Korridorium

♫ Hiimori/Windhorse ♫

143/398

I enter the cor­ri­dor, or rather, I intend to, but on the inside of the bed­room door hangs a sign that reads in large let­ters, “This cor­ri­dor is on strike.”

Whoa. My cor­ri­dor is on strike? Does that mean I can’t get from the bed­room to the bath­room? Hes­i­tant, I stand still, hand on the door­knob. I’m actu­ally run­ning late. Gov­ern­ment affairs await me. On the other hand, it dawns on me that cor­ri­dors indeed receive scarce appre­ci­a­tion and respect—from me as much as from any­one else. Yet, they play a cru­cial role. With­out cor­ri­dors, much in our coun­try would cease to func­tion. The econ­omy, the media, the entire ser­vice sec­tor, industry—all would grind to a halt or, at the very least, be sig­nif­i­cantly dis­rupted with­out cor­ri­dors.

But does any­one thank them? No. There isn’t even a mon­u­ment for cor­ri­dors. This urgently needs to change, and I am the man to push it through and exploit it for the ben­e­fit of myself and the party! That way, every­one is helped. I can already envi­sion unveil­ing the art­work to the sounds of a brass band.

Hmm, so now they’re on strike. I pon­der whether the cor­ri­dors’ strike might spread. Will the win­dows, the doors, the roofs over our heads be on strike soon? But those enjoy far greater atten­tion: eyes are con­sid­ered win­dows to the soul, and we throw money out the win­dow. You can live door to door, or imple­ment an open-door pol­icy. Some­times you get hit over the roof, or you bring a bill safely under roof and rafter. But a cor­ri­dor? When was the last time I even uttered the word cor­ri­dor? Right. They truly have every rea­son to strike.

But what does it mean specif­i­cally that my cor­ri­dor is on strike? Has it failed to report for duty? Is it per­haps refus­ing to serve alto­gether, or lim­it­ing itself to a work-to-rule action? Is it a slow­down strike? And does this apply to all cor­ri­dors in the city, the coun­try, Europe? Are there lock­outs? Strike­break­ers? Is the strike—hopefully—temporary? And what are the demands of the cor­ri­dors?

I hold out hope that all these ques­tions will be answered when I open the door. So, I press down the han­dle, qui­etly, because my wife is still sleep­ing and I don’t want to wake her.

Behind it: the cor­ri­dor. It looks peace­ful, as if noth­ing hap­pened, and there are no fur­ther signs of a strike. Cau­tiously, I place my foot on the cor­ri­dor’s floor. It feels just like always. I place my sec­ond foot on it. I’m stand­ing firmly.

Should I address the cor­ri­dor? Ask about its demands? Or should I just pay my respects first and thank it for its years of devoted ser­vice to cre­ate a good atmos­phere for the nego­ti­a­tions right from the start?

I hear a gig­gle. The cor­ri­dor gig­gles?!

No, it’s the twins. “April Fools!” my sons joy­fully shout, shoot­ing out of their room and danc­ing around me in their paja­mas. Well, they cer­tainly had me going. I shake them off and close the bath­room door behind me.

Per­haps, I think while brush­ing my teeth, I should sug­gest the idea of the mon­u­ment to the boss. It’s actu­ally not a bad idea at all. Cor­ri­dors are shame­fully neglected in this coun­try.