BACKGROUND:
i am sitting at work. they are expanding and decide to rent another floor of the building. my department gets shoved into the corner. "oh shit," i think. i like my desk here with my sliver of natural light, away from the hallway traffic, all the overhead lights out.

my new desk is next to the hall, no natural light, ample bright, florescent lights above me, burning a hole in my corneas. we are in misery... i feel sick... migraines become the norm. we ask for them to be taken out... it works, how wonderful. ah, beautiful, sweet darkness.

oh wait... this isn't professional... the pit of darkness which engulfs our 6 cubicles is only temporary. the lights are turned back on. i feel sick. i leave early every day, now i am broke. but why? they weren't the emergency lights. because it 'looks bad.' of course we don't have customers who come in the building and all the managers have big naturally lit offices with shades. we complain again, asking why aesthics are playing a roll in our health. weeks pass, nothing.

call the union? wait, we don't have one.

DAY 1:
that's it, i have no other choice... i must build a fort. I started with a poster of the united states, taping it to the side of the cube and propping it up with more posters... not large enough. i tape another poster to that poster and squish my chair against the desk and if i twist just right i block out all the light. ahhhhhhhhh.... it feels so good. I can breathe again. I am mashed, I can't work... but i feel better. I look around and find a big piece of cardboard. I tape that in place of the first set of posters, do some quick propping and i have a real fort. i angle everything just so that it's not too obvious to outsiders. i don't want it to catch the eye of the aesthetic patrol... i mean, it's not exactly pretty…. kind of like darkness???

DAY 2:
It's a little dark now for my taste so I cut out some strips for light... it's a little better.

Some reactions so far...

PERSON # 1:
"Oh, I like your fort. I am going to draw something all over it."

PERSON #2:
"HA HA HA HA HA HA!"

ME:
"Like my sunroof? It's pretty sweet."
PERSON # 3:
"Uh yeah, it's the invention of the century."

PERSON #4
"Hey, you even have a pillar to hold it up."
He shakes it... it almost tumbles and I grab it just in time.
"That's architecturally unsafe."

MY BOSS:
"I like your tent"
ME:
"What!? It's not a tent!"
HIM:
"Oh, your lean-to"
ME:
"No, fort... well yeah, it's sorta a lean-to"
HIM:
"Uh huh... what are you working on?"

About Tito, my fort guard:

I found his body first, laying on the beach in Emeryville. I had the body (a pug bobblehead??) for a while until I found the Ken-like head for it. I didn't blacken his eyes, he came like that but I have since given him freckles which are very becoming on him.