A Day At Work

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It was just another day for Dave, a 45-year-old lead financial analyst from Montreal - dashing through the front door of his condo on Baker Street at half-past nine, grabbing a quick cuppa from the nearest Starbucks, and making hurried steps across the street to his office bay on the 13th floor. The view from up there was something Dave looked forward to everyday.

“From here, the world looks beautiful. The world looks better. It’s all better from up here,” he thought.

Mathias was a different person altogether. Working with Dave wasn’t something he enjoyed, but it paid his bills. ‘Assistant Analyst,’ his tag read. The lanyard hung around his neck like a millstone, it seemed. For Mathias, the perfect weekend was spent at home, with a glass of fine wine and a good book. Saturdays meant hand-lettering days and most of his Sunday evenings were spent working on a book he hoped to have published, some day.

Dave and Mathias were always together, but painfully so. It seemed like a chore, like brushing or bathing, that one did out of dire habit than real need. A tail that wagged unknowingly, a mere leaf that lived off the tree. 

“I don’t think the next meeting requires your presence,” Dave told Mathias blatantly. The latter standing right behind his manager, looked indifferent, a sign that it was not the first time he had been asked to step out. There were times when he wanted to yell back, pull Dave by his fancy silk tie and tell him, “You don’t own me.” But then again that is what happens when two people have been together a very long time. You learn to forgive, surrender, let go.

Once back home, Dave’s ritual involved a short session of self-assurance. He missed the magnificent view his bay offered. He missed that glory. For now all he would do was tell his reflection how smart, successful and outgoing he was. Everyone wanted to be known as his friend. Except Mathias. And then, almost as if his thoughts were heard, Mathias appeared, knocking on his door, not once but many, until it was opened.

“Hi Dave..umm, I’m not sure if I dropped in at the right time but I just could not get myself to spend the rest of the evening without having a word with you.” Words came quick and ungarbled, unrehearsed even, his eyes painfully focused on Dave’s. But Dave looked almost shocked, as if his sacred space was conquered by a foe.

“What do you think you are doing here?” his bloodshot eyes seemed to scream. 
Instead he swallowed the words that travelled all the way from his gut to the tip of his tongue, and with a placid smile, asked, “Mathias, what a pleasant surprise. What can I do for you?”
He was careful not to let his tone suggest one of overt friendliness. 

“Can I come in? Maybe we could sit and chat for a while?” 
Mathias knew this was something he would never have had the courage to ask. But tonight, he wanted things to change. He saw Dave’s face under the corridor’s warm light. It was pensive, as if his mind was plotting a greater plan.
“I’m sorry, but I was in the middle of something urgent. Can we talk at work tomorrow? I feel terrible for not having offered you a drink.”
Both of them knew too well that “tomorrow” meant never.

“No Dave. You are not sorry. You have never been.” Mathias let the words spill. 
Like marbles let out of a drawstring bag, they lay there, dangerous enough to let anyone who dared walk over it, slip. And he quietly retreated to his tiny house at the end of the block.

The next day at work was predictably normal. Dave stood by his bay, overlooking his usual view. The view that made him feel better, like his life meant something. Mathias walked across to his boss, standing quietly behind him, the way he always did. And for a few minutes, he stood there, unquestioning, pondering over how this bitter relationship with someone he spent all day with, could see a closure.

“But he seems calm,” he thought, “and following his plan. But what is his plan,” he thought. “And what is mine? Mine I must improvise to his because of his great size. If he will jump I can kill him. But he stays down forever. Then I will stay down with him forever.” 
His thoughts played before him a tall, slender 45-year-old, throwing himself down from the place that made him feel good about himself.

Mathias, however, did nothing. He always thought, he brooded, he plotted. That is all he did. Afterall, isn’t that all one does when it is two people living within one body?