Game Over

I had the best view from my office desk. True, my back was turned to it most of the time, where I sit facing a large garden of people, planted like a slug with eyes fixated on their screen. This view, this job, had been the one constant in my life since I first strolled into the office on May. 12, 2008. Since then, I’ve moved three times (at least three times, and that’s just counting my permanent residences.) I’ve found a new meaning of friendship here. I’ve watched friends come and go. I’ve watched co-workers come and go. I’ve left town myself and wondered whether I’d ever really come back. But the office was always here. It was always waiting for my return each and every passing day. Dark descends as I finish up the day’s work. I clean out my desk, extracting little trinkets I haven’t thought about in four and a half years. There’s the emergency Fire Extinguisher that is at least three years old. I stuff them all in a plastic bag. The office is strangely still, quiet. The goodbyes have been said. The paper has been put to bed. I breathe deep and realize this may be the last time I’ll stand here. I feel a rush of emotion, manufactured maybe, a mixture of nostalgia and mourning for a past that will never return.I also believe that once things start getting too comfortable, its time to move on…I realize that once I step away from this office, I will release the last anchor in my life, the last one, and will truly become a vessel adrift at sea. Now I do what I’ve done most every Friday night for the past four and a half years — I turn on the lights, descend a flight of stairs, and step into the rocking night. It’s Game Over @ ZAPAK