The Janitor

One fluorescent light in the hallway poured accent light into the bathroom where another fluorescent light backlit the janitor’s reflection in the mirror. The rest of the lights, usually hypnotic and nauseating to the janitor, were unlit. School was out. There was little in the way of windows near the bathroom, but the setting sun would have provided a similar, although less contrived, dimness to the janitor’s reflection and the floor that he mopped.

The janitor smiled briefly at his reflection. Mopping floors was, of course, a stopgap in his life which would eventually give way to his immense success and recognition for his being the owner of the Moll’s Bund. It was easy to wipe down the toilets of the town school with the knowledge that his future had such wonderful promise. It was any day now or perhaps several weeks or a year before someone would discover that he was the owner of the Moll’s Bund and then his life would take off in unexpected yet meticulously dreamed of and planned out ways. 

He was also aware of the two pronged fact that he did not own the Moll’s Bund and the Moll’s Bund was not a real thing or even a concept that existed in this reality. This knowledge, however, did not stifle his enthusiasm that his life was imminently improving and that his janitorial gig was an obvious interim to greater things. For starters, he had thought for a very long time about the concept of owning the Moll’s Bund and how the recognition would make his life different and exciting. He was perhaps the leading expert in the world on the concept of how his owning the Moll’s Bund would soon make his life good. And after all this thought, while cleaning floors and laying in bed at home, among other actions, he still was excited and satisfied by the concept. 

A neutral might look at the situation, and the janitor understands this greatly, and wonder how the concept could be satisfying considering the two tenants of the situation pertaining to how the Moll’s Bund does not exist. But that neutral would have thought far less about it than the janitor so if only one conclusion can be had due to their contradicting nature, then surely it would be the janitor’s, the expert’s, conclusion that is correct.

The janitor dumped some soap on the floor. He was acutely aware that the idea that someone would someday discover the Moll’s Bund in his possessions which would launch him into stardom, and out of janitordom, was a coping method. He could psychoanalyze himself enough to understand that some of the conditions of his life would be entirely unbearable without the certain knowledge that improvement was on its way, and the Moll’s Bund was a pleasant and, in contrast to other routes of improvement, effortless solution. To not have the life promised by the Moll’s Bund would mean that he was cleaning floors today so that soon in the future he would have the right clean floors tomorrow which would be very difficult to slot into the part of his brain that requires justification for his actions.

But simultaneously to understanding the underlying themes behind the Moll’s Bund, which a neutral might find depressing, he also, fully and truly, believed that the Moll’s Bund would soon transform his life to the good. This duality within him was not at odds with itself at all, but rather made him more confident in his assertion that life was soon to improve. The knowledge that the Moll’s Bund was not real allowed him to self describe himself as grounded and not delusional. With that quality pocketed, he then could differentiate himself from all the sad delusional people trying to make a better life out of nothing. 

Now that it was confirmed that he was not delusional, the concept of the Moll’s Bund and its transformative properties carried more weight because it was being considered and confirmed by a non-delusional person. Thus, it followed that it was likely that the Moll’s Bund, although not real, was something that he owned and would soon better his life.

A neutral might wonder aloud how exactly the Moll’s Bund would make the janitor’s life better. The janitor always took a level headed approach to the uninformed neutral and never thought of them with malice. The simple, yet altogether corrupted, hypothesis of how the Moll’s Bund would lift the janitor out of janitorial work, is that someone would discover that the janitor owned the Moll’s Bund and this would make the local news or perhaps Jimmy Kimmel. Then the janitor would become famous for owning the Moll’s Bund and specific questions would be answered like what kind of item is the Moll’s Bund and how did the janitor acquire the Moll’s Bund? With the janitor’s fame and the answers to those questions would come fortune and travel and attention. The janitor would then have the recognition that he deserved.

This of course was a reductive version of how the revelation of the janitor’s possession of the Moll’s Bund would improve his life. In reality the janitor’s vision of the future, which had been considered far more thoroughly than the neutral, was about how it would improve the janitor’s virtues and the janitor’s ability to be a person through having something tangible to tie to his identity. 

Currently, the janitor is rather happy being a janitor because he has the idea that the Moll’s Bund will one day save him to fall back on. In the future, the janitor will be happy doing anything at all because he will have been saved by the Moll’s Bund. It is an eerily similar condition and thus happiness will characterize his life throughout, with the Moll’s Bund as the fulcrum.

The janitor glanced up from his reflection on the now shiny floor to see his reflection in the dirty mirror. He sprayed the mirror with glass cleaner. It was preferential to him that the driving force to his successful life was owning the Moll’s Bund rather than having some great talent. It was not lost on him that he was not getting any younger and was no longer in youth’s embrace. Were he to finally be recognized for some great talent, he would feel a tinge of sadness that he was not able to experience the mix of youth and talent that is perhaps more glamorized in society than anything else. He would feel the pain of wasted talent and wasted time. Instead, it was basically luck that landed the Moll’s Bund in his possession, which cannot be cursed for arriving at an advanced age, because luck should be appreciated for having arrived at all. There was also less work and less expectation around turning the possession of the Moll’s Bund into happiness than it would be turning talent into success.

But of course the janitor needed to make sure he gave the other part of his mind its fair share of analysis or else he could get too far into delusions and find himself among the sad, deluded rabble, instead of someone whose life will one day improve by means of the Moll’s Bund. In such, as he cleaned the mirror, he gave way to the understanding that the Moll’s Bund is not real and is not in his possession. In fact, if he had assigned one of his possessions in his basement studio apartment to be the Moll’s Bund, every part of him would be overwhelmed with the idea that this item, now labeled the Moll’s Bund, had no properties of changing his life and thus he would lose the idea of the Moll’s Bund altogether. So it followed that for the current possession of the Moll’s Bund to change his life, it was impossible for him to currently possess the Moll’s Bund.  

But of course this contradiction, too, was rather satisfying because if a person who did not realize this paradox was using the concept of the Moll’s Bund to get them through difficult times, that would be delusional. But for a person to understand the paradox behind the Moll’s Bund, thus solidifying them as a grounded person, and still believe the Moll’s Bund will imminently better their life, then they, someone who has thought very much about the topic, would be justified in their belief. Thus the Moll’s Bund and its transformative properties, through this line of thinking, is real.

Of course it can also be said…