Your question is unimportant

/ Doug Jacquier

This piece was written for the weekly photo prompt from The Unicorn Challenge

My own phone was dead and the phone box had been vandalised. So I went to the local office of the  YouUsInfinity Global Phone Corporation (formerly the Post Office) to get a proper answer to my question.

Under the sign, ‘Enquiries’, sat a young man with his eyes fixed on the screen in front of him. He ignored my presence until I spoke.

“I have a question” I ventured politely.

The young man didn’t look up. He paused long enough to indicate that what was on his screen was inestimably more important than me before saying “Far queue”.

He was gesturing vaguely to his right, where a long line snaked away from a similar window marked ‘Questions’.

Thirty minutes passed with no sign of the line progressing. An old, stooped man, with hair sprouting wildly from his ears, was in front of me and I asked how long he’d been waiting. He mumbled “Since yesterday. I hear they’re experiencing longer than normal wait times.”

I sighed and walked slowly to the street exit. The trouble is when I ask the Corporation’s virtual assistant, Sirexa, the question, “What is the meaning of my life?” this is her reply. “Based on the data in our systems, after a series of events, your life will end. If it ultimately has a significant purpose, it will be recorded. You’ll have to wait and see.”

But surely that can’t be right. So I went to ask the vicar and all he said was “God knows.’

31 thoughts on “Your question is unimportant”

  1. That’s the most serious bit of ‘arrant nonsense’ I’ve ever read. It’s a brilliant way of framing the mystery at the centre of existence. Such a clever scene, with the unmoving queue, the clerk off in his own world, the vicar with basically the same answer as the AI. So engaging, and definitely not ‘nonsense’.

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  3. This is, as Margaret suggests, deep, honest and painful.
    At least the Corporation formerly known as Twitter, sorry Post Office didn’t serve up the most blatant and annoying lie that ‘Your call is important to us’ rather than the truthful ‘We don’t give a flying fig’.
    Cool piece, Doug.

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  6. More and more callous than ‘call us.’ Good to see Optus oh so professionally clearing the air in Aus of late though. What’s that old song ‘Don’t Call Us, We’ll Call You?’
    Highly enjoyable stuff Doug, a wide ranging rant.

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  8. Well, you will go asking subversive questions, Doug, so what can you expect?
    Don’t you know you’re not supposed to think?
    Biting social commentary round this ‘meaning of life’piece.
    Cleverly and creatively done.
    (It so happens that, for a laugh. I asked Alex last week about the meaning of life – as you do – and she referred me to Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure – of whic I had never heard! A great help!)

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  10. I could feel the insidious whisper of ineffectual fans over head, hear the despairing shuffle of feel on an un-forgiving asphalt tile floor and the smell of cheap cologne (and cheaper perfume)

    very evocative piece, Doug

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