The Ruined Lives.

Sometimes the silence in the office after five is damning, especially
when the ventilation system gives a final rumble and quits. Only a
slightly electronic buzz and the increasingly stale air, nothing but
ones own thoughts to distract from the mindless manipulation of
numbers and the rearranging of words that mean less than lies.

Eventually, I wonder why I'm here. Not here in the proverbial
questioning of the universe sense, though kind of like that. But here
between the padded cubicle walls decorated with anxiously waiting
to-do lists and nagging reminders of tasks untouched. As if any of it
will actually matter or as if it ever did. But I see the faces of my
parents and the other wandering souls who are living the dream, not
theirs of course, but the one they're supposed to want. I don't see
happiness. I see people trapped in a life they never wanted with no
realistic way out.

I won't buy that.

But I'm still sitting here because I just can't figure out what else
to do. I can't make the leap to the extraordinary. I can't find the
courage to take that chance.

A cigarette hung from his mouth, with the corners of his mouth he
smiled at me. I sat wedged in the corner where his bedroom walls met,
my bare back pressed against the coldness. I had my favorite underwear
on.

"I guess I should tell you what I do", he said.

Staring blankly, like it didn't matter, though it might have, I said
"I already know".

And I did know. I knew very well. But I was still there even though I
shouldn't have been.

He said that "between the constant phone calls and the paranoia" that
not even the money or the freedom were worth it".

I believed it. But it still seemed so much better.

He laid back on the bed and asked me if I wanted to smoke.

Of course not I said as he exhaled and the smoke swirled with the late
morning light. Saturday's are perfect. Responsibility is far enough a
way and there isn't anything better to do than lay naked in some
strange man's bed with mascara smeared across my eyes and lipstick
leftover from the night before. Daylight makes the mystery disappear,
but sometimes it's better that way when we're just two people laying
side by side, being honest at the least.

And he took me to brunch and paid in cash, of course.

He told me he'd show me the city, the real city, his city and I wanted
to see it his way.

Here I am. Working for something I don't want. And there he is,
working for something he doesn't even want. Perhaps there is no
escaping it.