Countless cocaine-colored tiles orbit above, while glued below to sticky flutter, my eyes adjust to the greywhite hue of a color monitor. The black phone rings incessant red lights. I do not answer. Instead, crouched across crossed legs I cower from the very non-fiction of this office hell. I hate it here; but then I hated it down there too, and up there was also quite despised. The irony is that this cube wants me to stay: 401K and a handsome salary, health insurance, long-term compensation, short-term compensation, bonuses, company picnics and summer outings. Coffee and soda is free.

Everyone tells me how great it is that I have such a good job. Only fluorescent lights wash over my dimly lit notion of why-not suicide. I fade into no-thought as a plastic clip-fan stares at me askingly, "would you like some re-circulated air?" it says. "Okay," I answer, under the forceful foreground laughter of Jenny or Suzy or Stacey's cleft palate projection. The digital colon between the numbers flashes, the anti-Christ to the analog. It's 4:51 already. Fuck. Another day closer to death.