on my lanyard now. Look: 'Fante—Fire Warden & Vibe Curator.'"

"That says 'Vibe Torturer,'" Cheryl said from her cubicle. She was eating a hard-boiled egg that appeared to be older than the company itself. "And I'm not doing it. Last time we did team wellness, Derek from Accounting got stuck in a lotus position and we had to grease him with butter to get him out."

"That was butter?" Greg whispered, horrified. "I thought it was... never mind."

The conference room had been transformed. Someone—probably Greg—had placed seventeen candles around the perimeter, creating what looked like a séance for spreadsheet demons. The lights were dimmed. There were mats on the floor that smelled strongly of rubber and regret.

Fante stood at the front wearing his suit pants (swishy) combined with a borrowed yoga shirt that said BREATHE across the chest. He had put it on backward so it read HTAERB, which he kept trying to pronounce as "Huh-tear-buh."

"Welcome," Fante said, trying to make his voice sound deep and mountain-like. It came out like a tuba falling down stairs. "To... Mindful Monday."

Everyone from the office sat on their mats. There was Greg, sitting perfectly straight with his eyes already closed, looking like a statue of a very anxious founding father. There was Cheryl, who had brought a camping chair because she "didn't do floors." There was the new intern, Kevin, who was terrified of everything and currently holding his breath because he thought that's what meditation meant.

"First," Fante said, consulting his blank notes, "we must clear our minds. Like... clearing a browser history. But for your brain."

"Namaste," Greg whispered aggressively.

"Right. Namaste. Now everyone lie down."

"I'm wearing a skirt," Cheryl said.

"Then sit crisscross applesauce!" Fante demonstrated, attempting to cross his legs. His suit pants, already a size too large, made a sound like a deflating balloon. PBBBBT. He fell backward, his legs still crossed, and rolled across the floor like a tumbleweed made of anxiety, crashing into the credenza.

"Oof," Fante said from the floor. "That's the mountain pose. Very advanced."

Kevin the intern started hyperventilating.

"Okay, new exercise!" Fante untangled himself and stood up. "We're going to do the 'Dead Bug' pose. Everyone lie on your back and wiggle your arms and legs like a bug that's... you know... moved on to the next life."

"This is disrespectful to bugs," Greg said, but he lay down anyway, stiff as a board.

Cheryl stayed in her camping chair and wiggled one finger.

Fante demonstrated the Dead Bug, flailing with enthusiasm. His tie flipped over his face. His shirt rode up, revealing a stomach that looked like a bread dough that had given up on its dreams. "Feel the earth! Be the bug! Let your worries crawl away!"

That's when the fire alarm went off.

Not the building alarm. Fante's pocket. His phone was ringing with a fire alarm ringtone he'd set accidentally that morning. And because he was flailing, he couldn't reach it. It kept ringing—WEE-OOH WEE-OOH—while he spun in circles, slapping at his own hips.

"I'M ON FIRE!" Kevin screamed, seeing Fante's panic.

"NO, I'M NOT!" Fante shouted, finally extracting the phone. "Hello?"

It was Maya. "Fante, I'm watching from the security cameras. You look like a Muppet having a stroke."

"I'm teaching wellness!"

"You're teaching entropy. Listen, the CEO is coming down to 'observe the vibes.' You've got two minutes to not look like you're exorcising a demon."

Fante hung up. He looked at his students. Greg was now doing a handstand against the wall for no reason. Cheryl had opened a bag of chips that crinkled with the force of a thousand thunderstorms. Kevin was crying softly into his yoga mat.

"Change of plans!" Fante announced. "We're doing... silent meditation. Absolute silence. No movement. If you move, you lose. Winner gets... my sandwich."

It was a turkey sandwich. Everyone had seen it in the fridge. It was legendary. It had been there for three days, but it had an avocado on it, which in office economy made it worth approximately one thousand dollars.

Silence fell. Heavy, awkward silence.

