Exit Strategy

There was no way out.

Every exit strategy he considered was blocked by a guarding thought that loomed as big as a Samoan linebacker.  Every attempt at freedom was hemmed in by a glowering mound of debt.

He wanted to take off his shoes and socks, and feel some sand between his toes.  He wanted to shred his tie, and bonfire every suit that he owned.  He wanted to chuck his employee manual and Guide to Service Calls, and instead wander in a library of fictional delights.

He stared at his computer screen, the spreadsheet too meaningless to decipher, it's hieroglyphic symbols no longer comprehensible to a mind that rebelled against rendering it into meaning.  He looked at his desk, office supplies strewn about, a stack of papers that required an attention he no longer cared to give.  He saw his desk calendar, and tried to focus on what date this actually was.

He drifted to a picture of his family.  His wife posed in a football jersey and jeans, their son and daughter with her, hugging their mother, proudly displaying their own BearCat jerseys.  Yay.  Go team.  Even football, even his beloved alma mater, gave him little joy.

He turned blankly back to the screen.  The scrawls there still meant nothing to him.

Then he turned back to the picture.  He saw his youngest, Sarah, a huge grin on her face, her eyes twinkling with delight.  She stared right at him, with trust and love, as she did when he took the picture, a moment of naked adoration and affection frozen in time.  His beautiful Kindergartner loved him.  She trusted him.

With a sigh, he turned back to the computer.  The spreadsheet cleared up.  He could read the numbers, laid out in columns and rows, and he knew what they meant, and what he had left to fix it.

It wasn't an exit he was looking for.  It was a journey, a trip through life,  with all its highs and lows, with a family that he loved and loved him.  If that meant time served in this cubicle of indifference, he would serve it, if not with joy, at least with the knowledge there was something more.

He heard someone clear their throat.  It was Denise, the head of his department.  "Tom, HR would like to meet with you."

Sometimes you don't get to find the exit,  Sometimes the exit finds you.