Worth
When the coffee is
burnt and the only discernable difference was his shirt, though even then he
neglected to change it sometimes, the days tend to flow together. What day was
it anyway? Was it Monday? No, couldn’t be. He distinctly knew he had worked the
day before and he wasn’t on a weekend shift, thank God. Wednesday then? No, the
weekly meeting he dreaded hadn’t happened yet. He’d remember. So Tuesday
then….wait come to think of it, the meeting would have been cancelled since his
boss was still on vacation, to the Cayman Islands. Prick. What day was it then?
Michael leaned over his keyboard and stared lazily at the calendar hanging from
his cubicle. It hung amongst paper “awards”, quarterly flyers, and motivational
posters starring kittens and mountain climbers. Each day was hastily crossed
out as if the person scratching the mark were desperately counting down to
something but Michael wasn’t counting down. Not to anything worthwhile anyway.
The humdrum and monotone repetition of his office was simply a cage. His yearly
vacation was enough of an escape in years past but something had been nagging
at him for the past month, it urged him to tick off the days. The days he so
lazily stared at now. The days he wasn’t sure he’d remember, their identify
eluded him. Friday? Yes, Friday. Michael reached forth with his pen and
scratched out Friday and sat back in his chair. He leaned a little too far and
hit the wall behind him jolting him out of his absent daze. His three computer
screens buzzed or maybe it was the A/C, he couldn’t tell and he didn’t care
enough to discern the sound. After two cups of coffee, an overpriced bagel and
two Celexa, all the noises blended together to perform a symphony of mediocrity
and despair. Not even the happy face mug his mother bought him for his 32nd
birthday, cracked and stained with old coffee, could bring him up. He was in a
rut and rightfully so.
Michael had worked for Aeolians
Inc. for fifteen years this September and he couldn’t make heads from tails
when it came to his mood. He liked the work well enough and his coworkers
weren’t all that bland. Things had to be relatively good to keep things going
for this long. They kept him going with their friendship but in some little way
Michael didn’t like them. When he was twenty, six months into his
employment, he felt a surge of pride and responsibility when it came to his
work. This was the first large corporation he’d ever worked for and he felt
like he was a piece of something larger, like he actually mattered. Over the
years, that slowly faded but he and his coworkers kept trucking along,
scratching off the days on their calendars. Michael had his fishing trip with
his father next weekend. Scott, Michael’s friend, had his family trip to
Disneyland next spring. Karen, Michael’s ex from years ago, had her sister’s
wedding in a month. Murphy, his boss, had his trip to the Cayman Islands.
Colossal prick.
Michael rubbed his eyes and
stood from his cubicle cracking his back and moaning slightly, as if he was
getting out of bed as an old withered man. His aisle partner, Stephen, removed
his headphones when he noticed the motion beside him. Stephen was a newer guy
but Michael liked him well enough. He was younger and he kept to himself
mostly.
“Hey Mike, can I borrow a buck
fifty? I want to get a Coke.” Stephen asked spinning in his desk chair. His
shirt was untucked and his desk was bare, as was customary for new employees,
since he didn’t have any monthly accomplishments or family photos to place upon
it. Since he had become more social with the people on the floor, Stephen had
made it his mission to ask Michael for money at least three times a month. He
always repaid him but it had begun to annoy Michael a little. Well, more than a
little. So much so, Michael had stopped taking cash out, except to put two
bucks in the office lottery pull, just so he could say, “Sorry buddy, don’t got
it.” to him without feeling a tinge of guilt for lying. This time however he would
be lying. He still had two dollars left over from Tuesday when he had taken
five out of the ATM to pay for the lottery tickets. As he took out the money he
thought about how much money he’d have right now if he had put all those two
dollar installments into a savings account instead of his coworkers hand to buy
lottery tickets every week.
Stephen took the money and
pulled his headphones off all the way, and placed them on his desk. He was
slightly taller than Michael which made him feel small. This kid was almost ten
years younger but a foot taller. Things like that made Michael feel inferior so
he hated the kid a bit for it. Michael yawned and looked down at his watch,
blinked a few times then put his hand back to his side. He rubbed his face with
his hands trying to pull the tired feeling from his skin then let his hands
fall and swing for a second. He shook his head then looked at his watch again,
having neglected to actually read the time off it the first time or forgetting
between putting it up to his face and letting his arm swing free. It was only
ten thirty. Michael sighed and picked up his cracked happy face mug and walked
down the aisle to the coffee station.
