Tat tat tat..
went the middle aged man as he pounded
the smooth plastic desk with his
long brittle fingers.
The man brushed his graying hair
from his wrinkle laden face;
looking up at the clock, he saw the time-- 4:59.
Concentrating on the glass of the clock,
he saw the reflection of a man
whom he he never seen before; the reflection of a man
that he can no longer recognize, one more evident of his father
or maybe even his grandfather but most certainly
not his. He took a closer look into his eyes: those blue eyes once full of fierce
ambition had faded to a gray empty range of nothingness, absent
of hopes and dreams that had dwindled away ?since the day he started here.
Looking around the office, he saw the bland walls of the cubicles
closing in on him, and withering away his spirits; the man
could not wait to leave, but he knew that
with a thirty year mortgage and a
car payment breathing down his neck,
he was dictated to come back day in and day out
and drool at the meaningless numbers on
the spread sheets of his outdated Compaq Computer.
Looking up at the clock again he saw... 4:59, the clock
would just not budge, he was stuck in hell with
no way out.