Fante sat down, crossed his legs properly this time, and closed his eyes. He would show them. He would be so still, so zen, so perfectly nothing that the CEO would give him a raise. He imagined himself as a cloud. A peaceful cloud. A cloud that didn't have to do timesheets.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

The silence stretched. Thirty seconds. A minute.

Fante's nose itched.

He tried to ignore it. He was a cloud. Clouds didn't itch. Clouds were moisture and dreams.

The itch grew. It felt like a spider was doing the cha-cha on his upper lip.

Fante's eye twitched. His hand crept up, slowly, millimeter by millimeter, toward his nose.

He scratched.

"HONK!" went the clown horn whistle around his neck, which he had forgotten was there, which his hand had bumped, which was now echoing through the silent room like a foghorn in a monastery.

Everyone screamed.

Greg fell out of his handstand directly onto Cheryl's chips. Kevin tried to run through the wall like a cartoon character. And Fante, startled by his own honk, jerked backward, reached out to catch himself, and grabbed the curtain.

The curtain rod came down. The candles (which were fake, thank goodness) fell. And the window—which was supposed to be sealed—popped open with a *shoop* sound, letting in a pigeon.

The pigeon was enormous. The pigeon was angry. The pigeon had been waiting its entire life for this moment.

It flew directly at Fante.

"NOT AGAIN!" Fante shouted, because a pigeon had stolen his bagel that morning, and apparently this was the same pigeon, holding a grudge.

The chase lasted eleven seconds but felt like a thousand years. Fante ran around the conference table, swishing and honking. The pigeon flew after him, cooing with the fury of a thousand ancestors. Greg chased the pigeon, trying to "restore order." Cheryl chased Greg because he still had her chips. Kevin just spun in circles screaming.

They ran past the glass wall of the conference room just as the CEO walked by.

The CEO stopped. He watched through the glass as Fante dove under the table, emerged with his turkey sandwich, and held it up like a shield. "TAKE THE AVOCADO!" Fante shouted at the pigeon. "BUT LEAVE MY DIGNITY!"

The pigeon took the avocado. And the turkey. And the bread. It flew out the window with the entire sandwich in its beak, leaving Fante holding only a lettuce leaf and his shattered pride.

Silence returned.

Fante stood up. He was sweating through his HTAERB shirt. His hair looked like he had been electrocuted by joy. He looked at the CEO through the glass, held up the single lettuce leaf, and said, "Mindful eating?"

The CEO stared for a long moment. Then he started to clap. Slowly. Deliberately.

"Brilliant," the CEO said, walking in. "The energy. The chaos. The... avian integration. This is exactly what the article meant by 'disrupting the static workplace.' Fante, you've done it again."

"I have?"

"The sandwich sacrifice. The letting go of material things. The... synchronized exercise." He looked at Greg, who was still on the floor covered in chip dust, doing crunches for no reason. "This is the wellness we need."

Cheryl dusted off her camping chair. "I want a raise. I didn't even get to eat my egg."

"Done," the CEO said. "And Fante, tomorrow you're leading 'Thoughtful Tuesday.'"

Fante blinked. "What's that?"

"We think. About things. Deeply."

"I can do that," Fante said.

He sat back down on his mat. The pigeon flew back in, dropped a small twig on his head as a parting gift, and left.

Fante picked up the twig. "Nature," he said wisely, "is healing."

Greg finally stood up. He looked at Fante with something approaching respect. "You," he said, "are a monster. But you're our monster."

Maya walked in, holding a drill and a new fire extinguisher. She looked at the chaos—the broken curtain, the chip-covered floor, the missing window, Fante holding a twig.

"Forty-five minutes," she said. "New record. You destroyed a room in forty-five minutes without fire, water, or explosives."

Fante smiled. "Progress."

He tried to stand up, but his pants had swished so much they had twisted completely around. He was now wearing them backwards. He walked out of the conference room like a penguin, bow-legged and proud, honking his clown whistle with every step.

HONK. HONK. HONK.