Office Blues

He sipped his fourth coffee of a still young day and winced at the bitterness. He hated the taste of the cheap shit they put in the vending machines but fetching one got him away from the desk for a while and he had become hopelessly dependent on the caffeine that now coursed through him. He was a marionette, the coffee his manipulator and it alone kept him upright, sharpened the edges blunted by another sleepless night of anxiety and watching the blinking green LED on the baby monitor.

The ambition he’d shown in the interview four and a half years ago was gone, slowly corroded by the insectile cacophony of tapping keyboards, the drone of a thousand phone conversations, the spreadsheets permanently seared onto his retina’s. The suits in the interview, long-ago promoted up a few floors, had promised ‘opportunity,’ and an environment in which they ‘let the individual prosper’. If he had known that had actually meant sitting in one of 646 equally sized booths telling the same laminated lies on the phone, battering away at a computer, then he would never had taken the job. Whatever it was that had made him a good, friendly and popular person when he left University with an armful of qualifications had ebbed away over those wasted years. The job, this office, had taken all that he was in return for $40K per annum and health insurance.

The undated resignation letter he had penned three months ago burned a hole in the pocket of his suit. A daunting mortgage in negative equity and the crippling financial state of the country had kept it there in it’s envelope but today was different. The letter was no longer just a private symbolic gesture of procrastinated hope.

It was time.

His phone rang. It felt like the office itself was conspiring to quell his rebellious thoughts. The induction commandments he’d received on his first day had instructed him how a phone must be answered inside three rings. It was the law and all obeyed. It took focus to fight the reflexive urge to pick up the handset. He let it ring. Four, five, six times before it rang off. A massive step. It felt amazing, a rush.

It was time.

He took a deep breath and stood up out of his chair. He looked around at the endless grid of booths, desks, computers punctuated by the odd bubbling water cooler. Some of his colleagues, the ones with cells adjacent to his looked up at him now, their faces slack in astonishment as if he had committed some unspeakable sin by leaving a phone ringing and then, god forbid, standing up outside a scheduled break. Their obedient conformity disgusted him.

Resignation was not a decision he took lightly. He had a young family to support, financial worries like the next man and no other employment in the pipeline but he’d had enough. Something had filled to the brim inside him.

It was time.

He took the letter from his pocket, unfolded it, and placed it down on the desk to read through one more time. He picked up a ball point pen, signed and dated it. He popped it back in the envelope and left his booth.

He heard an ethereal roar in his head as he strode towards his line managers door. He couldn’t believe he was up and doing it, it was surreal, living out a scene he’d rehearsed in his mind a thousand times. His legs began to shake. He felt scared and relieved all at once, the chemistry was intoxicating and a dazed grin spread across his face. He loosened his tie in symbolic defiance of the strict codes of attire. He sensed colleagues turning in their swivel chairs to look at him. Thinking he’d lost his mind when in fact he’d found it.

At the line managers door, he took a deep breath, knocked…

He saw the skyline of the vast city beneath through the window. A million and one possibilities waiting for him. He decided he would go and sit in the park for a while, breathe the fresh air, enjoy the freedom of walking the city with no destination…

And then an aeroplane smashed through the window.