The windmills of your mind

Alpha-Alpha stood with his hands behind his back, which was unusual, given he was usually milling them at top speed - like a frenzied bear at a picnicker massacre - when he was angry or excited or excitedly angry or angrily excited, which he usually was.

I have a little test for you QT. Step in. Step in. Don't loiter like a kerb crawler.

Yes Sir.

What ... what would you do if I told you I had a box and that box had a button and by pressing that button you could instantly eradicate the entire human race?

It's not the sort of thing you're likely to have ... is it Sir?

Don't prevaricate QT. Do or die time.

Surely that's don't do and live? Er? Okay, well, I'd take a mental note of the fact Sir, just in case the information became useful at some future juncture.

Alpha-Alpha started milling his arms as if they were attached to uncoiling springs slowly gathering momentum. It was then QT noticed, rotating in one gripped hand, the small black box with a transparent dome under which, what looked like a red button, was housed.

QT, were you born an imbecile and then with every passing moment leading up to this point in time degenerated backwards?

Sir, I'm confused.

Confused would be a higher state of being for you QT.

Alpha-Alpha stopped swinging the one arm, the one with box and button and held it just below QT's nose as if he wanted him to scratch and sniff it.

Let me make this real simple: here's the button, press it QT.

But Sir, I thought I had a choice?

Yes you do, except it's now the one – and that's the one I'm offering you to tell you to do!

I can't do that Sir, even if the impulse to might occur to me once in a while ... surely we all have those moments ... but they pass right? Don't they? I mean, who am I to make that choice for all of us?

Tell me QT, can you imagine a world without yourself?

No, not really Sir, because I would be trying to imagine my own absence which would also be implicitly an act of asserting my presence, which is surely self defeating ... n'est pas?

An excellent point QT but I, however, could imagine a world without you. Now, imbibe that cup of wisdom from my overflowing font of managerial excellence and never forget the majesty of its eternal teachings.

Er, as you wish Sir.

You can now leave QT, this isn't some back room peep-show you know.

Yes Sir.

And with that, QT left Alpha-Alpha arms a-spinning.

The job was beginning to grind him down.