Through the Habitrails by Jeff Nicholson 1996

             The Habitrails was a trip. It was dark, depressing, insightful, hilarious, and frightening all at the same time. It’s broken up into short stories, but the overarching plotline is that of an illustrator working for some oppressive unnamed company. The name of the company seems as unimportant as the work he does as an illustrator. The real selling point is the effect that this rather undesirable environment has on the internal state of the narrator. As readers we take refuge in the internal dialogue of the narrator as he trudges through the atrocities of a corporate swamp. As an art school student this played on a lot of my fears regarding post-collegiate life. I don’t actually think I’ll end up in that kind of position, but the thought of being a corporate cog is still scares me, because I know I would never survive. The Habitrails is littered with surreal metaphors detailing the unseen elements that threaten survival in this environment; every so often sales representatives with sickly smiles waltz into the panel and jab a sharp-ended tap into the unsuspecting employees to “tap their juices” or steal their life force. These elements give the story a twisted realism that I found really impactful.