This is an ongoing project I'm working on with a friend and we've hit a block so feel free to add, change, or do anything you like to it! Thanks!

What am I doing here? He was starting to get the distinct feeling that capabilities and ambitions were being horribly wasted in a dead-end job. It was not that he was ungrateful for being hired with the job market and the economy being what they were. It was just that when he was younger he had not imagined himself being someone’s personal assistant.   His parents were so proud of him even though they had no idea what it was he actually did. They had made sure that he would had every opportunity afforded to him and made sure that he applied him to the best schools in the country. They had always said they wanted him to be given all the opportunities they had never had. Of course this was all very possible in North America, the land of opportunity and innovation. 

His father had worked for the post office in the  city. He hated his job, but, he had gotten his high school sweetheart pregnant and need to put food on the table and pay the bills somehow, and, it just so happened his wife’s Uncle worked for the post office. It was nothing glamorous but it had a good pension and nice hours. Not to mention all the young secretaries running around the office really gave the place some extra scenery. As for his mother, she had always dreamed of being a stay at home mother of two living on a giant farm in the Midwest with her own stable of 3 or maybe 4 horses that she could take for rides every morning after her husband went work at his corner office desk job. Instead she would end up working as a switchboard operator for the phone company on the other side of town. 

The alarm clock goes off but this is not what wakes him up. He only hears the alarm after the internal checklist of things he has to do today starts running in his head. He feels certain that he even dreams about it. Getting out of bed and dressing for work he doesn’t listen to the radio, he doesn’t sing Happy Birthday to himself while brushing his teeth to make sure he brushes long enough, he counts. He has always done this for as long as he can remember. Counting has just been his way of passing the day. He hates that idea that he is just passing through from one day to the other but still, it’s the grown up thing to do. His father would say that he’s on the right track and his mother would tell him to think about his future but the best he can do is count away his present. At one point he thinks that there was going to be an end to the counting, an end to the list of things to do. He was going to do something when he came to that point. That was a long time ago. 

He walks through the doors of the office and is immediately relaxed. Here he is safe; here he can hide behind mountains of paperwork that has nothing to do with him. He can put his head down and work so his bosses can do nothing all day except stoop by every so often to tell him to keep his chin up and that he’s doing a great job. Just after lunch time the mail comes. The girl who brings the mail is a mousey little person who has also mastered the art of keeping her head down and working through the day. Thinking about it he really is impressed that she can get the mail to the right people. He doesn’t think that she’s ever raised her head long enough to even look at the people she’s delivering to. She passes him without a glance and he realizes that he has stopped working and stared at her the whole time it took her and her cart to squeak along the isle. When the workday ends he stands up at his desk for a well-deserved stretch. His arms spread his toes curled and his eyes still fixed on the paper on his desk already his mind is setting his schedule for the next day the high point of which will be getting to see the mousey mail girl. He picks up his coat from the hook in his cubicle and bends down to pick up his bag. When he straightens again he turns to leave his workspace but there at the opening is the girl. She glances up at him, her eyes are brown, his heart flutters, and she says “save me” before turning towards the stairs, deciding against it and rushing into an elevator whose door closes just as he reaches it. 

Somehow he knew he would not be fast enough to catch her. At that time of day on a Friday everyone was trying to get to the exact same place at the same time. Even his gallant attempt to use the stairs and beat the elevator to the ground floor was too late. His search became impossible with the amount of traffic in the foyer and he had eventually given up. He walked home from the office, taking the long way home. Not wanting to admit to himself that it was a pathetic attempt to test the powers of serendipity. 

He sat in his small apartment, put on his favorite record and stewed. He was not hungry but he looked through a cookbook for recipes that might catch his interest if he ever became inspired enough to cook and would mark the page. He checked the news and weather absent-mindedly. It was his daily routine yet he never understood why. He may have inherited it from his father or his grandfather, but, whatever the case he did not know why he always checked. Perhaps he hoped to find something different than the next big catastrophe and strife. Maybe he hoped it would make him feel better that these things were not happening to him. There was even the outside chance he would feel more connected with the world around him being able to empathize with others. Even though he had checked the news, weather and sports as far back as he could remember the only thing it allowed him to do was make small talk at the office. 

None of his regular routine was helping him find the mousy woman from his office. Nothing he could do until Monday morning would help him find out what she had meant by “Save me.”And as hard as he tried he knew could not distract himself from the counting in his head. Constantly reminding him of how distant Monday morning was from Friday evening.