It was odd what the cubicle meant to him. It was far more of a home than his simple apartment had ever been, surely, and it was small. He liked small. It was a bubble the outside world didn't know how to penetrate, a place where nostalgic memories could be distorted and formed into whatever he pleased and never had to give way to the present or the truth. He could walk in in shambles and the almost therapeutic effect of his seclusion would reinvigorate him as long as he stayed.
"I heard his brother was the mayor."
"His brother?! No way."
"It'd explain why they have the last name and all."
"Honestly, I'm terrified by the entire concept that there are people related to him."
The walls of the bubble were decorated top-to-bottom with pictures, some of them simple and some more revealing. A grainy and half-torn picture of a man, a woman, and a boy, looking into a camera with genuine smiles. A woman in a beautiful white wedding gown, her short black hair complimented by the veil falling gently to her slender back. A bored little girl on her cellphone, surrounded by brightly colored decorations proclaiming "Happy 7th, Vanessa!" in pastel pink colors.
They were haphazard and unorganized, only unified by the simple fact that none of them contained the man himself. Of course they didn't, of course, the pictures were escapes and not reminders, he only wanted the past, not his own role in it. He wanted to imagine himself in other roles, only remember the good things and make up stories whenever there weren't any. He'd stroke one of them once and subconsciously begin to play out happy fantasies under his breath, letting these falsehoods become his reality for a short time.
"Is he talking to his pictures again?"
"No, I think he's on his Bluetooth."
"Begging his ex to lend him money again, I bet."
"He was married?!"
"Guys, the window in this door is plastic, I think he can hear us."
"He doesn't care. We've talked about him while he was in the room with us."
"He's like a machine, I mean, he doesn't even take his lunch break. I don't think he eats."
The work itself, the filing and labeling and forms and papers and papers and papers suited him very well, the grey of it and of everything and the lack of effort or thought pleased him forever and made him forget his attempts at creativity, at art, at writing, at cries of 'please please please please please notice me I can keep trying look at me look at me look at me look look look look look look look.'
"I heard he went crazy and tried to take over City Hall."
"What? That doesn't even make sense! How do you 'take over' City Hall without, I dunno, an army or something?"
"I heard he made a giant ray gun or something."
"You're crazy!"
"No, seriously, he's, like, some techno-whiz, making all sorts of crazy inventions."
"Come on! If he was a genius, why would he be here?"
He was deaf to anything he didn't like when he was inside of his bubble, his sole sanctuary. He had no chance for agoraphobic self-conscious loathing to internalize itself and turn into a young child whispering "I forgive you" every time he was hurt, apologizing every night for everything he had ever done and wondering which of his actions had earned him such extreme punishment, because he had to have somehow earned it or what was the point of a life where innocents were put through excruciating pain over and over and over until they couldn't breathe?
He sipped his coffee, the third so far today, poisoning his blood in order to avoid sleeping and missing a moment of hyperactive introspective empty smiles.
"I think he's crying, sh-should we-"
"Are you kidding? And miss the fun? He might be about to have one of his breakdowns."