He peered into a few cubicles as
he walked past noticing the same placid expression on a few people, the
complete opposite on others, and utter despair on a small few. Sitting alone in
a partially closed square for eight or ten hours a day was a good way to go
insane. As he made his way to the coffee maker the memory of his friend Walter
appeared out of nowhere and a smile crept on his face then slowly drained away into
a frown. The feeling of losing someone, even if they were just quitting or
getting fired was reminiscent of moving away from your home town or losing a
tertiary friend in high school to suicide. It hurt but wasn’t life ending loss.
It made things a little grayer until someone else stepped up to become the
office funny guy or your new friend a cubicle over. Walter had been that to
Michael for five years, but it seemed like five minutes. Time was compressed
and sped up in that little square box and it only slowed down when you looked
at the time. A devil of a thing, time.
Michael turned from the coffee
machine with his piping hot crap liquid, doused with probably too much creamer
and sugar but damn if it didn’t make the coffee somewhat drinkable. He’d wished
to bring in his own but the mornings were too hectic to get the kids up and fed
and leave enough time to brew a cup of coffee with the good beans, and top it
off with the good liquid creamer. The little things change life so much. As the
thought of drinking sugary sweet cinnamon coffee was killed by the bitter tang
of the office coffee, Michael was interrupted in his trek back to his desk by
the HR rep Melinda. She had the fakest smile he’d ever seen and it made him
angry. No one was that happy, no one, but he felt a bit of pity on her
sometimes. Maybe it was just her job requirement, maybe she had to smile
all the time, feigning concern for the complaints and wellbeing of two hundred
plus office jockeys and their childish meaningless attempts at making work that
much more like home with a new ice machine and a food day every month, whether
or not they deserved it. His pity was usually stayed when she spoke though and
his contempt returned.
“Good morning Michael! How are
you today?” Melinda said smile wide, teeth showing. She must have re-bleached
them, they were flawless. Her gums were kind of gross to look at though so
Michael trained his attention to her makeup packed face. Too much blush, too
much mascara. Michael had seen that face a million times on other women that he
knew better and more intimately than Melinda. That was a face for hiding. A
mask and it made Michael pity her even more, no matter how disgusting her smile
was or how annoying her fake laugh was. That was Michael’s biggest problem he thought,
he was too compassionate towards people. He couldn’t genuinely hate anyone for
more than a day. It was a letdown especially when some people are worthy of
that kind of feeling.
Michael
simply sipped the bitter tang and smiled replying, “Just fine, how are you?”
The pleasantry of human interaction was another thing that confounded Michael
as Melinda finally departed to continue her rounds of well wishing, signing off
with, “Great! Have a good day.” They were all packed in this room like sardines
with printers going off, the smell of terrible coffee and the overpriced café
filing the air, and phone calls and gossip whispers filling their ears and they
all had the nerve to say, “I’m doing great.” or “I’m fine, how are you?”
Sometimes Michael wanted to tell the truth. “Actually Stacy and I haven’t
really had good sex in five months and I don’t sleep well at night because my
son and daughter fight since they still have to share a room, even though Henry
is seven and Elizabeth is twelve.” but nobody wanted to hear the truth, hell
neither did he. He could care less if Barry’s Crohn's disease was acting up and
he was back in the hospital. Or if Stephanie’s son made MVP in basketball, or
if Justin’s new motorcycle was 1900cc. He liked the slow pass by and hello’s
just as much as everyone else. It was simple and it was easy. Just like this
job had been for years. Simple and easy.
As he took his seat and started
to read over new emails that popped in slowly from everyone too stupid to look
the answer up on their own, though he shouldn’t really complain it was his
job security, he looked at the picture of his family on his desk. His wife,
blonde hair with the roots showing of her brown hair which he liked more but
her independence or wanting to fit in didn’t allow for. His son, only two in
the photo staring blankly at his wife’s chin as she held him and his daughter
smiling that big smile, eyes closed and showing her mouth with a vacancy in the
tooth line up, at six. Then him, with his forced smile showing no teeth. He
hated posing for photos like this but the rest of his family, save his son who
doesn’t know better, appeared to revel in it. He only smiled genuinely while
laughing and he couldn’t remember the last time he had a photo taken while
laughing.
The flow of memories had
distracted him from his work but he let it happen. The vacation’s from his desk
become fewer and farther between it seemed so he took mental vacations a minute
here or five minutes there whenever he could. Yesterday he had spent twenty minutes
reading the history of the word “port” in reference to a ship. That journey of
discovery took him from the wiki of old schooners to the founding of New
Zealand and onward to the etymology of the word kiwi. He gained a lot of
useless knowledge this way. For example, he bet he knew more foreign presidents
than anyone else. He actually quizzed himself last month during an internet
outage just to keep himself sane.
