Facilities Worker Sweeping Leaves Realizes No One Would Notice If He Were Gone

BAY STATE—Sources reported today that some sorry facilities worker sweeping leaves on Bay State Road has been struck with the realization that no one would notice if he vanished from the face of the Earth.The moment of clarity occurred when, walking down the street with his cheap broom and pail in hand, the sad sack stopped at the curb, watched a car drive by, and stared without expression toward the far bank of the Charles River.“It must be terrible,” Lena Hirsch (COM ’16) said, “to have no friends, no family, no one in your life who’d be affected if you were gone. That’s why I make it a point to smile when I see those guys on my way to class. Every smile counts!”The poor guy, who might be in his 40s, was later seen trying to sweep leaves into his pail, only to have them scatter in a gust of wind, a perfect metaphor for both the pitiful course of his life and his fleeting, inconsequential existence.“It makes me so sad to see someone like that,“ said Jon Summers (SMG ’15). "I can’t imagine how long I’d last if that were my job.”The schmuck is reported to be up at dawn every Saturday, picking up the night’s litter with a mechanical efficiency that can only indicate a gaping emptiness inside.“I have a family. I have a job for that family. Please let me get back to work,” said the man, whose name we did not think to ask.At press time, the man was seen sitting alone on a bench, eating a sandwich from one of those cheap plastic lunchboxes.