2

I kicked back from the desk and angrily stripped off the cheap earphones I brought to the office each morning. Again: "Bullshit."

Somewhere above, an air conditioning vent rattled, chugged, and went silent. Other than the distant hiss of fans and someone's feverish typing, the office soaked in quiet. Umber dusk light trickled through the high windows and cast geometric shadows across the cubicles. The air above my desk sat stagnant and hot.

I leaned back in my stiff office chair and nudged my face just slightly beyond the entrance to my cubicle. I glanced left, then right. Neither of my supervisors stalked between the rows of office cubes. Nothing but shadows. Nothing but suspended dust dancing in shafts of sharp orange light.

Good. Must have gone home early. Fantastic.

Using the tips of my shoes, I pulled the chair back into the cubicle. I felt like a hermit crab retreating slowly and cautiously into its shell. I sighed, closed my eyes, and wiped sweat from my forehead.

Elsewhere, the furious typer continued unabated.

I opened one eye and looked at my watch. Five forty-six. I had spent enough time at work – it was time to get the hell out of Dodge.

With quick, memorized movements – movements I had perfected over three years and four office jobs – I closed the game emulator open on my monitor. The credits for The Legend of Zelda: Book of Archemon still rolled across the screen as I exited the program. Beneath it sat an open Excel spreadsheet, the day's data long since entered into seemingly-endless cells. I closed that out as well, deleted the emulated Zelda program, and set to doctoring the day's timesheet. A hop, skip, and jump of creative timekeeping later, I logged off the company computer and set to leaving. Other than the continuing storm of keystrokes from elsewhere in the cubicle maze, my noises were the only ones to break the still, soupy quiet.

Outside, the heat struck me like a wall. I winced, ran a hand through my hair, and set to walking. The bus stop was only three blocks away, but in the unseasonable weather, it felt like crossing the Gobi desert. By the time I reached the leaning bus shelter, my armpits had soaked a murky gray. Wonderful.

In the west, the sun sunk toward the horizon. A few wispy clouds burned brilliant orange, pink, and vermilion.

I sighed and turned to look down the street. Wavering like a dream image, the bus approached slow and steady, growling as it came.

Ahead of me was the weekend, as big and empty as a dead ocean.