Kenya- Uhuru Kenyatta
Malaysia - Najib tun Razak
Fiji - Epeli Nailatikau
The Federation of Rhodesia and
Nyasaland - Sir Roy Welensky
Canada - Stephen Harper
South Korea - Park Geun-hye
Japan - Shinzo Abe………
He had been able to go through
fifteen countries before they had to resume work. He was pleased with himself
but after lunch he found the scrap of paper and felt a little bit of sorrow at
the fact he took pleasure in it. Today though he didn’t feel that. The picture
of his family, aside from showing the rest of the world that he was a
successful father and husband, reassured him that he had things to fight and
work for. When he was twenty the thought of having two kids a wife and a steady
job were unreal. Then in the spring of 2000, Michael got a job printing and
mailing insurance notices with his friend Geoff at Aeolians making $10.50 an
hour and he felt like he had the world by the balls. Fast forward fifteen years
and he realized the money and the company had him by the balls and their
grip was tight. He reassured himself that the job might not be what he hoped
he’d be doing at this age, nor was it the dream he had as a teenager but it
provided him with what he and his family needed. Right? That was the reason
behind it all now. Before it was just for the money and his way to go out and
get drunk or see concerts or afford the things he always wanted. Now his
paycheck went into two college funds, into two car payments, a mortgage and
into school supplies and clothes. He hadn’t spent more than fifty bucks on
himself since he was twenty-six but it was all worth it right?
Michael shut his eyes hard and
just concentrated on his breathing. He picked this technique up from those
internet videos that are used for calm and relaxation. He had to use those
since paying for therapy wasn’t in the budget and he didn’t really have anyone
to talk to. He just sat in silence, counting his breaths in and out. The sound
of his chest rising helped calm his mind that seemed to explode into over
drive. The Celexa was wearing off or maybe his subconscious was just breaking
through to the forefront. Breathe in,
breathe out. Deep breaths now, don’t skimp on the air intake. Pretend it’s a
cold wave washing over you, taking all the dark energy out of your soul.
Exhale. Now you feel better don’t you. Michael opened his eyes and looked
at his watch. Eleven thirty. He let the air out of his lungs one more time and
looked at the calendar. The days were scratched out through Wednesday. Michael
noticed his shirt was the same baby blue it had been last week and the week
before. He looked up from his cubicle to see his boss beckoning him forth with
his index finger. It was time for his performance review. Where had the time
gone?
“Michael, you know I have to do
this every three months and the employee survey is coming up soon, next week
I’m sure,” Murphy flipped through the emails on his blackberry searching for
the email that confirmed his statement, he found it and nodded returning his
gaze to Michael who sat easily in the chair across from him, “so let’s go
through this quickly.” Murphy clicked a pen and wrote Michael’s name in blue
across the top of the paper then clicked again. Click. They ran through the
standard questions and after every staged response there was a click. Click.
Click. Click. Michael started to get fidgety with the sound of every click.
Click. Click. He put his hands in his pockets to grab his legs to steady them
from bouncing and found a scrap of paper in one pocket. As the clicking
continued. Click. Click. His mind erupted once again, this is all worth it
right? Right? Click. Right? Click. Right!? The noise of Murphy’s mumbling was
distant and muffled but the damn clicking was like a rock falling down a canyon
wall, bouncing every few feet, echoing and exploding with sound. Click. This is
worth it right?! Michael had been prescribed Celexa to deal with his anxiety
and depression by his doctor right after Elizabeth was born and he had never
found out the reason behind it all, he just assumed it was something that
happened when your life changes. He wished he had two more right now. Click.
Maybe it was this place, maybe it was the A/C maybe it was the conference
calls, maybe it was the unending drone, maybe it was the fact the days ran
together or the fact his former self knew he wasn’t going to end up
here. Right here. Click. Click. Click. This is worth it right?! The question
repeated itself. And he took his hands out of his pockets to strangle Murphy
with that stupid fucking tie and ram that pen so far down his throat he could
sign his stomach, “Michael Fuck you very much Gordon.” but he retracted with the
scrap of paper in his hand. He glanced at it quickly, it was a picture from his
wallet. He didn’t remember removing it or putting it in his pocket but it sent
a wave of calm water over his being. Washing away all the darkness and calming
the anxiety. It was a picture of his daughter holding his son after he was
born. Click……..click………..click……..click……
It was worth it.
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